| View this article at: http://www.macnn.com/articles/08/10/07/piper.on.apple.margins/ |
Tuesday, Oct 07, 2008 10:40am
Apple too conservative on m... |
Apple's predictions on future gross margins may be overly conservative, say analysts with Piper Jaffray. The group notes that Apple has warned people of lower margins for its September quarter, guiding them down 330bps to 31.5 percent; the average sequential decrease over the past two September quarters is said to have been 220bps. Piper suggests that the new figure is too low, and is keeping to its estimate of 32 percent. The firm notes, for instance, that although Apple based its margins on the promise of new products with lower margins, its only announcements in September were updated iPod nanos with old prices, and new Touches with a 23 percent price cut. While this might nominally hurt Apple, NAND memory pricing is said to be "at least in-line with typical seasonality," and so unlikely to affect the company. Similarly, the recent Back-to-School promotion -- which in some cases gave out free Touches -- is said to be unlikely to have had serious impact on Apple, at least in part because it should have increased Mac and/or iPod sales. |