Here is your daily Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock news and rumors for November 3, 2010. While the iPad and iPhone missed sales projections in the last quarter due to supply constraints, analysts are already predicting massive sales numbers in 2011, with one in particular going beyond bullish. iTunes users who want to hear more of a song before purchasing it have much to look forward to as Apple increases song previews to 90 seconds. Finally, new MacBook Air owners are reporting some troubling technical issues with their new ultra-thin laptops.
Analyst Predicts 48 Million iPads, 100 Million iPhones Sold in 2011: Apple failed to meet some of the hyperbolic sales expectations for their mobile devices during their third quarter of 2010, but not due to lack of demand. The company sold just 4.9 million iPads, well shy of the 7 million predicted by industry analysts. The company also sold 5.5 million iPhone during the same period, an impressive showing but still not matching anticipated numbers. Both devices however were crippled by manufacturing and supply constraints; Apple merely sold as many as they could.
Now that supply lines for both devices have opened, and demand is being met, analysts are turning to next year, predicting how many iPads and iPhones Apple will move in 2011. Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair issued his forecast for Apple’s mobile devices yesterday and he expects 100 million iPhones to be sold next year. Blair claims Apple is expecting “nearly 100% year-over-year growth for iPhone in 2011.” He also believes that the iPad, spurred by a new iPad 2 model with a thinner form and two cameras, will ship between 45 and 48 million units. Other analysts are more realistic, though still bullish. Yair Reiner of Oppenheimer predicts 52 million iPhones shipped in fiscal 2011 in addition to 23 million iPads.
iTunes Song Preview Increased to 90 Seconds: As rumored prior to Apple’s iPod Touch and iTunes event last September, song previews in the successful digital music store have been increased to 90 seconds. A letter addressed to music labels from “The iTunes Store Team” says that soon, songs that are longer than 2 minutes and 30 seconds available in the U.S. iTunes Store will now feature 90 second preview clips. Songs shorter than the designated time will retain the previously available 30 second preview clips. The letter did now, however, state when the new preview system on iTunes would launch.
When the new previews were not announced in September, it was thought that they were being held up by licensing disagreements with the National Music Publishers Association, as 90 second preview clips may entitle music artists to performance royalties. While that issue was never confirmed, it can be assumed that any legal issues with the NMPA have been cleared up.
New MacBook Airs Suffering From Display, Logic Board Issues: AAPL blog Cult of Mac is reporting that an increasing number of new MacBook Air owners are reporting problems with their new laptops’ screens and logic boards. User on the Apple Discussion message boards are reporting that 11-inch models of the MacBook Air have intermittently displayed a screen full of “weird colors in vertical lines” before freezing up and requiring a manual reboot of the computer. Other users have reported similar problems with the 13-inch model, with multiple crashes followed by reboots where the screen failed to display properly or remained blank. Apple has yet to acknowledge any widespread problems with the new MacBooc Air logic board or display.
As of this writing, Anthony Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here.
