The iPhone dominates this week’s top stories, aggregated from 24/7 Wall St. partner Apple Investor News:
• Two new iPhone models coming? Lazard Capital Markets analyst Daniel Amir tells CNET a high-end 32GB model (iPhone 3G Pro?) and a lower-end model, without Wi-Fi for emerging markets, may be in the offing. He also expects Q1 iPhone shipments to be close to 4 million, higher than the street’s estimate of 3 to 3.5 million.
• Analyst comment of week: Bank of America’s Scott Craig says Apple could quickly take 20 percent of smartphone market share in China.
• iPhone ramp-up for China: Barron’s quotes Seligman tech fund manager Paul Wick as saying Apple has doubled the quantity of iPhones for Q2 delivery. Does this confirm the rumored China Unicom deal?
• Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek upped his price target on AAPL to $136, from $110, citing the upcoming product refresh cycle. Is Peter a little late to the game?
• iPod U.S. sales could be down as much as 14% year-over-year for the quarter, says Barclay analyst Ben Reitzes, though iPod Shuffles sales jumped 51% the week after release of the new model, according to new NPD data.
• The now Apple-less Macworld Expo moves its 2010 dates to Feb. 9-13 to avoid CES conflicts in early January.
• Competitive front: RIMM opened its App World store and also blew away earnings estimates; Nokia debuted its Ovi app store; and Motorola debuted its iPhone lookalike, the Evoke.
• Finally, Apple announces Q2 results on April 22. This one will likely be a market mover.
Frank Cioffi, Apple Investor News.
(full disclosure: Cioffi owns AAPL shares)
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