Apple seems to be disappointing Wall Street as well as its investors with revenues of $34 billion with an earnings per share of $7.65, as Wall Street’s expectation for the fourth quarter from Apple were of $36.27 billion in sales with earnings per share of $8.91. This seemingly indicates lower sales of Apple’s main products, the iPad and the iPhone; even though they managed to sell about 5 million iPhone’s on the first weekend itself after opening sales on 21st September, with the fourth quarter ended on 29th September.
Evaluations by analysts have indicated that Apple managed to sell about 25 million iPhones in this quarter, which is almost the same as the previous quarter and about 46% greater than its sales around the same period in the previous year as Apple does not segregate the iPhone’s sales by models .However, the fact remains that the iPhone 5 was released in September as compared to the iPhone 4S which was released in October last year, which seems to have had some effect on sales.
The iPad seems to be doing well with announced sales of 100 million at the unveiling of the iPad Mini at Apple’s launch earlier this week. An analyst from Sterne Agee has pointed out that this puts Apple’s sales below 16 million for the quarter, whereas Wall Street more optimistically expects 17 to 18 million, and Fortune Today about 15 to 16 million.
The sales for other products such as the iMac look optimistic as well with an expected sale of 5 million as compared to 4.89 million last year; the MacBook Air as well as Pro were also refreshed in June. The only exception seems to be the iPod with 5.6 million units sold which is about 18% lower in sales.
Most analysts claim that Apple’s current quarter should be assumed as a sort of transitionary quarter. With the changes in its product line, Apple is sure to make way to a much better quarter financially with the launch of the iPhone 5 as well as the iPad Mini.
What remains to be on the lookout is whether Apple will finally segregate the sales of its iPhone 5 amongst other iPhone sales. The pricing of the iPad mini is also questionable as it is much higher than its competitor products, but as always, Apple has argued that the price is justified for a premium product.
