Smartphone sales poised to rocket even higher 19

Royal Bank of Canada analyst Mike Abramsky, who just seems to love Palm, just slathered some love on the entire smartphone market, declaring that “the new world order” of smartphones will be lead by Apple, Research in Motion, and Palm. To justify the lauding, Abramsky also raised his earnings estimates and stock price targets for all the stocks, pointing the way to highs not ever seen for Apple or RIM (and over seven years past for Palm).

Abramsky gets away with his lofted expectations by forecasting his estimate for global smartphone penetration to 35% by 2012, a number that he expects to amount to about 504 million units. This is a notable increase from his previous estimate of 395 million units for that same year. Abramsky isn’t the only one that is anticipating a surge in smartphone sales in the coming years, CNBC’s Jim Cramer also expects that mobile internet devices are going to take off and has been ranting about the “mobile internet tsunami” for weeks now, even creating an index of stocks to monitor the overall health of the smartphone market - including Apple, RIM, and Palm.

Clearly Apple and RIM are both “positioned for leadership” in the coming years, which is sort of obvious when you consider that they’re in leadership positions in the current market. But Abramsky also believes that once Palm gets over what he believes are short-term capital and mind-share issues it will be able to sit at the smartphone leadership table.

• Abramsky’s price target for Apple has been raised from $190 to $250 (an all-time high), with FY2011 estimates of $50.3 billion in revenue (18% growth over 2010 estimates) with 49.3 million iPhones sold and earnings per share of $8.25. AAPL currently trades around $160-$170.
• Research in Motion's price target was jacked up from $100 to $150, another all time high, with FY2011 estimates of $21.2 billion revenue (a 32% increase over 2010 estimates) and $5.43 earnings per share. RIMM is currently trading between $70-$80
• Palm’s target price was increased from $18 to $25, a point the stock has not seen since April 12, 2002, with FY2011 estimates of $3.2 billion in revenue (52% growth over 2010 estimates) and $0.75 earnings per share.

Near-term estimates for all three companies were also raised.

Of particular importance to us is why Abramsky thinks Palm deserves to ranked alongside Apple and RIM, despite the company’s desperate fiscal position and past blunders. He says that even though Palm does have these near-term challenges to overcome, the company still has the “special sauce” to lead, including the webOS operating system. Only time, and sales, will tell if that special sauce is enough.

Thanks to as147 in our forums for the tip!