From a note to clients that landed on my desktop Monday:
The Drumroll for Apple Earnings; Expect Robust Numbers Despite Chip Shortage: Apple will be reporting its highly anticipated FY1Q/Dec earnings on Thursday after the bell. We believe Cook & Co. will likely deliver upside to the Street’s $118.3 billion and $1.88 estimates as our checks throughout the quarter indicated that iPhone 13 sales were robust globally during a strong holiday season. The performance seen by Apple in the quarter was despite an unprecedented chip shortage out of the Asia supply chain, which ultimately pushed over 10 million iPhone units from the December quarter into the March quarter for Cupertino. Our iPhone 13 checks continue to be firm with our belief that Apple sold north of 40 million iPhones during the holiday season in a record number for Cupertino despite the chip shortage headwinds.
Maintains Outperform rating and $200 price target.
My take: Stop the presses! With only three days left before Apple’s earnings call at least five analysts have posted targets higher than Ives’.
Remember, TC did say in the last earnings call that he expected a record holiday quarter.
Did Ives estimate have a typo, was he saying for December only, or was the report wrong? Something doesn’t quite add up here for Ive’s iPhone numbers only.