So Steve Jobs is back at Apple, in some sort of capacity, and Apple has lowered the cost on many of their iMacs and Macbook's. Will this be a recipe for sustained revenue growth over the next 6 - 12 months? One of the deciding factors for this will be the health of the consumer over that same time frame. New iPhone sales have done well (selling just over 1 Million units over Father's Day weekend). Earnings are announced on July 21st and the stock hit a 52 week high on June 4th. Apple is now in the last quarter of their fiscal year, which ends in September, so any sluggish holiday sales will be attributable to next fiscal year's revenues. I expect that revenues for FY 2010 will increase approximately 9% given that the economy is expected to begin a slow rebound in the first half of 2010. In addition, I expect iPhone and Ipod sales to remain strong, and iTunes to remain the preeminent platform for the distribution of music, movies, and Television programs for the forseable future, all which nicely complements Apple's top line revenue numbers with decent gross margins for those products.
I fully expect Windows 7, expected to be released in October of 2009, to be a disappointment to many, which should help bolster the appeal of the Apple line of personal computers and OS X, especially since a Mac Mini can be had for well under $1000 and provide more than enough computing power for the average user without all of the headaces of the Windows platform.
$136.58 (07/08/09)
