What the analysts expect from Apple's upcoming earnings report
After the bell tomorrow, all eyes will be on Apple and its fiscal third quarter earnings report. The last time Apple reported earnings, it impressed Wall Street with iPhone sales figures and revenue that came in much higher than folks were anticipating.
Will Apple once again be able to blow Wall Street sales estimates out of the water?
We'll find out soon enough, but until then, here's what industry analysts are anticipating Apple will announce tomorrow after the close of trading.
First things first, here's what Apple reported in its 2013 Q3 earnings report:
Revenue of $35.3 billion
Profit of $6.9 billion
31.2 million iPhones sold
14.6 million iPads sold
3.8 million Macs sold
EPS of $7.47
And now, for analyst expectations.
As the main driver of Apple's revenue, the big figure to keep an eye out for will be iPhone sales. Ahead of Apple's earnings, Philip Elmer-DeWitt surveyed a number of analysts and found that the consensus for iPhone sales is approximately 35.8 million units, a respectable increase from what Apple reported last year. Of course, the estimate from analyst to analyst varies wildly, with some anticipating sales as low as 31.8 million and others anticipating sales in the 42 million range.
With respect to the iPad, the consensus is about 14.43 million units. As for Apple's Mac business, analysts are anticipating sales of approximately 3.9 million units. In short, analysts by and large think Apple's iPad and Mac business will remain relatively stagnant, likely making the company's iPhone sales the metric that will most significantly affect Apple's share price.
As for actual profits, analysts are expecting Apple to deliver earnings of $1.23 per share (note that this figure is split-adjusted following Apple's 7-1 stock split).
Make sure to hop on over to TUAW tomorrow afternoon where we'll have a liveblog of Apple's earnings conference call.
