Apple News, Analysis and Podcasts

Apple's financial call is set for Wednesday, April 20 at 5 PM Eastern, and it may be one of the biggest financial thrill rides in recent memory, if our estimates are correct (Imagine that, a financial call being a thrill ride). Apple's CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, delivered guidance of $22m in revenues with a 38.5% gross margin. You can see a full listing of what the pro's and bloggers are predicting Apple will deliver for their fiscal Q211 here.

The highest estimate from Wall Street analysts comes from Jeff Fidacaro of SIG (Susquehanna Investment Group). The highest blogosphere estimate comes courtesy of Nicolae Mihalache over at traderhood.com. They're probably both wrong.

An amazing amount of dis-information has been swirling around the supply chain for iPad 2. Some believe Apple aggressively handled the situation, resulting in little to no impact on iPad 2 production, while others are claiming single sourced components with Japan's tragedy effecting Apple production. Who to believe? How about Apple, who's cut their lead time for iPad 2 online orders from 4-5 weeks to 2-3 weeks, and is currently showing lead times of 1-2 weeks for delivery.

The best handle on estimates may very well be Mihalache at traderhood.com, coming in with $26.2b in revenues. Phillip Elmer-Dwitt of Fortune has a great breakdown of all the estimates from Wall St. and the blogosphere. I'm not sure we are going to see a breakdown in Pad sales for the quarter. The original iPad sold well world-wide, and Apple pushed out as many iPad 2's as possible in a vein attempt to meet staggering demand. Apple may have sold 7 million iPads in the quarter, along with being able to push out 3.8 million Macs (thanks to the MacBook Air). 

Apple's stock is no longer racing down the slide either. Just three days ago, AAPL was trading at $320.65, but as of this AM, APPL is trading at $344.70. It appears the hedge fund managers have enjoyed their ride, but the market is ready to rally behind impressive numbers from Jobs and company. Again, Apple's financial call comes at 2 PM Pacific. Time to see what magic Tim and Peter can deliver.

Disclosure: Mark Reschke owns AAPL stock.

1 Comment

1. spacecowboy ~ April 20, 2011 19:33
   I've been bullish and always surprised at all financial announcements made by Apple since 1997! When you talk about a company that makes hard decisions no company has made the kind of decisions that Jobs and company has made. None! From getting rid of clones and 3.5" disk drives to adopting USB, launching OSX, iTunes and SDK's for ipods, iphones and ipads. Apple does everything in baby steps. Starting with the candy iMacs, to dusting Dell in Market Cap and Sales Revenues then surpassing Microsoft in Market Cap to reaching a $100 billion in sales. How do you stop a Giant? You don't - you get out of its way! BUY APPLE then get out of its way. Hallelleujah!

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