iPhone and iPad could have Apple stocks back on Track

Apple‘s dropping stock price may have plunged the tech giant’s market capitalization below $500 billion for the first time in months, but one financial analyst believes that the new iPhones and iPads will have sales roaring back in time for the holidays and into 2013.

The release of the iPhone 5 and two new iPads will help Apple beat revenue projections in the last three months of 2012, according to Morgan Stanley‘s Katy Huberty.

What’s more, Apple could be looking at lower prices from suppliers of components for its iDevices, according to Huberty. This despite a recent rumor that Samsung had raised the price of the ARM-based A-Series chips it makes for Apple by 20%, which a Samsung executive reportedly denied a few days later.

The analyst said key Apple suppliers were talking up higher-than-anticipated revenue to their own investors, indicating that Apple‘s sales could come in better than expected as well, and those suppliers are also “seeing above-average orders from Apple for next year’s first quarter,” CNET noted.

Wall Street consensus forecast has Apple shipping 46 million iPhones and 23 million iPads in the holiday quarter, plus another 43 million iPhones and 19 million iPads in the first three months of 2013.

However, investors are betting Apple‘s expansion efforts in China and other emerging markets will pay dividends faster than anticipated. The analyst said Chinese distributors are tipping big demand for the iPhone 5 and iPad mini, adding that Apple appears to be close to adding China Mobile to its stable of Chinese carrier partners, which currently includes China Unicom and China Telecom.

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Park Sae-jin swatchsjp@ajunews.com