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Bloggers and analysts predict Apple's Q1 2011 performance
Independent financial bloggers have traditionally been closer to the mark in predicting AAPL revenue and earnings than professional analysts, and one day away from the Apple earnings call, the differences are quite large -- about $2 billion dollars large. The professional analyst word on the street expects Apple to report earnings of US$5.38 per share for the first fiscal quarter of 2011, up from $3.67 per share for the same quarter last year. Revenue is expected to increase by a whopping 55 percent to $24.3 billion, with an increase in growth across the board on all Apple products except the iPod. This time the gap is the largest difference on record according to Fortune's Apple 2.0. In a survey of 10 amateurs and 44 professional analysts, the difference is quite dramatic. The consensus of the amateurs prognosticates that Apple will come in with revenues of $26.4 billion, a gap of $2.1 billion dollars or 8.6 percent. The difference in earnings per share (EPS) is even larger; it's forecasted by the bloggers as $1, or a full 18 percent higher than street estimates. Our old friend Gene Munster, senior analyst for Piper Jaffray, comes in on the low end, predicting that revenue will be reported to be $23.3 billion with an EPS of $5.06. It's not inconsequential to note: in light of Steve Jobs' medical leave of absence (get well soon, Steve), none of this has anything to do with Apple stock price tomorrow since I would expect the price to jump all over the place. This is despite German AAPL trading down 6 percent on the unfortunate news. A down opening of AAPL is expected by all, but by how much is anyone's guess. Please join us tomorrow at 5 PM Eastern for our live blog of the earnings call. Note: The author is an Apple shareholder, and this post should not be construed as financial advice.
AMD sees a tablet chip in its future, and an end to the core-count wars
AMD told us that it wasn't terribly interested in the iPad market, and would wait and see if touchscreen slates took off, but CEO Dirk Meyer changed the company's tone on tablets slightly after reporting a $118 million net loss (on $1.62 billion in revenue) in a Q3 2010 earnings call this afternoon. First revealing his belief that tablets will indeed cannibalize the notebook and netbook markets, he later told investors that he actually expects AMD's netbook parts to start appearing in OEM slates in the next couple of years, and that AMD itself would "show up with a differentiated offering with great graphics and video technology" when the market becomes large enough to justify an R&D investment. Elsewhere, AMD CTO of servers Donald Newell prognosticated that the number of individual CPUs on a chip won't go up forever: "There will come an end to the core-count wars," he told IDG News. Just as the megahertz race was eventually defeated by thermal restrictions, so too will the number of cores on a chip cease to increase. " I won't put an exact date on it, but I don't myself expect to see 128 cores on a full-sized server die by the end of this decade," he said. So much for our Crysis-squashing terascale superchip dreams, we suppose.
It's the iPod touch's time to shine
The iPod touch is like that really hot cheerleader you already wanted to talk with, but were a little too afraid to approach. It shines on its own by simply existing. It's the iPhone without the phone, a competent gaming platform, has the capacity its iPhone sibling dreams of, and it's extremely popular. But, now the iPod touch has come into its own. During September's media event, Steve Jobs revealed that the touch is Apple's top-selling iPod. But, as Fortune magazine points out, the company has never shared the number of iPod touch units sold with investors. Will this change with Monday's quarterly earnings? It's hard to say, but Fortune polled a number of analysts who gave it their best guesstimate of the number of iPods units (classic, shuffle and nano included) sold. The numbers range from a little over 8 million to slightly above 11 million for the third quarter of 2010. Other bloggers estimate that roughly 38 percent of iPods sold are iPod touches. The iPod touch hasn't ever had the glitz or glamor of its older iPhone and iPad brothers, but it's a solid player in Apple's lineup for sure.
Intel reports record $11.1 billion revenue, brings home $3 billion in bacon
Looks like Intel's having its best quarter ever all over again: this time, the company's reporting $3.0 billion in profit on a record $11.1 billion in revenue. Chipzilla attributes the surplus to three percent increases in laptop and server chips sales respectively, but none to Atom-based netbooks -- sales of Atom chips actually decreased by four percent. That may be more than you needed or wanted to know about the booming processor business, but humanitarians will be pleased to know it's not all about the silicon; Intel also hired 1,300 new flesh-and-blood employees last quarter to keep the machines running.
Wall Street awaits Apple's Q3 earnings
After a stellar second quarter, Wall Street is now scrambling to figure out what the effect of Steve Jobs' announcement on Friday regarding "Antennagate" will have on the company's stock, as Apple prepares to deliver the company's Q3 earnings on Tuesday. As reported by Fortune, analysts must consider whether or not to take into account the negative publicity surrounding the iPhone 4, or focus on unit sales and gross margins. Analysts also must look at the iPad's continued spread into other countries; that despite the issues, more than 3 million iPhone 4s have been sold to date -- and we can't forget our good friend, the Mac. TUAW will host a liveblog tomorrow starting at 5 pm ET as Apple begins its conference call to report earnings for the quarter.
AT&T activates 3.2 million iPhones in 3Q
Reports of trouble for AT&T's 3G network have done nothing to keep people from the iPhone in the U.S. The nation's second largest wireless carrier announced third-quarter earnings Thursday morning that were full of iPhone goodness. AT&T (T) activated a record 3.2 million iPhones in 3Q, 40% of which went to people new to the company. Wireless data was the supporting star of the show. Services such as messaging, Internet access and the like were up 33.6% from 3Q of 2008 to $3.6 billion. Data sales now account for 29.4% of AT&T's wireless revenue. The company's earnings were relatively flat, having posted a profit of $3.2 billion, or 54 cents a share for 3Q '09 versus $3.23 billion or 55 cents a share for 3Q of '08. AT&T did, however, bring in enough to beat analyst expectations. The street was only looking for earnings of 50 cents a share. [via MediaPost, Marketwatch]
Microsoft profits sink for the first time in 23 years
In a not totally surprising -- yet still kind of striking -- turn of events, Microsoft is reporting that its sales have fallen for the first time in 23 years. You read that right, 23 years. According to numbers that the company has just released, sales fell 6 percent year-over-year, while overall net income dropped a staggering 32 percent. Those numbers are significant, but what's more telling is where those losses are coming from. Namely? Netbooks. Apparently, in the midst of a global downturn consumers really are buying cheaper, especially when it comes to tech, which puts a fairly significant crunch on Redmond's bottom line. A CNN reports suggests that the presence of Linux on those devices has contributed to the hurt here, but it's more likely that the combo of a market still unwelcoming to Vista and the wide popularity of XP on the low-power systems has more to do with these dipping profit margins. Oh, and that general, awful market depression. Still, it should serve as some kind of wake up call to Microsoft that just being the biggest doesn't guarantee that the money will keep rolling in the way it has in years past -- clearly the big picture isn't as sharp as it's always been. Hey Windows 7 -- no pressure, right? Update: We've tweaked some language in the post that made the situation sound more dire than intended. Don't worry everyone, we know Microsoft isn't going anywhere. [Via CNN]
HTC first quarter earnings fall a not awesome 30 percent
HTC's unleashed a barrel of bad news on the world today with their first quarter earnings statement. The company's profits fell 30 percent during that period, with a net of NT$4.89 billion -- $148 million -- down from NT$6.94 billion (or $210 million) at the same time last year. HTC still managed to best analysts estimates (shows what they know) which forecast that the company's earnings would be in the area of NT$4.64 billion ($140 million). HTC said that the profits fell in part to missed product shipping deadlines, which have been pushed into April. And the recession continues...[Via MocoNews](Warning: Read link is a PDF)
Palm posts net loss of $95 million for Q3, reaffirms that Pre is on schedule
Palm's third quarter earnings report for 2009 has dropped, and it's looking pretty rough for the old boys. The company posted a net loss of $95 million dollars in the quarter, and sold 482,000 units where it sold 833,000 in the same quarter last year. Palm's total earnings for the quarter fell 71 percent over last year, from $312 million to just $90.6 million. Palm stock fell a net 53 cents quarter over quarter, though it's made some recent significant gains. CEO Ed Colligan was quick to point out, however, that its much-touted and anxiously awaited Pre (with the new webOS) is on target for its release date in the "second quarter." The heat is officially on.
Sony said to be sitting on $1.1 billion annual loss, first in 14 years
Belt tightening at Sony already underway during Sir Howard Stringer's keynote. There are plenty of directions to point fingers: trying to be a premium brand in a weak world economy, a strong Yen (harder to export) or difficulties in making the PlayStation 3 profitable, but whatever the cause, it looks like Sony lost $1.1 billion last year, the company's first practical loss in 14 years. Of course, the report isn't official just yet, earnings aren't due until the 29th, and Sony has put out a statement to that effect, with no further comment -- but let's just say this is a pretty widely bandied number at this point. This seems to line up with rumors of additional cost cutting, with 16,000 jobs already cut at Sony thanks to the hard times. But don't worry, the VAIO P with Windows 7 will save us all.[Via Electronista]
Earnings call takeaway: New products in September
Apple posted record earnings yesterday, yet the stock still dropped amid concerns over Steve Jobs' health (I'll refrain from speculating because I find it tasteless and it's none of my business) and lower projected gross margins for the September quarter (Q4). Although Apple is famous for under-promising/over-delivering, especially when it comes to projected sales and gross margin performance, during yesterday's call, CFO Peter Oppenheimer offered up a very interesting explanation for Apple's lower estimates: new products!Although Apple historically has a lower gross margins in the September quarter because of the Back-to-School promotion, Apple also added that a "new product that [it] [couldn't] discuss" would also result in lower gross-margins. Throughout the call, Oppenheimer kept throwing out phrases like "product transition," "new additions to the product line" and a little mantra that went something like, "Apple makes state of the art new products that the competition just can't match. When we do that earlier in an introduction, costs are higher."We had a good time speculating what new products/changes to the product line will appear in September (or in the 4th quarter, more accurately) in the liveblog and the press has joined in that speculation today. ZDNet thinks that products will be brought out at lower prices, so that Apple can drive volume and gain marketshare. Over at eWeek, they are guessing everything from a shift in microprocessors, to low-cost portables aimed at schools to revamped AppleTVs.The general thought (or wish) in our chat last night centered around new MacBook Pros, lower priced Airs and revamped Minis or other headless Macs.My personal speculation is that while I expect current line products to drop in price a bit (not a huge drop, but a drop), and think it is high time for a MacBook Pro redesign, I'm going to guess that new displays are part of the "transition." The Apple Cinema Display line is not only overpriced, it is long-in-the-tooth when compared to products in its pricepoint (or even lower pricepoints). OLED displays could be expensive, and it would certainly be technology that no one else is pushing.For me, the key to Oppenheimer's words wasn't just the talk of lower gross margins -- because that doesn't necessarily mean lower prices -- it was all the talk of "state of the art products that the competition just can't match." That signifies something that the competition (presumably, HP and Dell) isn't already selling a product or technology that Apple is looking at introducing. With the number of patents Apple has, there is plenty of room for speculation. What are your best (or most outrageous) guesses? Leave them in the comments and we'll all see how wrong (or right) we are in September.
Apple Q3 2008 results liveblog, 5 PM EDT
This liveblog will be relaying and discussing Apple's Q3 financial results. Apple's third fiscal quarter encompassed sales between April 1, 2008 and June 30, 2008. Apple reported a record-breaking quarter, with revenue up 38% year over year and Mac sales at an all time high!You can listen in live here. Please join me in the blog to discuss the results, speculate
