It’s that time again: time for Andrew Cunningham and me to press our headphones tight against our ears and type up the rapid-fire financial chatter of Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri as they walk us through Apple’s latest quarterly earnings. Today, Apple will be releasing the results of the last quarter of its 2014 fiscal year, and pre-call expectations are that the call will feature some big numbers.
Analyst expectations are for Apple to hit just a smidgen under $40 billion in revenue, on the back of guidance for between $37 billion and $40 billion. This will be up about six percent from last quarter’s $37.4 billion and should generate an earnings per share of around $1.30 (which is an increase of about 11 percent year over year).
These would be the highest quarterly earnings in the company’s history, and if accurate, they’re due in no small part to huge initial sales of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Analysts' feelings on iPhone sales appear to run the entire gamut, with some calling the new iPhone’s launch an excellent sign of increasing iOS adoption worldwide and others saying that competition from cheaper Android-based alternatives will cause iPhone adoption in developing markets to falter in the long term. We’ll hear Apple's own take later today.
We’re also eager to see the official iPad sales numbers. Though new iPads were announced just last week, they won’t be included in the Q4 results; there’s a significant chance that Q4 will be the third quarter in a row to show flat or decreasing iPad sales.
In Mac news, Fortune reports that we’re likely to see just under five million Macintosh computers shipped, which when coupled with the decreasing sales rates of other OEMs makes Apple one of the top five PC vendors (along with Lenovo, HP, Dell, and Acer). Macs also sold in record numbers last quarter—though Apple didn't release any new Macs in the first nine months of 2014, some well-placed price cuts appear to have boosted sales.
The call kicks off at 17:00 EDT/14:00 PDT, so tune in then for our liveblog and analysis.
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