Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been on the limelight for all the good reasons in the recent past with record breaking preorders, as well as massive price target revisions from equity analysts. Over the last five days, since Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) announced the new iPhone 5, several Equity analysts and investment Advisors have increased their price targets for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock, upwards, with just a few maintaining their initial price target.
However, the majority are starting to join the long list of ‘Bullish Analysts’ that have even gone on to value Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock at $1,000. The company has indeed received incredible target pricing, and this indicates the promise laid down by the launch of the new iPhone 5. Before this point, a majority of the firms had stuck at their initial targets with others setting theirs as low as $680, as revealed in one of our recent articles. However, that has changed, and they have now revised their target prices on the stock upwards.
Nonetheless, the latest company to join the bandwagon of the Equity analysts revising their target prices for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) upwards, is Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC)’s, Merrill Lynch, having stuck for a long time with a target price of $750, the company revealed in a report that it has now increased its price target for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to $850 per share. This is a massive increment of $100, following recent developments on the company’s iPhone sales unit, as covered in our previous articles.
Nonetheless, while some companies could only up their price target to $750, a majority had their target for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) sniffing at the neck of the $1,000 mark, with Piper Jaffary’s Gene Muster referring to iPhone 5’s impact on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) price, as “a Rolex in a Timex“, and has a price target of $910.
This year’s iPhone 5 rollout is faster than any other witnessed before, and its preorder record of 2 million plus units, within just a few countries, promises a healthy demand for the device. Consequently, this would scale up the performance of the company in terms of earnings, which will be very well reflected by the stock performance in the market. This is undoubtedly the logic behind all these upward revisions coming from analysts on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock price.
In regard to the frequency of the rollout dates, Merrill Lynch analysts have analyzed the sequence as follows:
“The iPhone 5 will be available in 100 countries including China by the year-end (in 102 days), slightly faster than the iPhone 4S cycle (90 countries in 92 days) and significantly faster than the last two major cycles – iPhone 4 (88 countries in 99 days) and iPhone 3G (70 countries in 174 days).”
The company is expected to ship at least 10 million units, up from initial estimates of 6-8 million units just before the news broke of the record 24hr preorders. While this will well be covered in the current quarter, which is Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s fiscal Q4, the bulk of the sales will be realized in the December quarter going forward, with several analysts predicting that, more than 50 million units will be shipped in the next quarter 4Q12.
As at the time of this writing, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock, was trading at $700.13 per share, up $0.34, or 0.05% from yesterday’s close, and $0.13 from yesterday’s after-hours price.
