Act One of next week’s two-part Apple extravaganza begins Monday after the markets close
Ignore for a moment, if you can, the clamor and hype surrounding next Wednesday’s special event and the new tablet computer Steve Jobs is expected to reveal.
Wednesday is the second act of a two-part performance that Apple (AAPL) has stage managed for Wall Street next week.
Act One starts Monday after the markets close, when the company reveals its other not-so-well-kept secret: sales and earnings for quarter that ended Dec. 26 that nearly everybody expects will blow past Apple’s typically conservative guidance.
According to Thomson Financial Network, the Street is looking for Apple to report earnings of $2.07 a share on revenue of $12.05 billion, based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).
More significant, however, are the so-called non-GAAP numbers that account for the full revenue from iPhones sold during the quarter. (GAAP rules spread it out over 24 months; see The day Apple released its iPhone revenue bomb.)
The consensus among the analysts we polled is that Apple will report non-GAAP earnings of $3.49 on revenue of $14.93 billion — up 31% and 27%, respectively.
We’ve attached those estimates below the fold, dividing them as usual between the professional analysts affiliated with banks and brokerage firms and the bloggers and day traders who roll their own.
Tune in Monday around 4:30 p.m. ET (1:30 p.m. PT) to find out who was closest to the mark. Apple’s earnings call is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m.
We’ll rank the analysts and post a color-coded follow-up Tuesday morning before heading out to San Francisco to cover Wednesday’s event.
See also:
- Apple’s Q4 2009 earnings: How the analysts got it so wrong
- Apple’s Q3 2009: Analyzing the analysts
- Apple’s Q2 2009: Analyzing the analysts
- Apple’s Q1 2009: Analyzing the analysts
- Apple’s Q4 2008: Analyzing the analysts
[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]
