Noted Analyst Sees Apple (AAPL) Slinging Up to 1.5M iPad Minis Over the Weekend
Apple's iPad Mini began selling today and Piper Jaffray's Munster is out with some expectations. He thinks that Apple is going to unload about 1 million to 1.5 million of the smaller tablet over the weekend.. The number is inclusive of pre-orders, Munster notes.
Munster & Co. expected about 3 million of the third-generation iPad to sell in its opening weekend. The smaller sales number for the iPad Mini comes from lack of a wireless option as well as the "newness of a smaller form factor." That's true, smaller things are a little weird.
Over the long haul, Munster sees Apple's iPad Mini gaining more traction and becoming "more important" for the company.
We note that Munster expected Apple to sell 6 million to 10 million iPhone 5s in its first weekend, with the actual number coming in somewhere around 5 million. One of the bigger issues in that case was manufacturer's ability to meet demand amid more stringent and complicated requirements for the iPhone 5 display, something that is unlikely to happen with the smaller iPad.
Still, Apple is down about 0.7 percent on Friday's session, with volume of 4.5 million shares about flat to the trailing daily average.