Apple’s financial report coming at 2 pm (Pacific) today

Posted by Dennis Sellers Apr 19, 2006 at 12:57am

Apple will announce its second quarter financials today, April 19, at 2 p.m. (Pacific). There’ll be a conference call for the media and analysts with Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer at that time. Naturally, Macsimum News will offer in-depth reports on all aspects of the announcement.

Aalysts’ consensus is that Apple will report earnings of $0.43 per share on revenues of US$4.5 billion. However, an analyst for American Technology Research believes Apple will post the second best quarterly results in the company’s 30-year history when it announces its latest financial results on April 19. If so, the company will exceed its own guidance of US$4.3 billion in revenue and 38 cents in earnings per share.

Meanwhile, Cowen & Company maintained a “neutral” rating on Apple Computer yesterday after receiving mixed readings in its latest consumer survey, reports Forbes. “While Intel CPU transition challenges appear more fully discounted, [the] survey suggests potential for significant slowing in iPod growth,” analyst Richard Chu wrote in a research note to clients.
He believes Apple still faces Intel-based Mac transition execution challenges, but expectations for Mac unit trends are now conservative enough that his concern on this front has moderated. “Indeed, despite more cautious home PC demand overall, Mac prospects look strong,” Chu added.

Cowen also surveyed the impact of Boot Camp on Mac mind share and found it to be broadly positive, Forbes notes. However, that survey view of forward 12 to 18 month Digital Audio Player (specifically, iPod) demand is clearly weaker, despite a solid Apple specific share picture and iPod ecosystem spending outlook, Chu said.

“That is enough of a caveat to keep us on the sidelines on the stock,” he told Forbes. “Given the twin visible axes of its game plan, the Mac and iPod, there can be little question that the stock will tend to fare best when there is perceived to be relatively clear sailing on both fronts.”

What’s more, ahen Apple reports its second quarter earnings, investors and analysts will watch closely for evidence of how the company’s switch to Intel chips is panning out. CNN Money reports.

The March quarter is seasonally slower for Apple, and analysts and investors are universally Apple predicting a big slowdown in both iPod and Mac sales from December’s blowout numbers for that reason, the story adds. While analysts expect strong year-over-year growth in iPods (as usual) they don’t think that will be the case with Mac sales.

Wall Street analysts are forecasting sales of roughly 1.2 million Mac units in the quarter, up just slightly from the 1.07 million Macs Apple sold in the same quarter last year. While the March quarter is traditionally slower than December, given December’s holiday sales, the new Intel-based machines may have given shoppers an incentive to buy.

However, CNN Money notes that it remains to be seen whether they took the bait, especially since availability of the first Intel-based Mac laptop, the MacBook Pro, was severely constrained for the first month after it began shipping on February 14, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. He estimates that Apple was only able to meet demand for about two weeks in the quarter.

“The iMac and the MacBook Pro are doing well; we are still hearing sales for the (Intel) mini are kind of lukewarm,” Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research, told CNN Money.

Advanced Search

Article Information

Comment on this Article Print this Article Email this Article Digg This

Contributor

Recent Articles