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.]
All I can think of is a transition from LCD to LED screens.
They are initially more expensive and the cost cannot be covered by price increases. As costs drop profitability will be restored.
Some parts of Apple are being sold….
You heard it here first.
1) Buyers wait for Leopard
2) Mini towers
3) The Apple Game Console!!!
“OSX for PCs? Blasphemy!”
I don’t think we will ever see OSX run on any generic PC box. But, I do envision low end licensed clones being made by a top name manufacture (Toshiba or maybe Acer) …. This would be quite different than the clone experiments in the 90’s. I suspect Apple would have to approve every component and want a cut of every machine sold (maybe even selling them in the Apple Stores)…..
Regardless of who makes the hardware, Apple still needs to make sure the the hardware/software “just works”….
This would be unthinkable 5 years ago, but Apple isn’t the same company they were 5 years ago either..
How about just something simple like selling macbooks and imacs at a similar price point but taking less profit on the hardware due to adding blueray. It would seem that they would have to have some relatively custom part in the macbook and the imacs and that it will take a bit to realize manufacturing efficiencies. It would seem to me that apple is probably going to make the HD video transition in all of their products at once since they always seem to sell only the current versions of hardware and have a very limited lineup. Also.. isn’t there ussually a demand for some change in hardware when you release a new OS. There has to be some rollout costs that they are going to bear prior to Leopard coming out.