Technology giant Apple Inc., (NASDAQ: AAPL) has been navigating tough terrain for the last few months. Not immune to outside forces, Apple’s share prices have been getting hammered, hitting their lowest closing price in six months.
Back on Mar 17, 2008 Apple shares closed at $126.73 per share. Since then the stock has risen high on iPhone 3G sales, global positioning and penetration and overall interest in the Mac and Apple brand. On May 15, 2008 Apple share prices hit $189.73, and speculation for the iPhone 3G, and an overhauled Mac line was getting intense.
As Apple’s stock prices tumble, today closing at $126.84, some stock holders, industry analysts and wall street pundits are left rather confused about the poorly performing stock. Throughout the day today I kept hearing and reading statements like “I don’t know what to say about the share price, we’ll get to it later,” and “no amount of Mac sales can sustain this economy.”
The bottom line is, Apple’s share prices are massively under-priced, and the upcoming holiday shopping season, combined with growing market share equals promising outlooks. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has recently reiterated his AAPL price target of $250 for 2009, clearly optimistic, leaving a great amount of room for the company to grow.
Apple has remained very confident in achieving the “10 million iPhones sold by the end of 2008” goal it set for itself. Some have even speculated that the company could reach this number by the end of September ‘08, and surpass the 10 million mark by the end of the calendar year.
As for growth, “Apple’s North American market share has jumped nearly 60%, rising from 6.6% of the market to 10.6% through the second quarter of the year. This marks the first time ever that Apple’s notebook share has broken the double digit mark,” MacBlogz recently explained. “Some of Apple’s success may stem from rivals Toshiba and Acer who have both recently seen significant declines in their share over the same time period. Acer has witnessed their share fall from 18.6% down to 14.4% which may be somewhat attributed to their recent acquisitions of Gateway/eMachines and Packard Bell.”
The holiday shopping season is annually a huge revenue earner for Apple, and you can rest assured they’ll have a slew of new products at highly aggressive price-points on the market. Alongside a completely revamped iPod line, expect this holiday season to be a big one for Apple, and expect the stock price to reflect its success. Apple is widely expected to release a completely overhauled notebook line in the coming weeks, with October 14th pegged as the specific date. Whether a Special Media Event will be held or not is unconfirmed.
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