Normally, Apple is able to deliver Rolls-Royce earnings numbers when Wall Street is predicting just Cadillac financial figures. Shortages in the Cupertino, Calif. company’s two most popular products – the iPad and iPhone 4 – could prevent Apple from reporting its usual 15 percent premium on expectations, one analyst cautions.
Wall Street consensus if for Apple to report Monday earnings-per-share of $4.03 on $18.76 billion in revenue for the three-month quarter ended September. However, for Apple to deliver its usual 15 percent above-expected earnings, the company would need to report $4.08 per share on $18.8 billion in revenue, something Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster doesn’t foresee.
Such figures “would require [a] gross margin of 43 percent, well ahead of 39.1 percent in June, the Street’s 38 percent September estimate and guidance of 35 percent,” Munster told clients Friday. “The bottom line is the mix shift and revenue upside driven by the lower margin iPad (about 30 percent gross margin) significantly tempers EPS upside potential,” he writes.
The problem is the “uncertainty regarding the impact of supply shortages that we have monitored throughout the quarter, particularly with the iPad,” Munster adds.
“Apple can’t make iPhones fast enough, and the reported iPhone number in the September quarter will understate true demand,” the analyst said. Additionally, Apple may report 200,000 fewer iPad sales than Wall Street expectations due to “uncertainty in the supply levels internationally.”
