Apple has just announced its financial results for its fiscal 2012 third quarter ended 30 June, 2012. Profits missed analysts’ predictions.
Major news agencies reacted negatively towards Apple’s quarterly results.
Compared to analysts’ predictions for a profit of $10.37 a share on revenue of $37.2 billion, net income was reported as $9.32 a share on sales of $35 billion.
The major news agencies don’t seem to have taken the results in positive light.
The consensus seems to be that customers are holding off on iPhone purchases in anticipation of a new model, which is expected to be introduced later this year.
Shares fell some 6 percent in late trading.
This is the first full quarter of sales for Apple’s latest iPad, which was released in March.
Note the 84% growth in iPad sales over the same quarter last year.
Some 17 million iPads were sold in the quarter alone!
| Sales growth this quarter | ||
| Device | Number of units sold | Compared to year-ago quarter |
| iPhone | 26 m | 28% |
| iPad | 17 m | 84% |
| Mac | 4 m | 2% |
| iPod | 6.8 m | -10% |
It’s interesting to note the 10% decline in iPod sales.
It is an indication that it may be made redundant by the proliferation of smartphones which can fulfil the functions of a mobile personal music player cum entertainment device.
On the other hand, Sony is still launching new models in its rejuvenated Walkman media players cum entertainment devices.
Apple’s Board of Directors has declared a cash dividend of $2.65 per share of the Company’s common stock.
The dividend is payable on August 16, 2012, to stockholders of record as of the close of business on August 13, 2012.
This continues Tim Cook’s announcement in March to pay dividends – something that Apple had not done in 17 years until then.
The dividends are estimated to cost Apple about $10 billion a year.
Apple has around $100 billion in cash which many investors have called over the years to be returned to investors.
Tags: Apple Quarterly Results, Bloomberg, growth, Guardian, iPad, iPhone 5, iPod, Macs, net profits, Reuters, revenue, sales, Sony Walkman
I can’t help but wonder if Apple is not performing or the analysts over estimated their profits. I think it might be the latter. 🙂
Hey DK, good perspectives there. It’s entirely possible that the analysts have overestimated.
I tend to lean more towards the former. With the new management team under Tim Cook and the absence of Jobs, one would have expected the analysts to be more conservative with their estimates – and therefore result in an underestimation. Furthermore, it is widely known that the iPhone 5 is on the horizon and many would be holding back on purchasing iPhone 4S’s, so the analysts should have discounted that in their estimates as well.
Anyway, it’s not as if Apple is doing badly, just that they didn’t meet analysts’ expectations (for only the second time since 2003). They’re still selling like wild fire. 🙂