Globe technology reporter Omar El Akkad will listen to Apple's conference call shortly after the company releases its earnings after 4 p.m. today. He'll tweet updates and keep you posted on what the company has to say.
While we wait for the results to come out... any time now... check out Omar's piece from today on what to expect from Apple's earnings.
We will be live-blogging the Apple earnings very shortly on the Globe site
I'm hoping after today they go quiet until iPad 3 RT @lizwithey: @omarelakkad You've become the Apple beat reporter!
For what it's worth, the street expects Apple to post roughly $29.6-billion in revenue and about $7.30 EPS, although the spectrum is wide.
Apple does have a history of offering very conservative guidance, and then demolishing those numbers when it posts quarterly results.
Omar says he will take some questions from readers, so if you have some, fire away!
Earnings should be hitting the wires momentarily. The conference call, which will be led by new CEO Tim Cook, starts at 5 p.m. EST.
Shares are down more than 6 per cent after hours so far, but that may soon change.
Whoa. For the first time since 2002, Apple has missed the street's expectations.
Revenue came in at $28.27-billion. That's well above Apple's own guidance of $25-billion, but analysts wanted something closer to $29.6-billion.
This from the Wall Street Journal's Market Beat blog. Full story on The Globe's site coming soon: Apple reported third-quarter earnings of $7.05 a share, on revenue of $28.3 billion.
Analysts, on average, expected Apple to earn $7.22 a share on revenue of $29.5 billion.
Apple has not missed earnings forecasts since the second quarter of 2002, according to FactSet data.
The stock is down 8% after hours, after gaining 0.5% during regular trading. Update: The stock is clawing back a little bit, now down about 5%.
iPhone sales came in at 17.07 million, compared with forecasts of 20 million -- maybe the most disappointing number.
On the bright side, iPad sales came in at 11.1 million units, topping estimates by a little bit.
Earnings Per Share were $7.05. Street guessed between $7.20 and $7.30
It turns out there may have been some truth to Apple's last conference call, when execs predicted that the upcoming iPhone 4S launch would cause consumers to hold off buying soon-to-be-dated models. iPhone sales were 17.07-million, way short of analyst expectations of 20-million.
I have to go back and check, but that may be the first quarter-to-quarter decrease in iPhone shipments ever.
It looks like Apple did have a quarter-to-quarter iPhone sales decrease way back in 2008, when they were moving something like 4-million units a quarter. Nothing since then until this quarter.
International sales made up 63 per cent of total revenue in the quarter.
iPad shipments came in at 11.2-million, a 166 per cent year-over-year increase. In line with some analyst expectations, though others had expected more.
Apple blew away its own estimates in just about every category, but fell short of analyst estimates. Over the past few quarters, analysts have become more comfortable with the idea of ignoring Apple's own guidance, which repeatedly turns out to be too conservative.
As for iPhone sales, I suspect they'll have a monster shipments number next quarter, when the iPhone 4S sales come in.
Earnings conference call starts in about five minutes.
They've already sold a couple million iPhone 4Ss in just one weekend, haven't they Omar?
4-million in three days. That's double the opening weekend sales for the first iPhone 4, and about a million more than most analysts had expected. It speaks not only to Apple brand loyalty among its customers, but also how fast the smart phone market is growing in general. Just about everybody in this part of the world who's replacing their old cell phones are picking up smart phones instead.
Conference call is starting.
Tim Cook: This is our first earnings call since passing of Steve Jobs. World has lost a
visionary
"His spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple."
He thanks everyone for their condolences after Jobs' death.
Mac sales hit a quarterly record. That's a pretty good sign that the iPhone/iPad halo effect is working.
6.6-million iPods, way down year-over-year
That's pretty expected, as folks move away from single-purpose MP3-players.
Looks like a lot of the sales growth in Mac and iPhone came from Asia
CFO blames sequential decline in iPhone sales on rumours of a new product launch (which turned out to be the 4S).
We will be live-blogging the Apple earnings very shortly on the Globe siteby Omar El Akkad via twitter 10/18/2011 8:11:04 PM
