An interesting thing has happened this morning. In a run up to Apple’s Q1 2012 earnings call and amid a steady flow of CES 2012 announcements, where Apple traditionally does not exhibit, the company’s share has reached an all-time high, passing $427 a share for a market valuation of $398 billion (Exxon Mobile is at $408.86 billion). As noted by Fortune’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt, the company actually passed the $426.70 mark it hit briefly one day in mid-October
Interestingly, several analysts have boosted their iPhone estimates for the December quarter. Most notably, Goldman upped their iPhone estimate to 31 million quarterly units, up from the previous 30.2 million estimate. Needham significantly increased their previous 28 million units projection to 32 million units.