Analyst Roundup: Black Friday pretty good for Apple
Apple met or beat analyst expectations for sales over the weekend, selling 13 Macs and 3.4 iPhones every hour, according to one Piper Jaffray estimate.
Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu said that Apple's Black Friday promotions helped drive retail store traffic, according to reports from distributors. Wu also noted that the iPod touch is sold out at Amazon.com, which leads him to believe that Apple could sell $10 billion worth of products this quarter.
Thomas Weisel Partners' Doug Reid got the impression that Apple sales were up from last year. He was less optimistic about Dell's retail performance at Best Buy locations, noting that salespeople there were not strongly recommending Dell models at 35 stores they checked.
Weisel analysts expect Apple to sell 2.4 million Macs during the fourth quarter.
Deutsche Bank analysts also conducted their own checks over the weekend, and found demand to be "solid," considering the current global economic woes. They expect Apple to sell 5 million iPhones this quarter, and reiterated their "buy" rating and price target of $150 per share.
AAPL was down slightly in morning trading.
