“Apple Inc stunned Wall Street with quarterly results that missed expectations for the first time in years as customers held off buying iPhones until the October launch of the latest version,” Poornima Gupta and Edwin Chan reports for Reuters.
“Shares of Apple fell 7 percent in extended trading on Tuesday, wiping some $27 billion off the value of the world’s largest technology company,” Gupta and Chan report. “It was Apple’s first quarterly earnings report under Chief Executive Tim Cook, who took over from Steve Jobs in August at a critical juncture for the company.”
Gupta and Chan report, “‘The iPhone is where the weakness was and it’s an explainable one. The strong demand for the iPhone 4S set up strong demand for the holiday season,’ said Channing Smith, co-manager at Capital Advisors Growth Fund, which holds Apple shares. Apple said it sold 17.07 million iPhones in its fiscal fourth quarter ended September 24 — well short of the roughly 20 million forecast by analysts.”
“Revenue rose 39 percent to $28.27 billion, lower than the average analyst estimate of $29.69 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. It was the first time Apple missed revenue expectations since the fiscal fourth quarter of 2008,” Gupta and Chan report. “Net profit was $6.62 billion, or $7.05 a share. That fell shy of expectations for earnings of $7.39 per share. The last time Apple missed EPS estimates was in the first quarter of 2001, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.”
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