Mac, iPhone Sales Bolster Apple – Earnings Preview
On Wednesday Apple is hosting a media event in San Francisco that many hope will mark the unveiling of the much-anticipated tablet. Apple shares rose 15 percent during the quarter to close at $209.04 on December 24.
Cupertino, California, Apple began selling its popular iPhone in two key markets during the quarter — China’s most populous country in the world, and South Korea, a hotbed of gadget innovation.
Apple purchased a streaming music service called Lala.com during the quarter.Lala, a company in Silicon Valley, has developed, but not yet public, an app that lets people stream songs an unlimited number of times to their iPhones for 10 cents per track, much less than they would pay to purchased a better quality copy of the song.
Apple and Nokia, the global largest manufacturer of mobile phones, sued each other for patent infringement during the period of three months.
Apple has also posted its line of iMac desktop computers and launched a new button on the wireless mouse sensitive time for the holidays.
Tavis McCourt of Morgan Keegan wrote in a Jan. 13 research note that he believes Apple iPhones sold in China less than expected.
Overshadowing all these events, however, was rampant speculation that Apple would release a tablet-style computer in time for the holiday shopping season. Apple does not, but analysts believe that this device would fit somewhere between an iPhone and a laptop is still on its way.
BY THE NUMBERS: In Oct. Apple said it hoped to obtain $1.70 to $1.78 per share on $11.3 billion to $11.6 billion in revenue. Apple tends to be conservative in its guidance, and analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the company to record earnings of $2.07 per share on revenue of $12.1 billion.
ANALYST TAKE: Caris & Co. analyst Robert Cihra wrote in a note to investors on January 14 that Apple’s results could be even better than Wall Street is on hold due to strong Mac computer and iPhone sales. And unlike Windows Personal Computer makers, many of whom slashed prices to compete for consumers’ closely watched dollars, Apple was relatively free from pressure to cut prices, Cihra wrote.
