Thursday, May 22,2008 @ 3:00pm
Oppenheimer: Apple stock rated at 'outperform'
Apple stock is projected to do extremely well, says Oppenheimer Funds' Yair Reiner. The analyst says he is giving the AAPL listing an "outperform" rating, and a target price of $235, higher than that of several other research firms. This is based largely on predicted sales of the iPhone, which Reiner anticipates will amount to 14 million in 2008, and 28 million in 2009.
Reiner estimates that by 2012 Apple should own approximately 5 percent of the cellphone market, a contrast from Apple CEO Steve Jobs' short-term prediction of 1 percent of 1 billion, or 10 million units. The reasoning for this is said to be demand for a 3G iPhone in excess of that suggested by The Street, and the likelihood of additional iPhone variants, particularly ones aimed at the enterprise market.
Apple is poised to do well in general, Reiner comments. “We believe Apple is ideally positioned to drive and benefit from the ongoing transformation of the home PC from efficiency tool to media center, and of the wireless handset from mobile phone to media-centric pocket computer," he says.