April 19th, 2000

[12:30 PM] Forecasts Call For Sunny 2nd Quarter Earnings Announcement This Afternoon From Apple
by Wes George

The consensus on Wall Street is for Apple to post earnings of $0.80 per share this quarter up from $0.56 last year at this time. However, some observers believe earnings could come in as high as $0.85 per share. Targets for this year's EPS hover around $3.45.

Revenues for the quarter are expected to be in the $2 billion range, up about 12% from a year ago, while units shipped should come in above 1 million for the second consecutive quarter. Last spring Apple shipped about 830,000 units.

Check back with the Mac Observer for full coverage of the conference call from Cupertino late this afternoon.

The Mac Observer Spin: These are respectable figures and the potential for upside surprise is stronger than the possibility of any weakness. Perhaps Salomon Smith Barney analyst Richard Gardner was correct when he pointed out yesterday that he would be a buyer of AAPL before the earnings announcement this afternoon.

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