Analyst: iPhone to Change Consumer Electronics

American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu thinks the iPhone will launch a new consumer electronics "revolution," he told clients Tuesday.

The analyst, who rates Apple stock as a buy with a US$165 stock price target, wrote: "From a bigger picture standpoint, we believe the iPhone represents the start of a potential revolution in both PC and mobile electronics industries."

Wu was writing on the eve of Apple's June quarter results announcement today. He expects Apple to confirm strong results while also warning investors that the shares are "likely to be volatile" around the earnings results.

The analyst expects 1.64 million Macs will have been sold in the quarter (up 8 percent sequentially and 24 percent year-on-year) and 9.7 million iPod sales (up 20 percent year-on-year).

"For iPhone, we anticipate a small contribution as only two days of sales were likely recognized, coupled with Apple's use of subscription accounting. We are modeling a conservative 250,000 units, though this is at a much faster rate than Apple's previous big hit iPod nano, which sold around 59,000 units per day," he said.

The analyst expects Apple will target $5.8 billion for its September quarter, though Wall Street consensus view seemingly hovers around $6.05 billion.

"We advise investors to take advantage should Apple shares pull back on short-term concerns. We see upside to $165," he said.

Returning to the iPhone, Wu said: "In our view, it is more than just a classic old school product in that it is landscape changing, being the first true convergence device that combines the best media player (wide-screen video iPod), a near full-function web browser (Safari), email/contacts/calendar, and a mobile phone.

"Over the next two or three years, we believe AAPL has the potential to become a top selling smartphone vendor, which could bring this category into the mainstream, just as it did with the iPod and portable media players."