“Apple Inc. on Wednesday reported its first-quarter profit soared 78%, far surpassing Wall Street expectations, as sales of its iPod media players rocketed past even the most optimistic of analysts’ forecasts,” Rex Crum reports for MarketWatch. “Apple posted a profit of $1 billion, or $1.14 a share, for the period ended Dec. 30, up from $565 million, or 65 cents, a year ago. Revenue rose 24.5% to $7.1 billion from $5.75 billion. The results beat the estimates of analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call, who expected Apple to earn 78 cents a share on revenue of $6.42 billion.”
“Leading the charge for Apple was its line of iPods, with the company shipping 21 million of the market-leading devices during the quarter, a 50% jump from a year ago. Sales of the device accounted for $3.43 billion of the company’s revenue, or nearly half the total,” Crum reports. “Macintosh computer sales also surged, rising 40% to $2.4 billion, while Mac shipments rose 28% to 1.61 million units, more than double the growth of the overall PC market. The Mac results were a slightly below many analysts forecasts, as several had expected Apple to sell between 1.75 million and 1.8 million Macs during the quarter.”
Crum reports, “J.P. Morgan analyst Bill Shope downgraded the stock to neutral from overweight given that Mac sales fell short of his estimate. ‘After a significant run in the stock, our bullish thesis was based primarily on expectations for significant upside in Mac units,’ Shope said.”
Crum reports, “However, Munster of Piper Jaffray, said the holiday-quarter Mac sales needed to be taken into context, and were actually solid because they remained almost in line with Apple’s September quarter results, which is when Apple sees strong back-to-school PC sales. ‘People give iPods for Christmas, not computers,’ Munster said.”
“For its fiscal second-quarter, Apple estimates it will earn 54 cents to 56 cents a share on revenue in a range of $4.8 billion to $4.9 billion. That’s below the average forecast of Wall Street analysts, who expected Apple to earn 60 cents a share on $5.22 billion in revenue,” Crum reports. “Piper Jaffray’s Munster said the forecast shouldn’t come as a surprise, because Apple typically gives a second-quarter outlook below consensus estimates, which gives the company an opportunity to top its own forecasts when it delivers its results.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Kevin P.” for the heads up.]
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Slew of analysts up price targets on Apple Inc. – January 18, 2007
Apple Financial Results Conference Call Q1-2007 Live Notes – January 17, 2007
Apple smashes Street, posts revenue of $7.1 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1 billion – January 17, 2007
Everthing looking great, so the stock drops.
buying opportunity anyone?
I will never understand why when the reports show better than expected earnings the stock price drops such as it is doing today.
Just as expected. Mac sales are up 40%, more than double the growth of the overall PC market, but below many analysts forecasts.
Apple just can win with these idiots in Wallstreet.
If there ever was a reason to have hunting season on lawyers and analysts…..
Failing to address the question so boldly raised by Steve declaring “we’re done with the Mac” and then compounding the insult by dropping “Computer” from our company’s name is causing much anxiety and the stock is getting battered.
Drop in Mac sales and dreary forecast for the rest of the year just makes things even worse.
If you are going to hold on to your stock, you are betting your hard earned money on a really glitzy cell phone nobody has ever tried to operate. Good luck.
So Mac sales are up year-on-year but down from quarter to quarter. Do quarter-to-quarter sales mean anything?
“If there ever was a reason to have hunting season on lawyers and analysts…..”
Don’t get mad, get rich. Most of us who follow Apple know that the best is yet to come in reagrds to Mac sales. Apple still has a lot of tricks left up its sleeve.
I for one wouldnt mind seeing a little slide as a buy in opportunity.
If Apple beat Analyst expectations of iPod sales, why are analysts putting pressure on the stock because iPod sales% was “only” 50% and not 525% like a couple years ago?
just refunded by ameritrade account…I love buying AAPL
He’s obviously a troll trying to bait people. Nobody could be THAT stupid. (And I’ve worked with the cognitively-disabled.)
Just impossible.
Jake
Connor,
Quarter to quarter does mean something in a seasonal business like computers. Apple’s christmas quarter is always lower than the fall back-to-school quarter in terms of Mac sales.
“Consequences”
“Failing to address the question so boldly raised by Steve declaring “we’re done with the Mac” and then compounding the insult…”
——-
If you listen to what he actually said in the Keynote.
4 minutes 15 seconds into it, this is the exact statement,
“This is all we’re going to talk about the Mac today.”
Meaning next topic for the Keynote.
I know that a lot of the people who didn’t buy Macs in the Holiday quarter were holding off for the MacWorld announcements, hoping that a newer better and/or less expensive version of the Mac they were planning to buy would be unveiled.
When that didn’t happen many have and will proceed with their Mac purchases diring the month of January. I personally know of four people who follow this scenario and I’m sure there are thousands more.
critic: Thanks for clarifying that!
Mac sales are going to increase markedly as soon as three things transpire:
1. Leopard is released on new Macs’ hard drives so users don’t have to pay an additional cost to upgrade.
2. iLife ’07 is released on new Macs’ hard drives so users, again, don’t have to pay an additional cost to upgrade.
3. Adobe Creative Suite 3 ships.
I, for one, will buy a new MBPro as soon as the above events occur.
Hey, isn’t “Consequences” that “SELL SELL SELL” guy? Or perhaps the infamously stupid “Stock Boy”? Either way, WHAT A MAROON!
critic, macbook connor-
IDepends on what we’re talking about.
I took Macbook’s statement to mean that from the standpoint of a long-term invester, with a diversified portfolio and an understanding of their own risk tolerance; indeed, quater to quarter IS meaningless.
I agree that many were holding off purchases until January. Many are very disappointed if for nothing else than they will now have to buy iLife 2007 which, if released as we expected, would have been included in their new Mac. A token upgrade of some sort on ANY Mac would have made people feel a little better.
> Either way, WHAT A MAROON!
He (or she) is a moron too! He should be marooned on an island.
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We’ll be replacing both an iMac G5 and a Power Mac G5 here at work later this year just as soon as Leopard, iLife ’07 and Adobe CS 3 are released as well. I’m sure there are quite a number of people in that same boat right now.
The author was correct in saying people buy ipods not macs for Xmas. Of course some lucky bastards got macs as a present but the back to school season skews the seasonal sales pattern for macs.
In a way getting close to the sept quarter mac sales is a big deal. Probably means Apple will sell 1.2M or more next quarter despite the seasonal slowdown. With Apple increasing market share macs sales could then be 1.2M, 1.4, 2.0M, 2.0M for the next 4 quarters. That makes 6.6M for the year.
Timing of new models is also important. With Intel on board Apple seem to have mostly cured the backorder issue with Macs and iPods. Introducing the shuffle at the right time and in reasonably good supply over Xmas really helped boost those sales numbers and produce that huge 1B profit.
“Consequences” is John Dvorak incognito.
Apple, Inc. is a Rorschach test, an enigma, and people view this company through their own paradigm and make of it what they will.
Far too many analysts see Apple purely as numbers. They forecast and spin the numbers and may as well be reading tea leaves, bones, or chicken entrails!
The paradox arises when they have to translate their code into words. Have you ever met an eloquent or poetic bean counter?
When you have $12Bn in the bank do you think SJ cares what anal -ists think of sales figures?
Tomorrow is options expiration. The drop you see today is due to people exercising AND SELLING their in-the-money Call options and cashing in before they auto-exercise and destroy their accounts.