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Apple surprises with rare earnings miss
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CBC News-
Shares in Apple fell sharply in after-hours trading Tuesday when the iPhone maker posted earnings that fell well short of what analysts were expecting.
The company announced revenue of $28.27 billion US after markets closed Tuesday. Profits came in at $7.05 per share. On both counts, a consensus of analysts polled by Bloomberg were expecting better. Analysts were looking for $29 billion in revenue and $7.31 per share worth of profit.
That works out to $6.62 billion worth of profit. It's the first time the company missed expectations for earnings per share since 2004. Analysts were expecting as many as 22 million iPhone units to be sold. Instead, the company shipped 17.1 million units in the quarter.
Fewer iPhones sold
Indeed, the company is in some ways a victim of its own success. After multiple quarters of growth, the company released no new iPhone or iPod units during the quarter. "The company has to constantly set records just to meet expectations," BGC analyst Colin Gillis said in a research note this week.
The company revealed it sold 11.12 million iPads during the quarter, a 166 per cent unit increase over the same period a year ago, but lower than the number sold during the three months that came before that.
Sales of iPods, the music players that turned Apple from also-ran into America's most valuable company during the last decade, continued to decline. Apple shipped 6.62 million iPods during the quarter.
And the company set a new sales record with 4.89 million Mac computers sold during the quarter, which included the back-to-school season.
The stock was at an all-time closing high of $422.24 per share before the numbers were released. But shares lost more than five per cent to just above $400 per share in after hours trading. That's more than the company has gained in the past week.
The results are the first the company has revealed since Apple founder Steve Jobs died earlier this month. They are also the first since the company unveiled its latest smartphone, the iPhone 4S.
The device set a sales record for a new phone with four million units shipped worldwide in its first three days of release. But sales of the device were not included in the numbers, as they only cover the three months ended Sept. 30.
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