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Fiscal Quarter 1 Guidance
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We expect revenues to be about $37 billion compared to $26.7 billion in the December quarter last year. We expect gross margin to be about 40%, reflecting approximately $60 million related to stock-based compensation expense. We expect OpEx to be about $3.25 billion, including about $350 million related to stock-based compensation. We expect OI&E to be about $85 million, and we expect the tax rate to be about 24.25%. We are targeting EPS of about $9.30.
All I can say is that for Apple guidance - Wow.
Emphasis is mine
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The OpEx is higher than I expected by $ 200 million. On the other hand, I hadn’t been adjusting for the seasonal increase.
OI&E is comfortably above the $ 50 million that was common in the past.
Tax rates, both in actual and guidance, have been stable for a while now.
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Gregg Thurman
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The OpEx is higher than I expected by $ 200 million. On the other hand, I hadn’t been adjusting for the seasonal increase.
OI&E is comfortably above the $ 50 million that was common in the past.
Tax rates, both in actual and guidance, have been stable for a while now.
I came away from Apple’s guidance feeling they weren’t sandbagging as much as they have in the past. If that’s true, forecasting Q1 results is going to be very difficult.
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You can’t do more, make more, be more, than the next guy, if you think like the next guy. Think different.
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I don’t see any changes. I think this is within the range of expectations.
For Apple to steer analysts wrong at this juncture (reducing the sandbagging while encouraging analysts to reach higher) would be a major mistake.
Before anything else, I need to piece together a fiscal Q1 model to see what makes sense.
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The Summer of AAPL is here. Enjoy it (responsibly) while it lasts.
AFB Night Owl Team™
Thanks, Steve. -
Some Q4 observations:
With OpEx at about 9.4%, net income ratio down to 23.4%, and GM of about 40.2%, it’s very clear that iPhone has a tremendous impact on Apple’s profitability (not like there’s anything wrong with its profitability now anyway). Interestingly, because not much changed between Q3 > Q4 product-wise, we may have a much better opportunity to assess the profitability of iPhone itself.
IMHO, if 3 million less iPhones,with GM likely further dampened by 1.8 or so more million iPads, can affect profitability metrics that much (I’ll have to look into Apple’s “high” 24.7% tax rate later), the mind boggles at what +10M or more iPhones will do (albeit tempered with +2M or more iPads).
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The Summer of AAPL is here. Enjoy it (responsibly) while it lasts.
AFB Night Owl Team™
Thanks, Steve. -
Gregg Thurman
- [ Ignore ]
Some Q4 observations:
(I’ll have to look into Apple’s “high” 24.7% tax rate later)
I’m perplexed by that as well. Tax rate should have gone down as international sales went up. Looking forward to your findings.
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You can’t do more, make more, be more, than the next guy, if you think like the next guy. Think different.
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I’m extremely surprised that nobody has linked the large projected numbers with the rumors about China mobile getting the iPhone this quarter.
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That’s because there’s nothing to suggest that Apple is making a TD-SCDMA 3G version of the iPhone 4S. If it does, 35 M units would be a production-limited number. Also, we wouldn’t be talking a “mere” $37B in guidance.
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The Summer of AAPL is here. Enjoy it (responsibly) while it lasts.
AFB Night Owl Team™
Thanks, Steve.
