Here is your daily Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock news and rumors for December 14, 2010. A lot of news to cover, including one Wall Street analyst saying Apple is on track to sell more Mac computers in a single quarter than ever before. Also hints of the iPhone fending off Android and that Verizon (NYSE: VZ) is desperate for an Apple smartphone to peddle.
NPD Predicting 4.3 Million Mac Sales in December: Christmas is coming early for Apple. Following the release of NPD Group’s November sales data, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has issued a note that Mac sales are on track to total between 4.1 and 4.3 million units for the October to December quarter. This will be the first time Apple is able to sell more than 4 million Macs in a three month quarter. The new MacBook Air, released in October, isn’t a driving factor in the Mac sales surge surprisingly. Munster is predicting just 500,000 sales for the ultra-thin laptops. Desktop units like the iMac will only account for about 1.2 million as well, meaning that the bulk of sales will come from Apple’s popular MacBook laptop line. The investor note also predicts between 18.5 and 19.5 million iPod sales for the same quarter. Not too shabby for a platform Wall Street analysts were calling dead last summer.
Poor Android Sales Behind Verizon Interest in Apple: ITG Investment Resarch analyst Matthew Goodman is behind a new analysis of Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) smartphone sales published by Asymco, and his findings are surprising to say the least. Despite promising data from Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Android-based phones are selling poorly. The basic theme is that despite some impressive growth, Verizon’s smartphone business is far outpaced by AT&T (NYSE: T), with Android phone sales “hitting a wall” in August when the iPhone 4 became more readily available. He believes that Verizon is rushing to bring a version of the iPhone to their network and may stop pushing the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Droid as their flagship device once they do. A full version of Goodman’s study can be viewed at Asymco‘s homepage.
Game Center Not Coming to Mac App Store: In app purchases aren’t the only common iOS App Store features that will be absent from the new Mac App Store when the digital storefront launches in January 2011. Apple’s Game Center, the online gaming network that allows iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad users to create profiles on their devices to track high scores in supported iOS games and play multiplayer games over the Internet, will not be supported by Mac App Store games. That’s a strange sign for a fledgling network that could be big if done right.
Apple Moves to Acquire 4G Network Patents from Nortel: A bidding war is rumored to have broken out over the rights to 4G network technology patents held by ailing Canadian telecom Nortel (PINK: NRTLQ) with AAPL said to be among the interested buyers. Digital Daily writer John Paczkowski reported this morning that Apple, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and a number of other companies are vying to buy up Nortel’s patents for Long Term Evolution and Service Architecture Evolution 4G network technology patents which the company is selling to pay off its massive debt. (Nortel filed for bankruptcy protection in early 2009.)
As of this writing, Anthony Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here.
