After ‘more modest’ dividend increases in the past two years, Apple could get back to double-digit dividend growth when it details investor-return plans for the year, Emily Bary writes for MarketWatch. Apple will release second fiscal quarter results, including dividend and buyback plans, after market close on Wednesday, April 28th at 1:30pm PDT / 4:30pm EDT. The company will then hold their conference call with analysts to discuss the results at 2pm PDT / 5pm EDT. MacDailyNews cover both of those events as usual at those time.
“We think Apple’s capital return update could be the most incremental consideration coming out of Apple’s upcoming F2Q21 results,” Wells Fargo analyst Aaron Rakers wrote.
Though Apple shares have nearly doubled in the past year, Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty anticipates that the company will remain aggressive with its buybacks. She predicts that the company could add $60 billion to its buyback authorization this quarter, compared with the $50 billion increase that Apple approved a year ago… She also projects a 10% increase in Apple’s dividend, which would bring the annual payout to 90 cents a share.
Apple’s dividend announcement could be a bigger driver of stock performance than the buyback plans, Wells Fargo’s Rakers suggested. He thinks Apple could raise its dividend by at least 10%, an increase that would mark the highest annual hike since Apple’s 16% bump in 2018 and stand in comparison to the “more modest” increases of 5.5% and 6.5% that Apple delivered in 2019 and 2020, respectively… Rakers is expecting a roughly $50 billion increase to the buyback program, flat with a year ago.
MacDailyNews Take: We’d be surprised to see the dividend hiked to anything more than 24-cents per share, up 3.5-cents from the current 20.5-cents per share. In fact, we’d be surprised to see $0.24/share. If we had to bet, we’d bet on $0.23/share, give Apple’s recent history of dividend increases.
As per earnings, analysts consensus (FactSet) expects $0.98 EPS (vs. $0.64 EPS in Q220). The Estimize estimate calls for $1.02 EPS. For revenue, FactSet consensus models expect $76.7 billion, while the Estimize estimate is for $78.3 billion (vs. revenue of $58.3 billion in Q220).