Apple Aims for $100 Assault

When Apple last reported earnings, it surprised the Street with strong growth in its Mac business. One analyst sees more upside on iPod sales than Mac sales this quarter, due in part to seasonality and the success of the smaller, revamped iPod shuffle.

"People were surprised by the rapid upswing in Mac sales (last quarter), and that story was not really being told very loudly, and now it is," says Tony Ursillo, an analyst with Loomis Sayles, which holds Apple shares. He believes the numbers are "more easily beatable for the iPod side of the house than they are for the Mac side of the house this quarter. That isn't to say that the Macs won't do well."

Ursillo expects the company to beat the earnings consensus estimate by several pennies, saying the company "should easily beat 80 cents."

It's also possible that Apple could post upside to its gross margins, maybe hitting 29%, due to a nice mix of products and economies of scale, he says.

iPod sales could exceed estimates by a million or more, wrote Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore in a Tuesday note, while Mac sales may be 200,000 to 300,000 higher than his forecast.

"We maintain a positive bias to our Apple estimates of 16 million iPods and 1.6 million Macs," Whitmore wrote. "Our checks indicate robust holiday demand for both iPods (shuffle and nano) and Macs which should translate into EPS upside."