Filed under: Earnings reports, Competitive strategy, Apple Inc (AAPL)

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has been on a roll this quarter. Up almost $30 since its July peak, the company has seen continuing enthusiasm about its iPhone release, with international launches in France, England, and Germany adding to the excitement. New iPods and the iPod Touch also helped keep Apple in the public eye.

However right after the earnings release last July, and iPhone enthusiasm, the stock suffered a strong dip due to fears about iPhone sales. That seems to have ameliorated, but investors do have to watch out for Apple investors who are really iPhone or iPod investors. Investors who are buying into the excitement, but not the fundamentals of the company, and who don’t understand the full range of Apple services. Whenever negative iPod or iPhone news comes out, they have a tendency to run from the stock. Apple will have to demonstrate iPhone sales in line with its projections, and prove that iPods are not being hurt by iPhone sales to reassure jittery fair weather investors.

Last quarter Apple forecast earnings of 65 cents a share, or some $5.7 billion, for this upcoming fourth quarter. This is not as rosy as the third quarter: Apple is expecting back to school promotions and parts costs to cut into it’s profit. However Apple has also beat its expectations for quite a few quarters running now.

As our sister site, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, points out, Apple is gaining marketshare, with somewhere between 6.3 or 8.1% of the market depending on who’s surveying, making it the #3 computer company in the US. With solid sales of its computers, and now iPods and iPhones boosting the bottom line and attention, this fourth quarter is probably going to be another solid one for Apple. Analysts are estimating more than Apple’s predicted 65 cents a share quarter, and consensus seems to be upwards of 80 cents a share.

But we’ll only know for sure when we tune in on Monday to hear what Apple has to say with its latest earnings report. You can also tune in here at Bloggingstocks.com, where we’ll be liveblogging the earnings report.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 11:38 pm and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.