Apple: Mac Sales Accelerating on Leopard, Adobe Creative Suite 3

Another week, another Apple (AAPL) upgrade.

Prudential’s Jesse Tortora yesterday raised his rating on Apple to Overweight from Neutral, and increased his price target to $105 from $100. He also raised his EPS estimates to $3.44 a share from $3.40 for the September 2007 fiscal year and to $3.90 from $3.73 for fiscal 2008.

Tortora says his checks suggest a late March launch for both Leopard, the new version of the Mac operating system, and Adobe’s (ADBE) Creative Suite 3, both a little earlier than some other analysts have estimated. He says both launches should spur Mac sales.

Tortora also says he views the company’s long-term gross margin model of 28%-30% as conservative and sees margin upside in coming quarters from lower component costs and strength in higher margin products such as Leopard, Mac Pro and MacBook Pro and iPhone.

He sees second half growth driven in part by new products, including the iPhone, a flash-based wide-screen video iPod with new functionality - including wi-fi and GPS.

Apple yesterday was up $1.13 at $86.54.

Comments

[joseph1102_...:]

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2007 Mar 14 01:12 AM