Is it time to sell Apple? I’m conflicted:

“Apple shipped 2,496,000 Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing 41 percent unit growth and 43 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 11,011,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 12 percent unit growth and seven percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone™ units sold were 717,000 compared to 270,000 in the year-ago-quarter. ”

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/07/21results.html

“Munster thinks Apple should easily sell 4.47 million iPhones this quarter, up 9% from his previous guess of 4.1 million, and up 299% from the 1.12 million it sold during the September quarter last year.”

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/apple-s-sept-quarter-iphone-sales-to-quadruple-to-4-5-million-says-piper

“With a current annual run rate of around $360 million, it’s not out of the question that App Store could eventually become a billion dollar business for Apple, according to Jobs.”

http://www.crn.com/software/210002313

So all in all. Apple is still kicking the snot out of it. What about this “slow down” due to the crunch. I’m calling your bluff there. When a product still has lines to get it a month after its launch (http://www.nashvilleistalking.com/node/58722), I think it is safe to say that demand isn’t going to slow down soon…. in fact:

“Apple is continuing to add countries - the iPhone is available in 23 countries today, and another 50 will be added this year” and “xconn, the Taiwanese electronics giant that produces the iPhone 3G for Apple, has ramped up production to 800,000 units per week”

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/04/foxconn-building-800000-iphones-a-week/

Thats looks like a “slow down” that I can get behind. Now with all that being said this does concern me:

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/apple-now-worth-more-than-google-aapl-goog-

If you compare their financial histories, Google looks like it has a much more solid track record over the last few years so we may be getting some exuberance here:
http://finance.google.com/finance?fstype=ii&q=NASDAQ:GOOG
http://finance.google.com/finance?fstype=ii&q=NASDAQ:AAPL

Honestly I’m OK with a sale. We have made some cash on it, but I wouldn’t necessarily consider them down and out.

Excellent post over at Seeking Alpha right now discussing the rapid acceleration of Apple’s iTunes Music Store.  They chart the sales growth nicely for you, but the upshot of it is:

• first 100 million sales in 2004
• broke 1 billion sales in 2006
• broke 5 billion sales in 2008

Considering the fact that iTunes began life as a way of driving sales of Apple hardware, this looks like smashing success.  Now that Apple has a dominant position in the MP3 player market (they always have 3 or more positions in the top 5 players for sales) and iTunes is a household name, their new initiatives get to launch with enormous steam behind them from day one.

I’m talking about the IPhone primarily, but the AppleTV is also a really interesting device.  Both of these are video devices, and video is definitely a growth market.  Those of you who know me know that I’m bullish on web video.  It seems clear that as the world slowly transitions from traditional television to video on all of their new devices, Apple is going to be there in spades to soak up the growth.

We have AAPL in our portfolio, should you?