Apple on Tuesday delivered surprisingly strong fiscal
third-quarter earnings and signalled that its upcoming 10th-anniversary
phone lineup is on schedule, driving the stock up 6 percent to an all-time
high in after-hours trading.
The stock
climbed above its intraday record high to $159.10 after the company reported better-than-expected iPhone sales, revenue and earnings per share. The stock
price move was expected to help drive the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the
22,000 mark on We dnesday.
Apple also
said it hit a milestone of 1.2 billion iPhones sold.
The
April-June quarter is traditionally a soft one for Apple as the market waits
for the September launch of new iPhone models. But Tuesday's results show
that iPhone buyers may be less inclined than they once were to delay
purchases until a new model is out.
The iPad product
lines also showed unexpected strength, service revenue continues to grow at a
healthy clip, and even the much-maligned Apple Watch showed a 50
percent sales increase.
Apple is
widely tipped to adopt higher-resolution OLED displays for the latest
iPhone , along with better touchscreen technology and wireless charging - which
could come with a $1,000 plus price tag.
The phone
is expected to launch in September.
The company
forecast total revenue of between $49 billion (roughly Rs. 3,14,198 crores) and
$52 billion (roughly Rs. 3,33,452 crores) for the current fourth quarter, while
analysts on average were expecting $49.21 billion, according to Thomson Reuters
I/B/E/S.
Apple's
fourth quarter generally includes first-weekend sales of the company's latest
devices.
The
forecast "makes it fairly certain that at least some new iPhone models
will be released on the normal schedule," said analyst Jan Dawson of
Jackdaw Research. "That doesn't necessarily mean all new models will go on
sale then, or that they'll all be in abundant supply, but I would think it
means that at the very least the successors to the current phones will be
available."
But Bob
O'Donnell, chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research, cautioned that if Apple
releases cheaper models before the premium models in its 10th anniversary phone
lineup, the cheaper models could dampen sales of more expensive units released
closer to the holidays.
The company
said iPhone sales rose 1.6 percent to 41.03 million in the third quarter ended
July 1, above analysts' average estimate of 40.7 million units, according to
FactSet StreetAccount. Apple sold 40.4 million iPhones a year earlier.
But a lower
average iPhone selling price of $606, well below Wall Street expectations of
$621, caused iPhone revenue to come in at $24.8 billion, below expectations of
$25.5 billion.
Apple Chief
Financial Officer Luca Maestri told Reuters the weak price was partly explained
byApple lowering the flow of inventory by 3.3 million units, which he said were
"entirely at the high end of the range."
Apple reports how
many phones it sells to retailers, not how many phones it sells to consumers,
what is known as a sell-in basis. When factoring how many existing "high
end" phones the company cleared out of retail inventory, Maestri said
average selling prices were higher
No comments:
Post a Comment