5/11 By Tiernan Ray
Credit Suisse’s Kulbinder Garcha this morning reiterates an Outperform
rating on shares of Apple (AAPL), and a $750 price target, while cutting his
estimates for this calendar year and next, citing the prospect of slower
smartphone growth in the U.S. and its impact on sales of the iPhone.
Garcha trimmed his calendar 2012 and 2013 EPS estimates by 3% and 5%, he
writes, to $49.34 and $59.15, respectively. Those numbers are still ahead of
the Street consensus for $48.63 and $55.34.
Drawing upon research into U.S. carriers ? AT&T (T), etc. ? by colleagues,
Garcha is concerned the chatter about carriers cutting subsidies for the
iPhone could be a real risk:
Clearly, in the near term, if the leading US carriers implement tougher
smartphone upgrade policies or introduce extra costs, we believe that it
will have an impact on Apple with 38% of iPhone volume coming from NA and
with the company having a dominant 43% market share in NA over the past six
months. In addition, given the carriers’ changes in upgrade policies and a
desire to save on costs, Apple is perhaps more susceptible than other
vendors near term.
Garcha cut his his fiscal Q3 and Q4 estimates for the iPhone, but he’s
maintaining a 50-million unit outlook for fiscal Q1, the December quarter,
based on what he sees as being a “strong ramp” of the next iPhone model.
Garcha cut his 2012 and 2013 unit estimates for the iPhone from 151 million
to 140 million, and from 205 million to 187 million, respectively, growth he
thinks is still quite respectable, he writes.
Morevoer, “Given low smartphone penetration, carriers’ inability to ‘
collude’ for a sustained period of time, and the roll out of LTE/4G
technology, we believe that these pressures on iPhone volumes may be a short
term phenomenon,” writes Garcha.
Apple shares today are up $3.64, or 0.6%, at $574.16.