Strong iPhone sales bump AT&T Mobility Q4 forecast

Following this week’s single-day 10% drop in AT&T Inc.’s stock value, a financial firm is raising its guidance for the telecommunications juggernaut, citing strong iPhone sales as a major driver for what it sees as an upswing over the coming year.
In a note to investors, Cowen and Co. wrote that it believes AT&T’s stock price decline is “overdone” and that it expects shares to “outperform the market by 15%” through 2008.
Shares fell dramatically on Tuesday after AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson indicated weakened results in the consumer wireline business.
But, the financial firm is convinced that sales of Apple Inc.’s iPhone and net customer additions to AT&T Mobility will help the company outperform previous expectations. The firm also raised its previous fourth quarter estimate of 2.36 million customer additions to 2.4 million customer additions based on its bullish view of iPhone sales in the final quarter of 2007.