The March 11th tsunami that has devastated Japan is expected to create shortages of Apple's most popular products for the remainder of the month and through next quarter, as at least two of the company's core component suppliers in the region have temporarily shut down operations to assess damages.
Crowds have flocked to the Apple Stores in Japan in order to stay connected after last week's devastating earthquake, according to e-mails reportedly from an Apple retail store manager in Japan.
U.S. Mac sales were on the low end of expectations — but still up 16 percent year over year — in the first two months of the March quarter, ahead of Apple's release of the new MacBook Pro lineup.
A survey of customers buying the iPad 2 at launch has found that 70 percent of those customers are new to the platform and did not own Apple's original iPad.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster increased his first day sales estimate for the iPad 2 to an upper range of 500,000 units after initial demand surpassed his expectations, with some Apple retail stores drawing 104 percent longer lines than last year's launch.
Initial sales of the iPad 2 are expected to surpass the first-generation device, but numerous new points of distribution for Friday's launch are predicted to dilute lines of people.
Sustained growth of the iPhone, especially in China, will help Apple to maintain a 25 to 30 percent growth rate in earnings through 2015, says investment firm Piper Jaffray.
The latest U.S. sales data shows Apple's Mac sales are up 20 percent year over year, putting the company on pace to meet an expected 3.6 million units sold in the March quarter.
With Verizon the strongest carrier for the Google Android mobile operating system, the arrival of Apple's iPhone on the largest network in America is expected to displace around a million Android handset sales in the first quarter of availability.
Apple's recent investment of $3.9 billion in components is likely for device displays ranging from the iPhone to the 27-inch iMac, and could signal Apple's intention to build a television set up to 50 inches in size, investment firm Piper Jaffray believes.
Apple's earnings for the first quarter of 2011 crushed analyst expectations on Wall Street, who heaped praise on the company for beating estimates by $2 billion.
A medical leave of absence from Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs has not deterred the firm Kaufman Bros. from its bullish stance on the company's stock, and even went as far as to up its price target to $415 on Tuesday.
New domestic sales data from the NPD Group shows that Apple's U.S. Mac sales were up 18 percent year-over-year during the holidays, suggesting that the company remains on track to report its best quarterly Mac sales ever.
Though U.S. markets were closed on Monday, overseas trading gave an indication of how investors might react to Steve Jobs' absence from Apple come Tuesday. In addition, analysts on Wall Street offered their take on the news.
With the calendar turning over to 2011, investment firm Piper Jaffray has made a prediction that Apple will improve its existing line of products, but will not enter any into any new categories this year.
Apple is on pace to have yet another record breaking quarter for Mac sales, this time crossing the 4 million milestone in a three-month span for the first time ever.
Android's growth in the U.S. market will be put to the test if the iPhone arrives on Verizon's network in early 2011 as expected, one analyst believes.
Apple saw a healthy demand for all of its products across the board on Black Friday, but the iPad and new MacBook Air were particularly strong sellers over the weekend, according to financial experts.
New retail sales data shows that Mac sales are up 20 percent year over year, putting Apple on pace to sell between 4.1 million and 4.3 million computers over the holidays.
Apple will likely announce a cloud-based iTunes streaming service on Tuesday, but will not offer an all-you-can-eat music subscription plan, investment firm Piper Jaffray has predicted.
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Katie Marsal
Josh Ong
AppleInsider Staff
Neil Hughes
Slash Lane
