Earnings Preview: Wall Street expects solid quarter from Apple, but focus is on the fall

Posted:
in AAPL Investors edited July 2014
While many Apple observers expect the company to reveal solid year-over-year growth for its relatively quiet June quarter, much of the focus will be on new CFO Luca Maestri's guidance for the fall with updated iPhones and iPads on the horizon, the expected closing of the Beats acquisition, and the possibility of a so-called "iWatch."

Apple


Cowen & Co.'s Timothy Arcuri was bullish on Apple's prospects in a Monday morning note to investors, predicting that the Cupertino, Calif.-based company would beat the Wall Street consensus. The bank expects earnings per share of $1.17 on revenue of $36.6 billion, compared to $35.4 billion one year ago.

Arcuri believes Apple may have sold as many as 38 million iPhones thanks to "tepid demand" for competitors like Samsung's Galaxy S5 and the increasing availability of high-speed LTE wireless connections in growth markets, including mainland China. In contrast, the 12.5 million iPads Apple is thought to have sold through June would represent a modest drop from the 14.6 million tablets the company shipped in the year-ago quarter.

Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, meanwhile, sees sales of 35 million to 36 million iPhones and 14 million to 15 million driving revenue of $38 billion, a 7 percent year-over-year increase.

Both analysts are looking to Apple's September guidance for evidence of the company's launch schedule for its next-generation products. A late September launch for the so-called "iPhone 6" could mean a boost of as much as $2 billion to Apple's revenues for the quarter, Munster believes, driving them as high as $41 billion.

Other topics analysts are sure to press Cook and Maestri on include Apple's $3 billion acquisition of Beats -- which Cook previously said would be accretive to revenues in the fourth quarter -- and the effectiveness of its recent 7-for-1 stock split. The company's new enterprise partnership with computing giant IBM is also likely to be on the docket.

AppleInsider will provide live coverage of Apple's earnings call for the company's fiscal third quarter -- the company's first with Maestri at the helm -- on July 22.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 40
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    Oops, wrong thread.
  • Reply 2 of 40
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,712member
    philboogie wrote: »
    Oops, wrong thread.

    Best first post ever ... ;)
  • Reply 3 of 40
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    I wonder if the average Murderers' Row analyst will take into account (going forward) the presence of that new board member as influential to the stock price?
  • Reply 4 of 40
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member

    New product lines are not guaranteed to succeed, even from Apple. When John Sculley took over from Steve, his first entirely new product line was the Newton Message Pad. It flopped and he got the axe.

  • Reply 5 of 40
    anantksundaramanantksundaram Posts: 20,402member
    I don't envy Maestri his first guidance. How could one possibly forecast sales for an entirely new slew of products, and possible new product categories!?
  • Reply 6 of 40
    dcj001dcj001 Posts: 301member
    ascii wrote: »
    New product lines are not guaranteed to succeed, even from Apple. When John Sculley took over from Steve, his first entirely new product line was the Newton Message Pad. It flopped and he got the axe.

    You are funny.
  • Reply 7 of 40
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,712member
    I wonder if the average Murderers' Row analyst will take into account (going forward) the presence of that new board member as influential to the stock price?

    I'd guess zero.
  • Reply 8 of 40
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DCJ001 View Post





    You are funny.

    Doesn't the (rumored) iWatch concept feel vaguely PDA-ish to you?

    The original Newton promised futuristic handwriting recognition that never quite worked. The iWatch promises futuristic speech recognition that...

  • Reply 9 of 40
    iPhone sales will match last Q's numbers of over 40 million. China mobile 4g sales increased by 11+ million q-on-q. Look at china Unicom and china telecom, sales are up too.

    This Q (2Q calendar 2914, apple's fisca 3Q, china overtakes Europe and the u.s. in iPhone sales.

    The analysts will of course turn this into a negative and say that because the5S is still selling, there will be less upgrades for the iPhone 6.
  • Reply 10 of 40
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    philboogie wrote: »
    Oops, wrong thread.

    Best first post ever ... ;)

    Wow, you even found a way to make it funny!

    Although I think this post is the best I ever saw. In order to 'appreciate it' one does need to read the article, or skim through it:
    http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2010/07/07/how-to-speed-up-your-iphone-3g-running-ios4/#more-4367
  • Reply 11 of 40
    Meant calendar 2014 not 2914
  • Reply 12 of 40
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ascii View Post

     

    Doesn't the (rumored) iWatch concept feel vaguely PDA-ish to you?

    The original Newton promised futuristic handwriting recognition that never quite worked.


    You really are funny. Did you know that there hasn't been a HWR system developed that beats what Apple put into Newton OS 2.1 (the final revision)? Galaxy Note reviews have compared, it still can't match the Newton.

  • Reply 13 of 40
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    ... HWR ...

    Does anyone know if the Chinese character recognition on the iPhone is any good/useful for the Chinese?
  • Reply 14 of 40
    mpantonempantone Posts: 2,030member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post



    I wonder if the average Murderers' Row analyst will take into account (going forward) the presence of that new board member as influential to the stock price?

    Since they seemingly don't do it to other companies, they probably won't do it to Apple either.

     

    Just a guess.

  • Reply 15 of 40
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    How is this possible when Apple hasn't updated [I]anything[/I] since Cook became CEO¡
  • Reply 16 of 40
    mpantonempantone Posts: 2,030member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post



    How is this possible when Apple hasn't updated anything since becoming CEO.

     

    Maestri's the CFO, not CEO.

     

    The note is about Maestri's guidance for the upcoming quarter(s) with the assumption that there will be an updated lineup of iPhones and iPads during the time frame in question.

     

    Apple will give some basic guidance in terms of revenue, EPS, etc. but won't give specifics on the exact nature of product line changes.

     

    Is this the first time you've paid attention to a fiscal earnings announcement from any publicly-traded company?

  • Reply 17 of 40
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    mpantone wrote: »
    Maestri's the CFO, not CEO.

    I'm not talking about Maestri.
  • Reply 18 of 40
    mpantonempantone Posts: 2,030member

    Well, the article is.

     

    The CFO often takes the helm during earnings announcements, not just at Apple, but many other companies as well.

  • Reply 19 of 40
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,712member
    solipsismx wrote: »
    I'm not talking about Maestri.

    I see he removed 'Cook' from your quote, I hate that when people edit what someone posts then make some snarky reply to the now totally different meaning.
  • Reply 20 of 40
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    I see he removed 'Cook' from your quote, I hate that when people edit what someone posts then make some snarky reply to the now totally different meaning.

    He quoted exactly what I wrote. I edited my comment after I read his reply to make my comment more clear.
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