Bullish Cross Research predicts Apple blowout for quarter

While some analysts are predicating a fall for Apple with increased competition for iPhone and iPad in the current quarter, Bullish Cross Research said Friday that Apple will deliver "mother of all earnings blowouts."

In Apple's year, we are in the first quarter of FY2011. According to the Bullish Cross analysts, Apple will outperform expectations (again) in iPhone sales, which will send the company's stock price higher.

We expect this blowout to be largely driven by Wall Street underestimating the power of the IPhone side of the force. That will be the story this quarter. We expect Apple to conservatively report that it shipped 32-40 million iPhones far ahead of the 25 million iPhones that Wall Street expects out of the company. That will be the largest gap between Wall Street expectations and actual results since the iPhone was first introduced in 2007.

According to the report, Apple in the past has topped consensus expectations for iPhone sales by as much as 20 percent. This Q1 prediction is more than twice that number.

I observe that even in this terrible retail climate, the Apple Stores I visit here in the San Francisco Bay Area and in New York are always crowded. In my nearby mall, there's still a rope line parked outside the Apple Store for the queue of iPhone buyers. Interesting.

(Please note that from the time that I began to write about the Apple market (1986) up to and including today, I have never owned Apple stock. Okay, even before then.)