Once again, Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer has offered conservative and “disappointing earnings guidance for its current quarter. Not that Apple’s guidance is worth much — Apple blew past analyst estimates by a full 20 cents a share for its fiscal third quarter,” Caulfield reports. “The explanation for the weak guidance: higher component costs, back-to-school discounts and a mysterious ‘product transition’ will cause Apple earnings to come in lower than expected. Translation: Apple is going to shake up its product lineup.”
Caulfield reports, “Oppenheimer told investors to expect earnings to come in at only 65 cents a share for its current quarter, well below expectations of 82 cents a share. After Apple’s blowout quarter, at least one analyst wasn’t buying it. ‘You just guided to 66 cents and came up with 92 cents? Why should I believe it should be 65 cents when you’ve been so conservative?’ UBS’s Benjamin Reitzes asked Oppenheimer on a conference call after Apple announced its results.”
Caulfield reports, “Oppenheimer said, there will be a ‘product transition I can’t get into.’ Could that mean Apple is about to introduce some new products? If so, the possibilities include anything from a new version of the iPod music player to fresh versions of its hot-selling notebook computers. With Apple reporting surging sales of both its computers and music players, that would mean the company is about to go from one strength to another.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dave” for the heads up.]
Scott: Steve said the AppleTV would probably become the fourth leg. Maybe it’ll merge with the Mac mini to become some sort of iHub or iHome.
30″ iMac please.
Maybe it’s a transition to 45nano, which might be a bit pricier chip.
BrianD
Leopard isn’t being released until October anyway, which is already next quarter.
A faster mac mini would be cool. I don’t want a big desktop, but could use a mini for a video server. AppleTV is too limited at this point.
The widescreen iPod is what I’m really waiting for.
Obviously, new “big” iPods and new iMacs. Maybe a new (or replacement of) Mac mini.
Apple has no motivation to NOT be conservative on guidance. Apple takes more risks than most tech companies. Things have been going great recently, but the iPhone was (still is) a huge risk. Doing things like canceling the most popular digital music player at that that time (the iPod mini) to replace it with the unproven flash-based iPod nano is risky.
Things can go wrong – that’s why Apple is conservative on guidance. If it gave overly optimistic guidance and it fell short due to some unexpected problems, investors would be all over Apple after the stock drops. Since it can’t “win” either way, Apple wisely errs on side of being conservative.
My guess is that the new hardware (iMacs, MacBooks, etc) that they clearly have in the pipeline will require Leopard. Therefore they can’t release major hardware improvements until October, hence a lean current quarter.
I doubt this applied to the 6th Gen iPod though, so hurry up and release it already!
I really hope this means that this transition will eventually lead to multi-touch screens made of glass, multi-touch trackpads, and those multi-touch mice!
They said ‘higher component prices’ and ‘product transitions’
Maybee they are goiing to replace the hard disk in some ipods (30 G) and in some laptops with flash ram. If they keep the existing prices this would lower their margin.
Since the macbook and macbook pro have just been renewed and the flash memory would require leopard for instant wake up, and all , and leopard is not out until october ( already 4th quarter ) it must be a transition from hard disk ipods to more flash based ipods with probably bigger screens, maybee wifi.
Like an iphone with more memory without the phone.
New RAID with SAS disks, RAID 5 hardware support back and new blades server, plus the new MacMini
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higher sales with lower margins
1. new desktop replacing the mac mini with a very competitive price.
2. transition of the video ipods to system X with touch screen. requires faster processor and more expensive electronics. keeping the same price.
3. New expensive keyboard with toutchscreen built in.
4. flash replacing the hard disk in all ipods
Well that’s all I could think off.
PRODUCT TRANSITION = end of the Macintosh.
OS X on PCs.
Definitely an 8″ multi-touch Mac.
Just adorable…
Lower guidance means lower sales. Could it be Leopard is going to be delayed again? New iPods are going to be announced but not available until after the quarter ends. Same for the new iMac.
That is my professional analysis.
OS X on PCs doesn’t sound as crazy as it once did. With the industry-wide disappointment over Vista, now would be the perfect time for Apple to capitalize (and it would be crazy for MS to retaliate by pulling Office, as OS X would soon make up a considerable proportion of its customer base).
We should go back to Bill Gates’ original vision: Apple does the OS and Microsoft does the productivity apps.
How about a 24 inch iMac with a fast low power Penryn quadcore CPU. That would trigger me to buy my second Mac this quarter — the first being a MacBook Pro for my wife, on which I am now posting.
A few months ago, someone mentioned flash drives of 64 gig (maybe 128). Perhaps the whole portable product line is being re-vamped.
Anyway, I don’t care what it is – I want it and I want it NOW
Sounds like more to this than just an iMac refresh. That wouldn’t cause significant downward guidance unless they havent ramped production and expect huge demand and low supply.
I sense something bigger on the horizon.
“I wonder what Micro$oft’s margin was? Zune Tang, do you know?”
Gross margin of 76% last quarter reported. 82% on average over the last 5 years.
The VistaMac is coming!
You knew the minute Apple went to industry standard PC hardware that “product transition” was coming.
Apple makes a boatload of money on Macs (with more and more sold each quarter)… why in the world would they kill that off for a $129 piece of software on PC?
Get ready for the Zune Killer – it’s been under wraps for a while. Monkey Boy is doomed.
Been saying this for a while. Why don’t they open up 10.2 or 10.3 for PC? Sell it for a nominal shipping and handling price and state that it doesn’t include tech support? Or better yet, put them on bit torrent?
It’ll grow market share, as kids and tight a$$es install it to try it out, may give mac developers an incentive to create more apps (and cause others to become mac developers). Apple would lose nothing by it, and have everything to gain.
And put something on the disk telling people that if they want the latest version of osx, its available on any new mac. It will also get the PC fanbois to STFU about the ‘you’ve only got 5% of the market’ argument.
“Product transition”?
It’s as plain as the nose on your face. Apple has finally seen the light and will discontinue OS X and replace it with the magnificent Microsoft Windows Vista.
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Hopefully the product transition will include Macs. I’m putting my personal laptop purchase on hold for 3 more months.