Piper Jaffray Maintains Overweight on Apple Despite iPhone Activation Decline at Verizon

Piper Jaffray has published a research report on Apple

commenting on the company's Verizon

quarter, which reported iPhone activations down 25% from the December quarter. In the report, Piper Jaffray writes, "Factoring in estimates around Verizon as a percentage of total iPhone sales as well as channel fill, we believe the range on iPhone units in the March quarter will be between 30-33m. We believe the Street is at 30.5m and buy side expectations have drifted down today from 33m to 32m. We remain comfortable in our 33m unit estimate based on faster International growth fueled by the January launch of iPhone 4S in China. Separately, Qualcomm's comments last night about constrained availability of 28nm chips, which would likely be used in an LTE iPhone 5, point to an October iPhone 5 launch." Piper Jaffray maintains its Overweight rating and $910 price target on Apple, which is currently trading down $22.31 from yesterday's $608.34 closing price.