Apple’s iPhone 5 continues to receive a wave of good reviews, ahead of the official pre-order time, which begins on Friday September 14th at 12:01PST. The iPhone 5 was unveiled at a conference earlier this week by the Cupertino, California based tech company.
Even select people have not been able to get their hands on the latest smart phone. The famous Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Analyst from Piper Jaffary, Gene Munster notes that he has only seen pictures. Munster believes that pictures and video of the new Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iPhone 5 do not sufficiently convey the level of upgrade the product represents. We were able to see and hold the device following the launch and believe there are two aspects that will pleasantly surprise consumers. First, He believes the actual feel and build of the phone is beyond that of any prior iPhone iteration. Second, we thinks that the weight difference between the iPhone 5 and the 4S is meaningful and consumers will notice the difference in their pocket, despite the larger screen size.
He has issued a research report this morning titled, ‘Believe The iPhone 5 Is A Rolex Among A Sea Of Timexes.’ Munster does not change his price target on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares, he has rated the stock a buy, with a target price of $910.
Munster believes that while ‘the media bubble’ around the iPhone 5 has met the phone launch with mixed opinion, the reality is that when actual consumers have the product in hand, they will be impressed. He view the iPhone 5 as the Rolex of smartphones in terms of quality and build, while the majority of other phones are dominated by lesser quality plastic and feel more like Timexes. Why would someone by a Timex when they can have a Rolex for the same price? Additionally, we believe that consumer sentiment around the iPhone 5 is significantly better than it was for iPhone 4S despite the lack of excitement by the tech media. He remains confident in his 6-10 million unit estimate for iPhone 5 for the remainder of September and 49 million iPhone estimate for December, which he forecast earlier this week.
Finally, Munster notes that that 73% of tweets about the iPhone 5 during launch day were positive compared to 51% for the iPhone 4S launch. Overall tweets about iPhone 5 for launch day were up 460% y/y compared to tweets about the iPhone 4S during its launch day. Additionally, blog posts about the iPhone 5 launch were up 100% year over year.
(Disclosure: No position in any securities mentioned)
