It comes but four times a twelvemonth : Apple ’s quarterly pay fiscal league call . While Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook and chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer willtake to the speech sound on Tuesday , July 19to serenade analysts and newsperson to the seraphic sounds of the company ’s residue sheet , those same analysts and reporters will be parse every Scripture for even the slightest clue to Apple ’s future plans and intentions .
Of course , if you require to follow the call as it happens , you’re able to tune intoMacworld ’s live coverage , right here at 2 p.m. Pacific/5 p.m. Eastern next Tuesday . If you prefer to avoid the firehose of numbers and fiscal jargon , we ’ll also have a critique of the salient points updated as the call progresses .
Still , every good exercising postulate a warm - up , so as you prepare for next week ’s call , here ’s a look at what occur in the preceding one-fourth and what the Apple watchers will have their eyes on .
iPad 2: Electric Boogaloo
The iPad 2 launch in March , toward the end of the company ’s 2nd financial quartern , and as such the 4.69 million iPad sales Apple reported during the fourth part were split between the original iPad and the new theoretical account — a division that Apple declined to spell out . With the third - poop figure belonging exclusively to the iPad 2 , eyes will be on just how well the successor to Apple ’s category - defining tablet is performing .
To give it some context , Apple sold 3.27 million original iPads in its first full one-quarter of availability . Of course the situation is a little bit different than it was a class ago . For one affair , the tablet field of operations is a hatful more crowded than in 2010 : TheMotorola Xoom , RIM PlayBook , and HP TouchPad have all hit the street , though none has yet proved to thrum up the same variety of popularity as the iPad . Despite the increased competition , it would hardly be surprising to see iPad 2 sales transcend the year ago quarter ’s sales of the original iPad .
No doubt analyst will seek to suss out exactly what Apple has in mind for the third - generation of its tablet , which they ’ll seek to divine in part from information about key constituent like flash memory and displays . As always , expect Apple to courteously refuse discussing anything that might molt light on upcoming products .
Lion-O and the ThunderMacs
The Mac course has seen little in the way of changes in the past three months . The only poser to invite an update was the iMac , which added degenerate processors and Apple ’s new high - speed Thunderbolt port . concede , Thunderbolt peripherals have just get down totrickle out , so they have n’t exactly been push back adoption of the new example . But while laptops have been making up the ripe part of Apple ’s Mac sales in the retiring few eld , it ’s possible that desktops will make up some ground in a quarter that see no laptop updates . So , anticipate Apple to expend at least some time gasconade sales of the new iMacs .
But more importantly , those upgrades have merely whet the appetency of analysts and consumer alike for updates to the rest of Apple ’s Mac line . New model of Mac minis , MacBooks , and MacBook Airs are all bruit to be in the pipeline for next hebdomad , and analysts may well seek to tease out info about Apple ’s plan to spread Thunderbolt throughout its computer line .
On the package side , Apple has announced that Lion will embark in July , and with the new Mac OS update having reached the Golden Master stage at the beginning of the month , it would seem as though the loss is imminent . But if Lion does n’t surface before the earnings release , analyst will have slight information to travail into . One area that they might very well focus on , though , is the update ’s $ 30 price tatter , and how it will envision into Apple ’s bottom origin . ( little solution ? Apple probably trust Lion will assist sell more Macs , so take down the cost to entry is a good affair . )
iPhone 5 is alive?
If this were any of the last three years , Apple would be talking — or brace to verbalize about — a Modern iPhone . The fellowship has traditionally revised its smartphone offering in the summertime , but this year the ship’s company has remained mum on a new handset — unless you enumerate the long - awaited clean model finally released in April .
Of course , rumors about the iPhone 5 — or , depending on who you ask , the iPhone 4S — haven’t exactly beensparse , so analysts will be trying their darndest to get even the slender of detail out of Apple executive by asking about everything from why the company chosenotto free a phone this summertime to what Apple is think about increased competition from Android . In particular , I ’d bet that at least one psychoanalyst will ask about whether Apple ’s consider sell a lower - cost iPhone to capture the crummy last of the market ; in that casing , require Tim Cook to talk about selling the iPhone 3GS for $ 49 .
Other hot areas for the iPhone may take a treatment of 4 G and expanding upon to further U.S. toter . One thingI’dlike to see convey up is Apple ’s decisionto make its own messaging servicing in iOS 5 — iMessage — and how that will impact the company ’s relationship with carrier , who make a goodly gain on providing their own messaging plans . But somehow , I think it may not make the gash .
The wild cards
of course , you may never predicteverythingthat will come up during one of these conference call ; there ’s always the possibility for a curveball . But here are a duad relevant topics from the past three month that might rear their head .
Apple ’s Final Cut Pro X ruffled some feathers in the professional video - editing arena , and while the company will probably mention the new version somewhere in its talk of the town , do n’t expect either psychoanalyst or Apple administrator to spend a lot of clip on what is still fundamentally a recess production .
A topic that may collect more attention , though , is Apple ’s approaching iCloud serving . Announced at last month ’s Worldwide Developer Conference , Apple ’s foray into cloud services has been the subject of much discourse , and it ’s yet another arena in which the troupe is proceed head - to - head with challenger like Amazon , Google , and Microsoft . Not to mention that as the successor to iTools , .Mac , and MobileMe , iCloud is the companionship ’s fourth attempt at create a compelling online service ; if nothing else , analysts may wonder what makes this sentence different from all the previous times .
By the numbers
Still , the newspaper headline news will be Apple ’s financial operation in the after part . In April , CFO Peter Oppenheimer channelize analyst to third quarter numbers of $ 23 billion in receipts with diluted earnings per share ( EPS ) of around $ 5.03 . Apple ’s steering is notoriously conservative , which explain whyanalysts ’ consensusis currently loom around the higher taxation of $ 24.75 billion and EPS of $ 5.73 . Either agency , those telephone number compare favourably to Apple ’s year - ago after part , in which the company reported revenue of $ 15.7 billion with earnings of $ 3.51 per share . And , if previous experience holds true , it would n’t be unexpected for Apple to top even analysts ’ good guesses .
