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RBC sees Apple announcing 13.5 million iPhone "blowout" quarter

Financial experts at the Royal Bank of Canada are out with a bullish report on Apple friday, saying they expect the company to report next week a blowout quarter in which sales exceeded $20 billion and include the sale of a record 13.5 million iPhones.

The report arrives in stark contrast to expectations also published Friday by rival investment research firm Piper Jaffray, which attempted to dial back expectations that Apple could blow past its own guidance and that of Wall Street given perceptions that the company couldn't manufacture enough of its most popular products to drive significant revenue upside.

"Big Q4 beat expected as Apple surpasses $300/share...with innovation, future opportunities as strong as ever," RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky wrote in a note to clients. Specifically, the analyst is forecasting the company to report earnings of $4.48 per share on sales of $20.3 billion.

Specifically, Abramsky said he expects those earnings to be driven by shipments of 5 million iPads, 3.7 million Macs, 9.4 million iPods, and a record-shattering 13.5 million iPhones.

As such, the analyst raised his fiscal year 2010 estimates on the electronics maker to $15 in per-share earnings on sales of 65.2 billion, as well as his fiscal year 2011 estimates to $19.27 per share in earnings on sales of a whopping $86.2 billion.

"Valuation remains compelling at 14x FTM P/E cash-adj," Abramsky wrote. "$280B market cap notwithstanding, we foresee further upside for the shares, as Apple remains well positioned against three large, growing, under-penetrated market opportunities (iPhone, iPad and Mac) and has "Cascades of Cool", i.e., subsequent product generations and accessory cycles."

The analyst reiterated his Outperform rating and $350 price target on shares of Apple.