A whopping one-fifth of Apple’s Services revenue comes directly from Google, estimates Goldman Sachs, as analysts from the bank are calling for Apple to launch its own Amazon Prime like media service bundle.
The bank warns against Apple’s reliance on its rival for its services revenue as its venture into subscription Services is Apple latest long-term business strategy.
While the market seemed largely unmoved by Apple’s announcement yesterday of a record year (and guidance suggesting that more records will be set), that’s because analysts had already predicted the numbers.
But roundups of analyst notes by Fortune and Business Insider show that almost all are rating the stock a buy. None of them rate AAPL a sell, and only two consider it neutral …
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We’ll learn on Tuesday just how many iPhones in total Apple sold last quarter, but before then we’re continuing to gauge analysts’ best educated guesses ahead of time. Just as it did with Apple Watch — although with a comical range in that case — Fortune has published an interesting roundup of iPhone sales predictions from analysts for the last and current quarters, respectively.
What we do know is that Apple sold 13 million iPhone 6s and 6s Plus models over the new models’ launch weekend late last month, although only sales completed during the first half of that weekend are included in the upcoming quarter being reported. What are the analysts saying about the rest of the last quarter?
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According to respected and generally reliable analyst Ming Chi-Kuo from KGI Securities, Apple’s long-awaited 12.9-inch iPad Pro will feature Force Touch stylus support—perhaps for something like an enhanced Pencil from Paper’s FiftyThree. Earlier this month, we detailed what to expect from Force Touch on iOS including support for an enhanced stylus paired with the larger iPad models.
He expects the larger tablet to go in to production between September and October and that the stylus will be able to take advantage of the new iPad’s Force Touch-enabled screen. It’s being imagined as a feature which could help users more easily navigate the larger display of the iPad Pro. KGI has predicted an optional Lightning-charging stylus sold alongside the larger-screened iPad since earlier this year.
Since its launch, Apple Watch sales estimates have either shown it as doing incredibly well, or that it’s doomed to failure. Tim Cook hasn’t announced any figures yet, and may not even report them during tomorrow’s quarterly earnings call. But that won’t stop analysts guessing. If recent “estimates” are anything to go by, the financial wizards in charge of looking in to these numbers have no idea what’s going on. Estimates are all over the place…
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With earnings coming tomorrow, analysts are focusing on Apple Watch reception as it will be the first time Watch sales are included in Apple’s financial results. Apple won’t be reporting Apple Watch sales numbers but that doesn’t stop investors from guessing the figure. In a note, Gene Munster says that Apple has sold 3 million units in the quarter. This is slightly below KGI’s estimate which quoted 3.9 million Apple Watch device sales.
Munster says talks with investors have shown general disappointment and concern about the ‘long-term opportunity’ for the Apple Watch. In the short term, he believes supply constraints and lack of availability in Apple retail stores have limited early sales. Munster, however, remains confident that the Watch will ramp up in sales slowly with a ‘breakout year’ in 2017.
With Apple set to reveal its fiscal Q2 earnings after market close today, analysts are expecting double-digit year-over-year growth in all categories except iPads. Fortune‘s roundup says that analysts predict revenue of $56.84B, up a massive 24.5% year-over-year, and above the top end of Apple’s $52-55M guidance. Earnings per share is predicted to be $2.21, up a third on the previous year, with gross margin just shy of Apple’s top-end guidance at 39.4%.
Double-digit growth is expected in both iPhones and Macs. For iPhones, the prediction includes sales just under 56M, 32.6% higher than the same quarter last year, while Mac sales are forecasted to hit 4.7M, 13.6% up on last year …
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Research firm Strategy Analytics released its latest report today forecasting global Apple Watch sales and smartwatch marketshare for 2015. The firm’s predictions put Apple’s anticipated global smartwatch marketshare at more than half with 54.8% reached in 2015. Notably, that forecasted percentage is versus all other smartwatches combined competing with the Apple Watch.
While the report predicts that Apple will take the overwhelming majority of smartwatch sales this year, it predicts a relatively conservative number of units shipped globally in 2015 at 15.4 million. That forecast still beats the collective “other” group with a 12.7 million units shipped globally predicted.
To be clear, the firm is predicting that the as-of-yet unreleased Apple Watch will outsell the existing smartwatch market in 2015…
Ahead of Apple’s Q3 earnings call where analysts expect the company to beat its own top-end guidance, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners today shared its latest numbers on iPhone and iPad sales for the quarter.
While analysts are expecting Apple to announce sales of iPhones as high as 40 million units for the quarter representing a 15% increase from last year, CIRP gives us some insight into how iPhone and iPad models sold relative to flagship models last year. It’s also an interesting look at how Apple’s two model iPhone approach is working while continuing to sell previous generations. The iPhone 5s, according to CIRP’s research, accounted for 62% of iPhone sales vs 52% for the iPhone 5 at the same time last year. The data shows Apple is selling more of its most expensive, high-end flagship models as a percentage of its over all sales for compared to last year:
“Once again, Apple’s premium iPhone 5S sold well in the quarter,” said Josh Lowitz, CIRP Partner and Co-Founder. “It appears that in the US, Apple sells the 5S model at the expense of the iPhone 5C, which continues to sell much slower than the similarly- priced iPhone 4S in the same quarter last year. The entry-level ‘free’ or subsidized price point maintains its 16-18% of iPhone sales.”
As for iPad sales, the report notes the iPad Air captured a much higher percentage of Apple’s tablet sales relative to its flagship models last year. “The comparable flagship tablet last year, the iPad with Retina, accounted for less than a third of sales, while the iPad Air has over half. The small format iPads held their own at more than a third of sales, adding the higher-priced iPad Mini with Retina to the product mix. The $399 full size iPad with Retina seems to be stuck in the middle, at only 10% of sales.”
The report covers data for Apple’s fiscal Q3 that includes the three month period ended June 30. Apple’s conference call to announce its Q3 financial results is scheduled for tomorrow at 2PM PT/5PM ET.
With Apple’s upcoming fiscal Q3 earnings call just around the corner, analysts are predicting the company sold as many as 40 million iPhones during the quarter that ended last month. That’s on the high side of estimates complied by Fortune, however. Estimates from a poll of 26 analysts includes predictions ranging from 31.8 million to almost 40 million units. The average of estimates comes in at 35.88 million.
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Photo: Business Insider
With Apple due to report its quarterly earnings on Wednesday, Fortune has been doing its usual analyst temperature-taking. The 37 analysts who have responded so far expect an average of $43.5B, toward the high end of the $42-44B Apple told the market to expect.
So what are our analysts expecting this week? No surprises, that’s for sure. The average revenue estimate of the 37 analysts we’ve heard from so far — 14 amateurs and 23 pros — is 43.5 billion, just above the midpoint of Oppenheimer’s range.
The amateurs, as usual, are a bit more bullish. They’re calling for earnings of $10.53 per share on sales of $43.66 billion. The pros are not far behind: earnings of $10.18 on sales of $43.42 billion …
CNET reports that JP Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz forecasts that Apple will release a converged iOS/OS X device he has dubbed the iAnywhere.
While not a new idea, our global tech research team believes Apple could be on the cusp of introducing a new category with iAnywhere, a converged MacOS-iOS operating system that allows an iPhone or iPad to dock into a specially configured display to run as a computer
This is a variation on earlier claims that a larger iPad – widely dubbed the iPad Pro – could also run both operating systems. I’ve written at length about this idea, so won’t rehearse the arguments again here, I shall simply counter with a few quotes from Apple …
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A couple of days after Fortune did its roundup of analyst estimates of iPhone sales, it has now done the same for the iPad, with the average forecast coming out at 25M sales in the final quarter of last year (Apple fiscal Q1) – up 10 percent from the previous year.
iPads were a more challenging market to forecast, observes Fortune‘s Philip Elmer-Dewitt:
The iPad Air didn’t ship until Nov. 1, missing one third of the quarter; the new iPad Mini (with Retina display) showed up 12 days later and was in short supply all the way through Christmas …
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With Apple’s Q3 2013 financial call set to take place later this month on July 23rd and Wall Street expecting near zero revenue growth, today we get a look at what analysts are expecting for iPad sales. With no major product announcements since the introduction of iPad mini and iPad 4 last fall (and only a minor upgrade with the 128GB iPad 4 in January), it’s not all that surprising the consensus from 48 analysts polled by Fortune is that Apple will experience a big drop in growth year-over-year for iPad during the June quarter.
The average estimate of 18.1 million iPad units during Q3 works out to around 6.2% growth compared to 183% and 84% in Q3 2011 and Q2 2012, which some might still consider significant due to the lack of new product announcements and competition from Android tablets:
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Photo: techbeat.com
Fortune is reporting that most analysts expect Apple to report near-zero year-on-year growth when the company reveals its Q3 earnings figures on 23 July.
The pessimistic expectations began just a day after Apple reported its Q2 earnings, with Cowan and Company taking just 24 hours to post a Q3 prediction of $35.4B. More recent analyst estimates gathered by Thomson Financial, and reported on Yahoo! Finance, were marginally lower, at $35.17B. Fortune‘s own preliminary survey of 35 analysts to date is slightly lower still at $35.02B …
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Simply put. iPad 2 is the best gadget I have ever used. Welcome to the post-PC era.
— Michael Gartenberg ✡️🇮🇱🎗️ (@Gartenberg) March 10, 2011
I may abandon my quest for a proper CA home, just buy a really good car and park in other people’s driveways at night
— Michael Gartenberg ✡️🇮🇱🎗️ (@Gartenberg) May 22, 2013
According to Forbes, long time technology analyst Michael Gartenberg has joined Apple. According to the report he is now officially working under the marketing team led by Phil Schiller. Gartenberg has always been Apple-focused/leaning in his coverage and a contributor to Macworld magazine among other endeavors.
Market tracker IDC says Apple’s Q1 Mac shipments in the US fell 7.5 percent year-on-year, while rival company Gartner says they increased 7.4 percent in the same period. Meantime, the NPD Group – which measures sales rather than shipments – says those are up 14 percent …
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A new job listing on Apple.com could add fire to the rumors that Apple is considering including fingerprint technology in upcoming devices.
The job posting seeking a software engineer to write “low-level code to configure and control hardware” is the only listing on Apple’s site located at the “Melbourne Design Center” in Melbourne, Florida. Not only is the position looking for someone familiar with testing various sensors with LabTool and FA software, but Melbourne is also the home base of Authentec, the company Apple acquired fingerprint technology from last year for around $365 million.
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Samsung officially unveiled its flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone last night at a theatrical, Broadway-style presentation in New York, and analysts are quick to jump in today with opinions on what it means for Apple. AAPL is having a decent morning hitting a high of 442.50 and opinions from analysts seem to be split down the middle regarding whether the S4 has what it takes to cut into Apple’s market share.
Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray doesn’t seem too impressed with the S4 upgrade but noted Samsung’s new S Band is “a quick first pass for Samsung on wearable technology ahead of Apple’s watch. Munster added that he expects Apple to launch its smart watch product by 2014 (via Barron’s):
The Galaxy S4 appears to be largely an incremental update to the S3 including a slightly larger screen (4% larger on diagonal), better camera and processor, and updated software, but largely the same body style and casing. We believe some of the software features are unique, including the tilt to scroll, video pausing based on facial recognition, and hand gesture based interactions, but view these software improvements as minor compared with what Siri was to the iPhone 4S or even Google Now to Android.
Jefferies analyst Peter Misek thought the S4 will be “incrementally negative for Apple” but doesn’t view the S4 upgrade as “revolutionary” (via Zdnet):
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Apple is all set to announce its fiscal Q4 financial earnings today, during a conference call with company executives scheduled for 2 p.m. PST/ 5 p.m. EST. iPhone 5 sales are expected to be a topic of conversation, of course, while recent predictions from 59 analysts provided an average estimate of 26.3 million iPhones total for the quarter. Today, Forbes posted revised estimates from 36 of the analysts that also includes predictions for iPhone, iPod, Mac, and other product sales.
A few things we already know from CEO Tim Cook’s announcements during the iPad mini event: 5 million iPhones 5s sold during opening weekend, 3 million new iPod nano and touch units sold, and 200 million iOS 6 devices. Cook also noted the company has now sold 100 million iPads in 2.5 years and more iPads in June than any PC manufacturers’ entire PC lineup.
In Q3 Apple reported revenues of $35 billion. As for Q4, Apple predicted during its last conference call that revenues for the fourth quarter would be around $34 billion with diluted earnings per share of about $7.65. Today, Forbes pointed us to updated estimates from Wall Street showing a consensus of $8.81 on sales of $36.02 billion.
Forbes has also posted revised estimates from 36 analysts (below). Among the 20 pros in the group, the average estimate is $8.75 on sales of $35.51 billion. The independents, on the other hand, have earnings of $9.66 on sales of $37.23 billion.
As you can see from the chart of the 36 analysts below (pros in blue), the high-end of iPhone estimates hit the 32 million-unit mark, while one independent has Mac sales as high as 5.70 million units:
Apple has been selling iPhone 5’s as fast as they can make them since its mid-September launch. However, pre-order delays and retail shortages related to manufacturing troubles meant Apple was a little shy of the 10 million units predicted by analysts for opening weekend. We know Apple sold at least 5 million iPhone 5 units during the first three days of its retail launch starting Sept. 21. With a slow start and strong finish to the quarter ending on Sept. 29, today we get estimates from 59 analysts predicting iPhone sales for Q4 courtesy of Fortune. Apple is set to announce earnings for Q4 later this month on Oct. 25.
The average of the group is 26.3 million units, just slightly over the 26 million Apple sold in Q3 2012 (pros in blue, amateurs in green):
According to a report from Reuters, Apple’s LTE chip supplier Qualcomm is having “trouble meeting demand” for smartphone chips and will continue experiencing manufacturing constraints throughout the rest of the year. Qualcomm Chief Executive Paul Jacobs told analysts on a conference call yesterday, “At this stage we cannot secure enough supply to meet the increasing demand we are experiencing.”
With Apple’s next-generation iPhone expected to include LTE capabilities like the recently launched third-gen iPad, many are speculating Qualcomm’s supply issues could lead to delays. It would also make the rumored September or October unveiling and holiday launch all the more likely opposed to June. Is it possible Qualcomm’s supply constraints have anything to do with Apple buying up its capacity?
Apple recently began internally seeding prototype N96— a faster iPhone with 1GB of RAM and an A5X variant to test the performance of the new chip on iPhones.
Qualcomm’s Chief Financial Officer Bill Keitel told Reuters the constraints have lead to increased operating expenses:
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