“When Apple reports earnings on Tuesday after the bell, Wall Street is expecting CEO Tim Cook to make good on his promise to return the company to growth,” Anita Balakrishnan reports for CNBC. “To do it, Apple must not only come off a losing streak — it has to beat a record.”
MacDailyNews Take: A BIG record.
“This time last year, Apple reported a record quarter, with sales of iPhones at an all-time high,” Balakrishnan reports. “After that, it reported three straight quarters of lower year-over-year sales, adding up to its first yearly decline since 2001.”
“In October, Cook said he thought Apple could make a comeback. ‘Looking forward, the response to the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus has been very positive,’ Cook said in the company’s last earnings call. ‘It’s very hard to gauge demand, as you know, when you’re selling everything you’re making. So we’ll find out more through the quarter, but we’re confident enough to give you guys guidance that we’re returning to growth this quarter, which obviously feels very good for us,'” Balakrishnan reports. “Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters seem to agree with Cook, at least in part: They expect adjusted earnings of $3.22 a share in the first fiscal quarter, down 1.8 percent from a year ago, on revenue of $77.38 billion, up 2 percent from a year ago, barring any revisions… Analysts surveyed by FactSet expect that 77 million total iPhone units shipped during the quarter, up from 75 million in the year-ago period.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Two more important points: One (1), for the future Q118 (Christmas 2017 quarter), is that 315 million users that will be an iPhone that is more than 2 years old, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Michael Olson; and, two (2), in absolute value, Apple’s revenue stream from services is already about the size of Facebook, according to Forrester.
For our part, we do expect Apple to announce all-time quarterly record earnings later today!
We’ll bring you Apple’s holiday quarter (fiscal Q117) results right around 4:30pm Eastern today. Also, as usual, we plan to cover Apple’s Q117 conference call at 5pm ET on today with live notes. That link will appear on our home page around 4:45pm EDT earnings day. See you there!
SEE ALSO:
Apple Q117 expectations – January 30, 2017
Apple poised to return to growth with quarterly results on Tuesday – January 30, 2017
What to expect from Apple’s Q117 earnings call next Tuesday – January 26, 2017
Apple to release Q117 earnings, webcast live conference call on January 31st – January 18, 2017