“While some of Apple’s most exciting moments likely are a few more months away, there’s a growing body of evidence suggesting Apple earnings on July 22nd could contain plenty of fireworks in their own right,” Andrew Tonner writes for The Motley Fool.
“There are a number of reasons to think an Apple earnings blowout is in order, but the primary driver, as is the case with Apple’s financial performance in general, is the iPhone,” Tonner writes. “Apple has aggressively expanded the international reach of its iPhone, both in terms of number of countries in which it’s available, and also in terms of number of carriers that sell Apple’s iPhone. And, as you might imagine, broadening its potential sales base appears to have goosed overall iPhone sales.”
“In its FY Q3 report last year, Apple set a record with 31 million iPhone sales. Fast forward to today, and the average analyst estimate for Apple’s FYQ3 ’14 iPhone sales sits somewhere closer to 35 million units shipped,” Tonner writes. “Lately, however, analysts have been forecasting an iPhone blowout somewhere in excess of 36 million units sold.”
Full article, with video, here.
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Don’t get me wrong and I think Tim Cook is doing a fine job, but without releasing any new products I think it leaves the company vulnerable to having a weak quarter. Apple is not Google, where the money just pours in quarter after quarter which is the nature of search and clicks. Apple isn’t given any breaks on normally weak quarters as expectations always run high.
To me, this quarter can go any way because there’s just no way to tell beforehand. Basing the results of this quarter on analysts’ estimates is useless. I’ll definitely be glad to see Apple get some revenue stream that isn’t tied to seasonal hardware sales. I’m still hoping for a search engine or mobile payment business which could still excite investors if hardware sales falter. I know Apple shareholders aren’t going to see Apple’s share price be boosted like Google’s on earnings, so the best I can hope for is that the share price doesn’t tank. Good luck.
We’ll simply expanding your product range won’t guarantee anything, in fact too wide a range is unwieldy, profit margins reduced and it is difficult to watch all corners, just ask Sony and now Samsung as they struggle fighting too many battles. And Apple is setting up a whole range of networks and potential platforms to exploit with existing and new products, which will need this expanded ecosystem to thrive. These will help give ongoing income through services to add to the iTunes, Store Mac store and others already doing that.
Apple may have a “blowout” quarter, but this seems much closer to analysts setting up unreasonable expectations just so they can smack Apple for not meeting those expectations even if Apple has another record quarter.
Having the best quarter in shipments, gross revenues and profits means nothing to Wall Street if Apple does not meet or beat the exaggerated and inflated analyst expectations.