Apple: Analysts Still Diverge on iPhone

Analysts continue to assess the impact of the iPhone 3G on the prospects for Apple (AAPL), ratcheting up estimates and price targets. But there are still some lingering concerns about the willingness of corporate IT departments to support the iPhone, even with its new support for Microsoft Exchange (MSFT).

Yesterday, there were bullish notes from analysts at RBC Capital, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. Today, we get two more.

• Morgan Stanley’s Kathryn Huberty repeated her Overweight rating on the stock and upped her price target to $210 from $185. She increased her EPS estimate for the September 2009 fiscal year to $6.87 from $6.77; for FY 2010 she goes to $8.57 from $8.32. Her logic: there are “attractive opportunities” for Apple “to attach high margin software and services to a growing iPhone installed base.”
• Needham’s Charlie Wolf repeated his Strong Buy rating, and upped his target to $240, from $235. He takes an alternative approach, asserting that the deep price cut on the iPhone “reduces the contribution of the iPhone to Apple’s value,” but that this is more than offset by “the incremental Macintosh sales generated through the iPhone halo effect.” He upped his FY 2009 estimate to $6.95, from $6.70.

Meanwhile, in a report detailing a recent survey of CIOs, Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi notes that there is continued caution at many companies on supporting the iPhone. The survey found that 10% of CIOs already support employee-purchased iPhones, and 25% plan to support employee-purchased iPhones in the next 12 months. But only 2% of CIOs said they plan on actively deploying iPhones within their organizations over the next 12 months, and 60% have no plans to either purchase or support iPhones in the next year.

“Our CIO survey suggests that corporate iPhone use will be driven by employees’ purchasing their own iPhones rather than company-wide deployments of iPhones,” he writes. “If this persists, it may ultimately limit iPhone penetration into the corporate space even through Apple has added Microsoft Exchange support.”

Comments

[.crazylegs..]

You mean an analyst actually went out and surveyed CIOs to get information about their buying habits? This is a novel approach...

Shhh, Eric, please don't tell all those iPhanatics that will tell you how many Fortune 500 companies downloaded the SDK and please don't tell Michael Arrington either as they all believe it's game over and the iPhone will rule the enterprise and ultimately the world.

Obviously this survey shows us exactly what I already knew...that large enterprises will be dominated by RIM but smaller and medium sized businesses will be up for grabs as personal choice trumps the top down mandated platform choice.

[wallawallabingbang]

Quoting Toni is Eric's means of hitching his wagon to a meteorite.

Career suicide.

So, that was the thud I heard.

[wallawallabingbang]

Don't forget (as Eric has) that Toni's survey is outdated, having been conducted in May, before the 3G iPhone was even announced and new business software for exchange released.

[.crazylegs..]

and in May no one knew iPhone exchange support was coming? that's a little far fetched...

Toni gets blasted on this board all the time because the only research anyone reads from him here is about Apple, which he has been wrong on for some time. This isn't really fair as he covers more than just Apple. Imagine if people only judged your work by one mistake...

[wallawallabingbang]

Toni doesn't make solitary mistakes on Apple.

He is seemingly in collusion with hedge funds/short sellers, if you ask me.

He has a history of providing Savitz/Barrons/Cramer EXACTLY what they need to down the stock.

[.crazylegs..]

Spoken like a true fanatic.
1. Eric Savitz just repeats reports of what Toni says...usually part of a piece like this with more than one view.
2. I read his research and he is honest analyst - he has had a very consistent and thoughtful view for some time that has limited his target price...and he has been wrong. But this doesn't constitute collusion.
3. Cramer is anyone's guess - I have no idea what's going on there but if you listen to his predictions he has changed his views over time, usually depending on how the stock performs, trying to take profits sometimes and buy ahead of catalysts other times.

This whole notion that these guys are colluding is absurd Besides, them "manipulating&quo... the stock should give you the opportunity to profit, so why wouldn't you welcome it? Ever heard of trading around a position?

[samij]

it's quite clear that iphone has limited appeal in corporate environment, especially in the segment which rimm has captured. the main use of blackberries is messaging, and that is just not one of iphones' strenghts. especially for email the touch screen keyboard just is not good enough when you are messaging all day long.

[AppleFinland]

Toni Sacconaghi is the least competent analyst on Apple to have ever commented. He has been consistently wrong with flawed analytical analyses and consequently flawed conclusions.

It's laughable to watch the anti-Apple sheep cling from anything Sacconaghi says to everyone's gawking over Jobs appearance.

[wallawallabingbang]

In a sense, the Apple adherents-versus-the-A... conflict has an apocalyptic feel to it.

As it should.

What's unfolding is a battle between entrenched and nascent, disruptive technologies. Further, it is a battle between truth and dissembling and manipulation. Between the forces of light, and recalcitrant hindering forces that cling to darkness.

Plato described the gradual enlightenment of such men who lived in caves and couldn't see each other, but could perceive the shadows of those outlined by sun in the bright world outside. Of a man dragged into the light, Plato said:

"He’d need time and practice, perhaps learning to perceive the truth in stages—first seeing the dim images of things as he had with shadows before, maybe then seeing things reflected in water, and then finally being able to look at the real men and animals that had before just been shadows on his cave wall. As for the bright sky, he’d have to start by looking at it first at night, seeing only the light of the moon and stars, and that way gradually accustom his sight to the full light of day."

We are at that stage. A new day is here.

Open your eyes.

[wallawallabingbang]

Apple adherents-versus-the-A...

[wallawallabingbang]

Lets try that again (words being blocked by site):

Apple adherents-versus-the-A... detractors

[wallawallabingbang]

Apple detractors. There!

[Jon T]

Quote: "Savitz is best known as the carbon copy publisher of any negative sounding rumors about Apple"

This is confirmed here - with his blind quoting of Sacconaghi...

More about these twits, and Cramer here:

www.roughlydrafted.com.../

[tom1234]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz wake me up when we get there