Apple Growth Offers Buying Opportunity

Despite some recent up and down movement in the market, many investors still consider Apple to be a major force in the marketplace.

Analysts see a bright future for Apple. One in particular, Williams Power of R.W. Baird, predicts that the second quarter of this year will be good to Apple. He predicts a second quarter fiscal report of $36.4 billion and $10.06 a share in comparison to a consensus of $36.6 billion and $9.94 a share.

Pushing the increase is the boost of sales from the company’s iPhone 4S. As part of the sales push, the new phone was introduced to 30 new markets, which helped increase demand by some 29.3 million units.

Another big contributor for the quarter involved iPad sales which were anticipated to be 12.4 million. Powers suggests that that number could be conservative.

Some investors, such as Abhey Lamba of Mizuho Securities, predict that in their second quarter, Apple will produce revenue in the $38 billion to $40 billion range, with a per share price tag of between $11 and $11.25 each.

Lamba also predicts that Apple’s daily shipment rate of iPhone units will be approximately 325,000 per day, totaling 32.5 million units for the entire quarter.

One factor that may negatively impact sales for Apple is the introduction of the “iPhone5”, set to make it’s debut this fall. Some users will undoubtedly hold out purchasing until the newer units arrive.