What the future stores for Apple?

While Apple’s shares rose by almost 4% some observers expressed their concerns about further prospects of the company. Shebly Seyrafi of Calyon Securities lowered his rating on Apple's stock to underperform, or sell, from outperform, or the equivalent of buy. And while Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros. holds a buy rating on Apple's stock he nevertheless lowered his second-quarter revenue estimate on Apple to $7.7 billion from $7.8 billion.

Among the challenges facing the company Seyrafi cited Apple's premium-pricing model calling it ‘vulnerable’. He pointed to $1,398 ASP of Apple's notebooks while No. 1 PC maker Hewlett-Packard Co. has a $663 ASP. Seyrafi noted that Apple "has not shown a convincing strategy of how it will play in the netbook market without cannibalizing [its] existing MacBooks."

In light of current overall decrease in PC sales and increasing prices Seyrafi lowered his estimates on Apple's overall Mac revenue for the current quarter from an earlier estimate of $3.3 billion to $3 billion. Besides, Seyrafi also lowered his forecasts for Apple's iPhone sales to 3 million units from 3.2 million.

Shaw Wu said that Apple's Mac business is weakening this quarter with no revival of iMac line seen in the near future.