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Apple to Announce Q4 2020 Earnings on October 29

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Apple today updated its investor relations page to announce that it will share its earnings results for the fourth fiscal quarter (third calendar quarter) of 2020 on Thursday, October 29.

appleearnings4q2020.jpg

Fourth quarter earnings calls typically provide some insight into the early sales of new iPhones, but since this year's iPhones have been delayed until October, initial iPhone sales data will not factor into fourth quarter revenue.

Apple will perhaps provide detail on sales of the Apple Watch Series 6 and the new Apple Watch SE, which did launch during the September quarter.

Apple declined to provide guidance for the fourth quarter of 2020 during its third quarter earnings call due to the ongoing global health crisis, which continues to affect Apple's product launch timelines and sales.

Apple in the third quarter brought in $59.7 billion in revenue, marking a record June quarter bolstered by products and services growth and a surge in Mac and iPhone sales due to people working and learning from home.

The quarterly earnings statement will be released at 1:30 PM Pacific/4:30 PM Eastern, with a conference call to discuss the report taking place at 2:00 PM Pacific/5:00 PM Eastern. MacRumors will provide coverage of both the earnings release and conference call on October 29.

Article Link: Apple to Announce Q4 2020 Earnings on October 29
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/10/01/apple-q4-2020-earnings-october-29/
iFan said:
The most interesting aspect will be if Apple returns to announcing guidance. Calendar Q4 is going to be a blow-out with iPhone launch moved from Q3 + pandemic increase in sales for iPads and Macs.
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Current quarter iPhone revenue may be less than spectacular since they aren't shipping the new handset. Likely supply will be constrained as their manufacturing partners ramp up production (like other years).

Right now, there are some rumors of an Apple announcement on Tuesday the 13rd. If they do announce the iPhone and follow their recent pattern, they will accept pre-orders on Friday the 16th and ship product a week later, Friday the 23rd. That would mean four weeks fewer shipments in the current quarter. I don't see how Apple can make that up given the typical supply constraints early on.

A more likely scenario would be higher Q1 calendar 2021 (Q2FY2021) because Apple would be shipping the entire 13 weeks.
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Theyayarealivin said:
What about Event Announcement for iPhone 12?
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Apple does not announce new product during earnings announcements.

Based on CFO Luca Maestri's comments during the last analyst call, it seems likely that Apple will announce their new iPhones before the earnings results.
 
Erehy Dobon said:
Current quarter iPhone revenue may be less than spectacular since they aren't shipping the new handset. Likely supply will be constrained as their manufacturing partners ramp up production (like other years).

Right now, there are some rumors of an Apple announcement on Tuesday the 13rd. If they do announce the iPhone and follow their recent pattern, they will accept pre-orders on Friday the 16th and ship product a week later, Friday the 23rd. That would mean four weeks fewer shipments in the current quarter. I don't see how Apple can make that up given the typical supply constraints early on.

A more likely scenario would be higher Q1 calendar 2021 (Q2FY2021) because Apple would be shipping the entire 13 weeks.
Click to expand...

It will be interesting to see how fast they can ramp up production. Usually 10 million+ get sold in the final week of Q3 during launch weekend. This getting pushed into Q4 would should override the loss of ~2 weeks of sales. I could be wrong, and you could be right, though :)
 
Erehy Dobon said:
Current quarter iPhone revenue may be less than spectacular since they aren't shipping the new handset. Likely supply will be constrained as their manufacturing partners ramp up production (like other years).

Right now, there are some rumors of an Apple announcement on Tuesday the 13rd. If they do announce the iPhone and follow their recent pattern, they will accept pre-orders on Friday the 16th and ship product a week later, Friday the 23rd. That would mean four weeks fewer shipments in the current quarter. I don't see how Apple can make that up given the typical supply constraints early on.

A more likely scenario would be higher Q1 calendar 2021 (Q2FY2021) because Apple would be shipping the entire 13 weeks.
[automerge]1601596925[/automerge]

Apple does not announce new product during earnings announcements.

Based on CFO Luca Maestri's comments during the last analyst call, it seems likely that Apple will announce their new iPhones before the earnings results.
Click to expand...
Typical Q4 earnings have ~2 weeks of new iPhone sales, hardly a huge needle mover. The watch and iPad is out, so it’s going to be fine. Plus, investors know the phone is coming.
 
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Baymowe335 said:
Typical Q4 earnings have ~2 weeks of new iPhone sales, hardly a huge needle mover. The watch and iPad is out, so it’s going to be fine. Plus, investors know the phone is coming.
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Q4 earnings often include 10 days of new iPhone sales, from the Friday release to the last Saturday of the quarter.

The main point is that Apple has already given up substantial Q1FY2021 new iPhone sales with the delay. Q1 of any Apple fiscal year (Q4 calendar year) is the blockbuster quarter. As it stands now, Apple looks like it will have given up maybe 40% of their new iPhone revenue for the OND (Oct-Nov-Dec) quarter; as we all know, iPhone contributes the lion's share of Apple's revenue.

That's why Maestri specifically told the investment community about the delayed announcement. The analysts will do their own projections on how this impacts Q4FY2020 and Q1FY2021.

The bigger mystery is whether or not Apple resumes providing guidance.
 
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I hope they post decent numbers and the stock pulls back because it isn’t “good” enough. I am sure this quarters has been good or at least acceptable. I should have bought more with the latest dip and would love another chance to get a bite of the apple.
 
NOT sure we'll get it, but the most important STAT I'd like to hear from Cook, is the % of NON-Pro iPhone 12 units that were sold to customers who purchased an iPad AMD/OR Mac earlier in the year.

The NON-Pro iPhone 12 should be Released on Friday, Oct 23rd, so Cook & his staff will have 1st weekend sales numbers, plus a few days.
 
Erehy Dobon said:
Q4 earnings often include 10 days of new iPhone sales, from the Friday release to the last Saturday of the quarter.

The main point is that Apple has already given up substantial Q1FY2021 new iPhone sales with the delay. Q1 of any Apple fiscal year (Q4 calendar year) is the blockbuster quarter. As it stands now, Apple looks like it will have given up maybe 40% of their new iPhone revenue for the OND (Oct-Nov-Dec) quarter; as we all know, iPhone contributes the lion's share of Apple's revenue.

That's why Maestri specifically told the investment community about the delayed announcement. The analysts will do their own projections on how this impacts Q4FY2020 and Q1FY2021.

The bigger mystery is whether or not Apple resumes providing guidance.
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Do you think you’re telling me something I don’t know or something? I said ~2 weeks and you repeated the same thing but with 10 days instead.

I know about the rest too and so do investors. They aren’t “giving up” sales at all. They are just deferred. Apple will sell the phones in Q2 if they don’t sell in Q1. Depending on supply, people can buy a lot of phones 2 months instead of 3 if Apple has them available. They’ll just sell more in Novemner and December than they would have if it were available all 3 months.

If sales get shifted into the next quarter, so be it. A month or 6 week delay doesn’t matter for investors. A quarterly timer is completely senseless.
 
Unfortunately, YoY sales comparisons is a thing.

American public companies are driven by quarterly earnings. Trust me, I used to work at a Fortune 500 tech company. We would announce new products at the beginning of the quarter and try to ship something by the end of the quarter, often in a state where the products weren't mature, basically beta quality. All of this was rooted from the quarterly revenue announcement system.

A yearly revenue reporting cycle would be a far more sane way of doing things but sadly that is not the commonly accepted practice here in the USA.

Remember that Apple is "graded" by the investment community based on its ability to meet expectations. Because Apple hasn't provided any guidance, the investment community can only judge Apple based on its own projections (which are a range anyhow like Apple's when the latter provides them).
 
Erehy Dobon said:
Q4 earnings often include 10 days of new iPhone sales, from the Friday release to the last Saturday of the quarter.

The main point is that Apple has already given up substantial Q1FY2021 new iPhone sales with the delay. Q1 of any Apple fiscal year (Q4 calendar year) is the blockbuster quarter. As it stands now, Apple looks like it will have given up maybe 40% of their new iPhone revenue for the OND (Oct-Nov-Dec) quarter; as we all know, iPhone contributes the lion's share of Apple's revenue.

That's why Maestri specifically told the investment community about the delayed announcement. The analysts will do their own projections on how this impacts Q4FY2020 and Q1FY2021.

The bigger mystery is whether or not Apple resumes providing guidance.
Click to expand...
I can’t imagine Apple losing 40% of new iPhone revenue for the entire quarter. To the extent people are waiting for the new phones to drop, there will just be a temporary increase in pent up demand.

The unanswerable question is whether Apple will have sufficient inventory/production capacity to satisfy the full demand for the quarter. A rather large portion of that demand won’t appear until the second half of this quarter.
 
Erehy Dobon said:
Unfortunately, YoY sales comparisons is a thing.

American public companies are driven by quarterly earnings. Trust me, I used to work at a Fortune 500 tech company. We would announce new products at the beginning of the quarter and try to ship something by the end of the quarter, often in a state that where the products weren't mature. All of this was rooted from the quarterly revenue announcement system.

A yearly revenue reporting cycle would be a far more sane way of doing things but sadly that is not the commonly accepted practice here in the USA.

Remember that Apple is "graded" by the investment community based on its ability to meet expectations. Because Apple hasn't provided any guidance, the investment community can only judge Apple based on its own projections (which are a range anyhow like Apple's when the latter provides them).
Click to expand...
I’m not sure there’s a company in the Fortune 100 that cares less about next quarter’s earnings—and how that might affect the share price—than Apple.

Actually, make that the Fortune 500.
 
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40% is a ballpark estimate, maybe it's 35%. Do the math yourself.

Apple's fiscal quarters are all exactly 13 weeks long (ending on the last Saturday of the period) with the rare 14 week quarter. Right now, it looks like Apple will be realistically four weeks late with the iPhone which is 30% of the number of selling days.

It is unrealistic to assume that Apple will have unusually high amounts of inventory. All of these companies are struggling with availability. Look at Nvidia's GeForce 30-series launch. Absolute disaster with both 3080 and 3090 cards selling out immediately. The Xbox and PS5 pre-sales were almost as bad.

Silicon foundries can't pump out the chips fast enough and it's about to get worse. AMD announces their upcoming CPUs and GPUs this month. Apple and AMD (the latter is providing SoCs for both new game consoles) have locked up TSMC's schedule into the first part of 2021 already. Apple has yet to announce the iPhone and Apple Silicon Mac.

With the release of two new game console platforms, there is an abnormally high demand for premium silicon in a year that supply will also be constrained by COVID-19.

If I were a financial analyst, I would not highball Apple's numbers this year. There are way too many factors outside of Apple's control.
 
Erehy Dobon said:
40% is a ballpark estimate, maybe it's 35%. Do the math yourself.

Apple's fiscal quarters are all exactly 13 weeks long (ending on the last Saturday of the period) with the rare 14 week quarter. Right now, it looks like Apple will be realistically four weeks late with the iPhone which is 30% of the number of selling days.

It is unrealistic to assume that Apple will have unusually high amounts of inventory. All of these companies are struggling with availability. Look at Nvidia's GeForce 30-series launch. Absolute disaster with both 3080 and 3090 cards selling out immediately. The Xbox and PS5 pre-sales were almost as bad.

Silicon foundries can't pump out the chips fast enough and it's about to get worse. AMD announces their upcoming CPUs and GPUs this month. Apple and AMD (the latter is providing SoCs for both new game consoles) have locked up TSMC's schedule into the first part of 2021 already. Apple has yet to announce the iPhone and Apple Silicon Mac.

With the release of two new game console platforms, there is an abnormally high demand for premium silicon in a year that supply will also be constrained by COVID-19.

If I were a financial analyst, I would not highball Apple's numbers this year. There are way too many factors outside of Apple's control.
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1) All selling days aren’t equal. The revenue is backloaded to the second half of the quarter in any case. The overall hit will likely hinge on whether they can assemble enough, not whether they have sufficient components.

2) Does Apple even have an A14 supply issue? As far as I know, Apple has all of the 5nm capacity they need. Others are no doubt stuck waiting in line behind them, but that’s their problem. Delays are unlikely to be related to TSMC.

3) Apple is still selling millions of iPhones per week, even while the 12 lineup is delayed. People still need new iPhones every day, and plenty buy older models anyway.

4) Sales of new models that normally would have happened last quarter will slip into this quarter. 4Q20 will be much more affected by the late release than will 1Q21, which I doubt will be off by more than 10% YoY.
 
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