Apple to report Q1 2007 Financials Today

Late this afternoon Apple will provide a financial statement for its first fiscal quarter (Q1) that ended December 31, 2006. Q1 is usually Apple's best quarter due to holidays sales, especially now with iPod sales figuring so prominently in Apple's financial picture. Apple will hold a webcast conference call with financial analysts to discuss its Q1 report and answer questions starting at 5pm ET (2pm PT).

Last quarter (Q4 2006), Apple forecast that its Q1 2007 earnings would fall in the range of 70-73 cents per share. Many financial analysts believe Apple has performed better than expected and have forecast earnings of 78 cents per share (Thomson's First Call consensus estimate). Apple usually beats the consensus estimate, sometimes by a considerable amount (see Macs Only!'s chart above), so we expect Apple to report an excellent Q1.

Red Herring reported that:

"Apple notebook sales are expected to hit 1.15 million, or a 96 percent increase from a year ago, JP Morgan analyst Bill Shope said Tuesday in a research note. He forecasts Mac growth overall will increase 52 percent to 1.9 million units. Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi was a tad more conservative, expecting overall Mac unit shipments of 1.68 million, a 30 percent Mac revenue increase to $2.24 billion."

This is consistent our expectations of a great Q1 for Apple.

Stay tuned for our summary report following the conference call. [Bill Fox & Dana Baggett]