Apple shares climb after 2Q results show strong iPhone and iPad sales
By APWednesday, July 21, 2010
Ahead of the Bell: Apple shares climb
NEW YORK — With its stock already up 20 percent this year, Apple Inc. is giving investors more reason to snap up its shares.
The company’s stock climbed nearly 4 percent ahead of regular trading Wednesday after fiscal third-quarter results showed stellar sales of the iPhone and the iPad.
“Once again, (Apple) has shown that it is an execution machine,” Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu told investors in a note.
Wu, who has a “Buy” rating on Apple’s stock, said he was surprised by how well the company handled the transition to its new iPhone model, given concerns about supply shortages.
Apple sold 8.4 million iPhones in the quarter, up 61 percent from a year ago. It also sold 3.3 million iPads just three months after launching the new tablet computer.
“The age of the iPad is upon us,” Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt said in a note.
He added, “With iPhone growth stabilizing, iPad may be the biggest growth driver for Apple.”
The company’s stock jumped $9.59, or 3.8 percent, to $261.48 in premarket trading.
