Apple Inc (AAPL)

[fmikehugo]

06:56 AAPL Apple Computer: Color on Quarter (38.29 ) -- Update --

You guessed it! Analysts happy with Apple's FQ4 results announced last night with several houses raising their estimates and price targets. Of note, the upside was entirely in iPods as Mac sales suffered from continued shortages of the G5 chip from IBM. Apple managed to sell 2.02 mln iPods vs the general expectations of 1.3 mln. BofA was probably the closest with their estimate of 1.9 mln (upped from 1.2 mln on Oct 7)... Merrill Lynch out saying that the bad news was that all other products-PCs, peripherals, and software-were a bit light of firm's figures. The caveat was that the G5 chip supply from IBM was worse than already reigned in expectations, which affected the Power Mac and new iMac. Power Mac units of 156,000 was far below the roughly 200,000 units. Notebook shipments totaled 451,000, slightly below firm's 460,000 unit forecast. Software and peripherals were good but below their estimates. B/c they believe in the halo effect of iPod, the positive impact on Mac sales may still be coming. F2005 figure goes from $0.95 to $1.20. Tgt goes to $49 from $44...UBS out raising their tgt to $50 from $42 noting that while Mac unit sales of 836k fell short of firm's raised estimate, it seems demand was pushed into 1Q05 due to constraints, which should actually help earnings momentum from here... see 06:50 comment for JP Morgan upgrade