“The huge stock-market run-ups posted by technology companies reporting earnings in the past week have ratcheted up the pressure on the tech firms set to report quarterly results in the week to come, including Apple Inc.,” Wallace Witkowski reports for MarketWatch.
“Apple, set to report results after the bell Tuesday, has become an earnings bellwether, especially in the tech sector,” Witkowski reports. “Excluding Apple, the sector would be expected to see a 6% profit decline, rather than the 0.2% gain that’s being forecast, according to John Butters, senior earnings analyst at FactSet. That pronounced effect on tech-sector earnings appears firmly linked to a breakout in iPhone sales growth in 2014.”
Witkowski reports, “Sales of the Apple smartphone are predicted to decline slightly in the December-ending quarter, compared with the company’s record December-ending quarter in 2014.”
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MacDailyNews Take: Some people are going to be quite surprised at how well Apple’s next-gen iPhones sell.
Our current estimate is that about 20 percent of the active install base has upgraded to a 6 or a 6 Plus. So, as I look at that number, that suggests there’s plenty of upgrade headroom in addition to, you know, we want to keep inviting over as many switchers as we can. – Apple CEO Tim Cook, April 27, 2015