Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Shares of Apple Inc. dropped the most in almost a year after shipments of Macintosh computers disappointed investors and the company's forecast for this quarter missed analysts' estimates.

The stock fell 6.2 percent after Apple said yesterday that Mac shipments increased 28 percent to 1.61 million machines last quarter. That was fewer than the 1.75 million computers Wall Street analysts had anticipated, said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co. in Minneapolis.

``People wanted a bigger Mac number,'' said Munster, who rates Apple shares ``outperform.'' He raised his price target to $124 from $99 today, saying the stock's decline is a ``great buying opportunity.''

Investors focused more on Mac sales and the forecast than a 50 percent jump in iPod music player shipments to a record 22.1 million units. Sales for the current second quarter ending in March will be as much as $4.9 billion, Apple said in a statement, shy of the $5.23 billion average analyst estimate compiled by Bloomberg. Apple forecast profit of as much as 56 cents a share, compared with estimates for 60 cents.

Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs sparked first-quarter sales by introducing smaller, less-costly and higher-capacity iPod models. Profit in the period surged 78 percent to $1 billion, or $1.14 a share, exceeding the 78 cents analysts projected. Sales topped $7 billion for the first time, rising 24 percent to $7.12 billion in the period ended Dec. 30.

Shares Drop

Shares of Cupertino, California-based Apple fell $5.88 to $89.07 at 4:01 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading in their biggest drop since Feb. 6. The stock gained 11 percent last week after Jobs introduced the iPhone, a combination phone and digital music player that goes on sale in June.

Apple investor Stephen Coleman, chief investment officer at St. Louis-based Daedalus Capital, said first-quarter results were enough to convince him to keep adding to the 50,000 shares his company already holds.

``They delivered,'' said Coleman, who started buying Apple shares in 2004. The forecast doesn't worry him because Apple ``always understates and over delivers.''

Goldman, Sachs & Co. lowered estimates for Apple's March and June quarters while raising its share-price forecast on the stock to $110 from $102 previously. UBS AG analyst Benjamin Reitzes also raised his target for the shares to $124 from $118.

Reduced Rating

JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst Bill Shope cut his rating on Apple's stock to ``neutral'' from ``overweight.'' He also reduced his revenue estimate for the March quarter to $5.16 billion from $5.44 billion and the earnings per share prediction, including options, to 62 cents from 61 cents, according to a note today.

``Our previous thesis on Mac share gains has proven to be too optimistic, and this was a core component of our bullish stance on the shares,'' Shope wrote. ``At current levels, we believe it is time to lighten up on positions.''

Apple won a bigger share of the U.S. PC market in the calendar fourth quarter, market research firms IDC and Gartner Inc. said yesterday. Massachusetts-based IDC said Apple's share rose 1.1 percentage point to 4.7 percent, ranking the company as the fourth-largest maker of personal computers in the U.S.

Options Probe

Apple said in December an internal investigation led by board member and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore cleared Jobs of any misconduct in the backdating of options. While Jobs, 51, knew about and recommended backdating, in which recipients receive more favorable pricing on stock-option grants, Apple said he didn't benefit personally.

Federal prosecutors in San Francisco are reviewing the company's stock-option grants.

``He's more important to the company than almost any other CEO is to any other company,'' said Roger Kay, an analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates in Wayland, Massachusetts. ``He embodies the company. Any vulnerability on his part is definitely negative.''

Jobs, who co-founded Apple in 1976, didn't mention the stock-option probe last week when he unveiled the iPhone, which combines an iPod and a cell phone with Internet access.

Apple plans to sell 10 million iPhones next year to capture a 1 percent slice of the cell-phone market, Jobs said at the San Francisco Macworld Expo conference.

Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said the company will have ``to see'' whether customers hold off buying iPods as they wait for the iPhone. He said Apple is counting on its network of 170 retail stores to help sell the iPhone when it's released in June.

To contact the reporter on this story: Connie Guglielmo in San Francisco at cguglielmo1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 18, 2007 16:14 EST