Shiny Apple earnings expected despite ‘Antennagate’
Written on July 21, 2010
More is likely to be learned Tuesday afternoon about what dealing with negative publicity about the iPhone 4 will cost Apple Inc.
But when the Cupertino company reports earnings after the market closes, it is once again expected to surpass its guidance for revenue and profit.
When it reported its first quarter earnings in April, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) projected second quarter revenue would be between $13 billion and $13.4 billion and earnings would be between $2.28 and $2.39.
Analysts on average are forecasting a 50 percent jump in revenue to $14.6 billion and earnings of $3.07 per share.
CEO Steve Jobs said more will be revealed about what it will cost the company to provide free cases to resolve the signal reception problems on the iPhone 4 that have become known as "Antennagate." Analysts are projecting that may chip one or two pennies per share off earnings projections.
But Jobs said Friday that 3 million on the new smartphones had been snatched up and the second quarter sales of the iPhone, which accounts for about 40 percent of Apple revenue, are expected to be strong. In the end, supply problems are likely to have more to do with whether the sales come in at the pessimistic end of analyst projections, about 8 million units, or the optimists' end, about 9 million.
The other important product lines are expected to show sales of about 3.3 million iPads, 10 million iPods and more than 3 million Macs.
Filed in: technology.