Another well-respected Wall Street analyst has pointed to Apple’s continued success with the iPod as drawing new customers to the Macintosh fold. Needham & Co.’s Charles Wolf has issued a 27-page note to his clients suggesting that Windows users could have 100 million iPods in hand by 2008. If only a small number of those users bought Macs, Mac sales could surge, according to Wolf.
The iPod and iTunes Music Store will both lose marketshare due to increased competition, but the market for digital music players and digital music will grow dramatically in that time, according to a copy of the report obtained by Macworld UK. The report also strongly favors iPod and iTunes as the preferred way people will download music, stating that “there are no compelling economic reasons” for why Windows Media Audio would dominate the digital audio market unless Apple stops developing iTunes and the iPod.
On Monday Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster raised his target price for Apple stock to $100 per share following a report that indicated 13 percent of PC-using iPod owners either had bought or planned to buy a Mac — a phenomenon called the “halo effect.” Apple’s stock rallied in morning trading, rising more than 10 percent by the end of the day.
Apple stock was 63.13 in mid-day trading, on volume of 10.99 million shares, up 3.04 percent for the day.
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