14 DAY TRIAL // The results for its fiscal fourth period will be reported on Wednesday, October 18. Apple Computer Inc. is expected to post another quarter of double-digit profit and revenue growth driven by iPod sales, experts say.
The estimations are that Apple will earn 50 cents a share for the period that just ended. This means the shares will be 11 cents higher than a year ago when they were 39 cents.
The revenue is also expected to rise. Experts say that they expect the revenue to rise 27% to $4.67 billion up from 3.69 billion, on strong demand for the iPod, its market-leading digital music player, and growth in sales of Apple's laptop and desktop personal computers.
Apple shares (AAPL : 75.02, -0.24, -0.3% ) have risen about 5% this year, after a huge surge in 2005, on optimism that Apple will be able to generate more growth out of the digital music market. In addition to the iPod, its business of selling digital songs from its Internet music store, called iTunes, is helping stoke sales growth.
Still, the shares are down about 13% since January, when they hit a 52-week high, on some doubts about the sustainability of the company's profit growth rate. Analysts expect Apple's earnings per share to rise 20% for its current fiscal year, which ends in Sept. 2007. That's just over half the profit growth rate of 37% expected for the just-ended year.
The redesigned iPod Nano is supposed to fuel the strong sales, Shaw Wu - an analyst with American Technology Research - expects. Apple's Macintosh sales are expected to show a 6% increase over their fiscal third-quarter figures, because of strength in the company's MacBook laptop product line, Wu reports.
The only problem I see in this "expectation" is that the MacBook has like hit the wall with the MacBook 13-inch model and I kind of think that until they solve the whole problem (meaning a recall) the MacBooks are not going to be so popular.
Looking ahead to December, Wu said that he expects Apple's forecast for the current quarter to be conservative, in spite of what is typically the company's strongest business period. Wu said Apple will likely set "reasonable" expectations that it can either meet or exceed for the period, which includes the holiday shopping season.
Apple is facing "tough iPod comparisons" for the December quarter, because in the same period a year earlier it sold more than 14 million portable products. On average, analysts expect Apple to report earnings of 77 cents per share on sales of $6.46 billion for the December quarter.
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