Great post. Do you think Apple can beat last year EPS in Q1? If not it would be the first time the have yoy decline in more than 5 years.
Wish I know. It really depend on how many Iphone 5 Apple can ship in 4Q and the gross margin in 1Q2013. According to the 10K, Apple sold 125.0m unit of iphone (3GS, 4, 4S and 5) in fiscal 2102 (ending in 9/2012) and 72.29M unit in fiscal 2011 (ending in 9/2011). About 9M-10M unit of the 125.0 M iphone sold in fiscal 2012 is Iphone 5. The scuff gate really hurt Apple sales and gross margin this Q. It slow down the supply because Foxconn has to fight the quality control problem. It also increase the warranty expense (those scuffed Iphone need to be repair by someone and it will cost a lot of money) and distribution cost (instead of shipping Iphone by the boatload, now they have to fly out of China once they are done). And I think the worse case scenario is that it may stop casual buyer from buying i a q or two after they see all the scuffing in their friends Iphone.
Tim Cook pursue a fast roll out strategy (100 countries in 4Q) is a major gamble and it looks like it didn't pan out the way he wanted it.
My 2 cents is to watch the Iphone supply issue. If Foxconn can solve the quality problem soon, margin for Iphone 5 may have a shot of going up substantially in 1Q. If not I think we are going to be stuck with 36ish % gross margin for a while. And China Iphone 5 launch will be massive and can add into 10-12 m unit a quarter kind of sales rate. I am very bullish on Ipad mini. I thought it is a better tablet for most people. The lower price will help Apple sales in developing countries. I think it will sell more than anyone predict. But it won't contribute too much to Apple's bottom line given the low gross margin unless they sell a lot of the high end model.
At this point, I think anyone can make a bull case of Apple is a $800 to $900 stock or a $300 to $400 stock, it all depend on how consumer respond to Android and Window 8 competition.