In a note to clients — as reported by “Barron’s (http://macte.ch/otJGt) — Canaccord Adams analyst Mike Walkley has reiterated a Buy rating on Apple shares and raised his price target to US$480 from $460 while raising his EPS [earnings per share] estimate for 2012, based on a higher estimate for iPad sales this year.
Walkley boosted his iPad estimate for this calendar year to 36.5 million from 34 million units estimated previously. For 2012, Walkley’s estimate goes from 48 million iPad units estimated previously to 54 million. However, he also lowered his gross profit margin and his iPhone unit assumptions for this fiscal year, based expectations the iPhone 5 may be pushed from a summer to a September introduction.
Where Walkley had previously estimated 16.6 million, 17.7 million, and 23 million iPhone units in each of the next three quarters, he now sees 16.3 million, 19.6 million, and 22.8 million units. That brings this calendar year’s total to 73.4 million iPhone units, in total, down from a prior 74.8 million units.