Roundup of Analyst Expectations Ahead of Apple's Q1 2012 Earnings Call

[rdowns]

MONSTER!

Revenue $46.33b
37 million iPhones

CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2012 first quarter which spanned 14 weeks and ended December 31, 2011. The Company posted record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $26.74 billion and net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 44.7 percent compared to 38.5 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

“Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.”
The Company sold 37.04 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 128 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.43 million iPads during the quarter, a 111 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 5.2 million Macs during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.4 million iPods, a 21 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

“We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.”

“We are very happy to have generated over $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 13 weeks, we expect revenue of about $32.5 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $8.50.”

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q1 2012 financial results conference call beginning at 2:00 p.m. PST on January 24, 2012 at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq112. This webcast will also be available for replay for approximately two weeks thereafter.

 

[cvaldes]

Holy smokes, they just crushed it.

 

[Dmunjal]

Stock is going to 500. They are close to a $200B run rate. Amazing.

 

[BornAgainMac]

I noticed the stock always dips before Apple has a blowout quarter. It is almost like the bigger investors are trying to shake the tree to scare the little investors off so they can buy more shares at a smaller price. So predictable.

 

[voyagerd]

bad timing....where were you 5 years ago..

In college.. with no income..

 

[BornAgainMac]

Simple math shows that Apple will crush estimates this quarter. Looks like the consensus for iPhone unit sales is about 30 million. My estimate is 35.5 million. This is based on simple math. Here are some notes I made a couple of days ago.

Your simple math was good. You did better than most with your estimates.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I noticed the stock always dips before Apple has a blowout quarter. It is almost like the bigger investors are trying to shake the tree to scare the little investors off so they can buy more shares at a smaller price. So predictable.

Not investors, traders. That's just noise, to be ignored by actual investors.

 

[voonyx]

Simple math shows that Apple will crush estimates this quarter. Looks like the consensus for iPhone unit sales is about 30 million. My estimate is 35.5 million. This is based on simple math. Here are some notes I made a couple of days ago.

• In Q3 Verizon sold 2 million iphones while Apple sold a total of over 17 million. Therefore, Verizon's iPhone sales represented 12% of total iPhone sales. In Q4 Verizon sold 4.2 million. 4.2 million is 12% of 35 million--pointing to 35 million iPhone sales.
• Apple recorded 1.7 million iPhone sales when the iPhone 4 was launched. This represents about 12% of total sales for that quarter. This year Apple recorded over 4 million iPhone sales during the opening weekend of the iPhone 4S. 4 million is 12% of 34 million--pointing to 34 million iPhone sales.
• This quarter an additional carrier was added in the United States: Sprint.
• Sprint declared its sales record was broken by 1PM EST on iPhone 4S launch day.
• AT&T was on track to double record iPhone activations in a single day for iPhone 4S launch--meaning double the day they released the iPhone 4. So if Apple's iPhone sales doubled for the 4S quarter just as they did with the iPhone 4 quarter, this is pointing to 34 million iPhone sales this quarter.
• There is an extra week in Q4 compared with Q3.
• The iPhone 4S launch falls in a quarter that leads right up to Christmas, including all holiday sales. The iPhone 4 was released in the summer. It is very likely that iPhone 4S sales kept more momentum than the iPhone 4 due to the holidays.
• Tim Cook's (Apple CEO) words should not be taken lightly: this marks "our fastest iPhone rollout ever"; "Customer response to products in China has been off the charts"; "we--in our wildest dreams, we couldn't have gotten off to a start as great as we have on the 4S."
• Apple has lower priced and more competitive iPhones available for purchase than it did when the iPhone 4 launched.
• Apple's Asia-Pacific segment is exploding and difficult for analysts to keep up with.

Nailed it

 

[BuddyTronic]

I don't know - it's always crazy.

Scenario 1
They will post the best results ever, so as usual I would say AAPL should jump up - maybe I'd put money down and say $460 for Wednesday.

Scenario 2
But you know what? The usual thing that happens is that the shares will drop a big amount (say down to 405, and then pop back up to an all time high a week later up to something like $440 after everyone realizes that everything is OK.

I'd put my money down on Scenario 1 though, but wouldn't be surprised to see the usual drop thing.


ACTUALLY - I looked at what I wrote and I'm not saying much EXCEPT that I guess I believe that the stock will not remain at $427. I think you will see some big delta here in the price. Up or Down, your guess is better than mine probably. If I reconsidered this one, I'd now be putting my money that AAPL will be higher than $450 and/or lower than $408 - that's my "spread"

Not bad you genius you!

 

[sparks05]

Thanks

Your simple math was good. You did better than most with your estimates.

Thanks! I think that everyone just figures that since there are so many analysts covering Apple that reality is automatically priced into the stock so not many people really go out and test their predictions and have the guts to go against their "professional opinion"

http://www.valuefolio.com

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Nailed it

Thanks. . . we both did

http://www.valuefolio.com