Apple’s Earnings Are Soon. Pay Attention to the iPhone Sales Outlook


Apple is getting ready to report what could be its fifth straight quarter without any revenue growth. Expect investors’ focus for investors to be on the company’s outlook for the March quarter, particularly for iPhones.

The company will report financial results for its first fiscal quarter on Thursday after the market close.

For the quarter ended in December, Apple had told investors to expect revenue to be about flat with a year ago. Wall Street consensus as tracked by FactSet calls for revenue of $118.7 billion, which would actually be up a fraction from $117.2 billion in the year-ago period. Earnings for its first fiscal quarter are expected to $2.11 a share, up from $1.88.

As always with Apple, the focus will be on sales by product line.

Analyst estimates call for iPhone sales of $67.6 billion in the quarter, up 2.8% from a year ago, and Mac sales of $7.9 billion, up 2.5%. Services are expected to grow 12.3% to $23.3 billion, inching the annualized run-rate for that group of businesses to nearly $100 billion.

But consensus estimates point to a 21.4% drop in iPad sales to $7.4 billion, with the Wearables, Home and Accessories category expected to decline 15.8% to $11.3 billion.

There is some early excitement on the Street about the initial orders for the just-launched Vision Pro mixed-reality headsets, which don’t actually start shipping until the day following earnings, so any update will likely be more qualitative than quantitative.

And while investors eagerly await some clarity from Apple on the company’s generative artificial intelligence strategy, the company rarely provides meaningful product updates on earnings calls. This one isn’t likely to be an exception to the rule.

There are concerns on the Street that iPhone growth has been crimped by an increasingly competitive—and soft—smartphone market in China, where Apple appears to be losing some sales to Huawei. The company’s thinking on that issue should filter into its expectations for the March quarter. Street consensus estimates call for total March quarter revenue of $95.9 billion, up a fraction from a year earlier, with earnings of $1.58 a share, up six cents from a year ago.

Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring says the December quarter should beat Street revenue and earnings estimates by 1% to 2%. But he also predicts March quarter guidance is likely to be closer to his own forecast of $93.4 billion in revenue, which would suggest a year-over-year decline of about 2%. In addition, he argues that consensus estimates for the September 2024 fiscal year are still too high for both revenue and profits.

That said, Woodring wrote in an earnings preview note that the results should be a “clearing event” that will shift investor focus to the growth in services, the opportunity in “edge” AI devices—phones, iPads and Macs—and improving gross margins. He maintains his Overweight rating and $220 target price on the stock.

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