The year of bad news did not hurt the stock before the second quarter profit of 19



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Tim Cook

Andrew Burton | Getty Images

When Apple releases its second quarter results Tuesday after the bell, sales will be down compared to the same period last year. This is according to Apple's own guidelines.

Apple has made headlines all year. On Jan. 2, Apple announced that its quarterly vacation-level business figure would be $ 7 billion lower than its previous forecast, as iPhone sales had grown in China. .

Since then, Apple has made the rare decision to cancel a previously announced product, to organize on its campus a strange invitation-only event, without any new material or lack of essential product details. announced. war with Qualcomm and paid a one-time amount that analysts believe to be billions.

Yet, the Apple action continues to climb.

Since Apple first announced disappointing results for the first quarter with a drop in its annual business turnover, the stock has grown more than 43% and last week, several Wall Street analysts covering Apple even revised upward their price targets.

This trend is coming as it becomes increasingly clear that iPhone unit sales are likely to decline year-over-year – but Apple has stopped reporting these numbers at the end of last year. . Morgan Stanley expects 42 million iPhones and Apple has sold 52 million last year during the same quarter.

"There is nothing good to say about the fact that they have stopped reporting unit sales," D.A. Davidson analyst Tom Forte said.

"Looking at our model and our forecast for iPhone sales, as for the quarter in March, we are not looking for anything magical about the iPhone or China," Forte said.

This is what Wall Street expects from the quarter, according to Refinitiv's consensus estimates:

  • EPS: $ 2.36 vs $ 2.73 last year
  • Returned: $ 57.41 billion versus $ 61.13 billion last year

The story of Apple changes

But Apple's growing stock suggests that the market is finally digesting what the company has been broadcasting for years: Apple is changing its story – it's no longer the iPhone company, even though this product accounts for more than 60% of Apple's sales . Instead, Apple sells a multitude of online services with recurring billing. Apple deserves a price comparable to that of Amazon, Google or Facebook.

This is the message that Apple was trying to send out with its March event, which was sown with celebrities and haughty speech about the power of creativity, but did not include new hardware, pricing, or products. release dates for most of the topics covered.

By announcing three new online subscription services and a co-branded credit card with Goldman Sachs, Apple has highlighted the number of new revenue streams that can be launched. Only one of the products, Apple News +, was available to consumers after the event.

Strong described the event as "strange," but said he had helped investors begin to "think about life after the iPhone."

"Investors have adopted the principle that service revenues will grow rapidly for Apple," he said.

"In our opinion, investors still do not fully appreciate the power of the Apple platform." IOS users are more involved in mobile services and spend 10 times more Android users on mobile applications, "said Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, in a warning doubled the number of paid online services this year.

It is possible that Apple will provide investors and analysts with detailed information on Apple News + performance on Tuesday, even if it is not included in its balance sheet, as well as on other data. indicating that its service activities are growing rapidly. . The only data point on service at $ 10 per month so far is that 200,000 people have registered in the first 48 hours of availability.

A year ago, Apple had recorded a business turnover of $ 9.19 billion, including subscriptions, royalties from its App Store distribution platform, AppleCare warranties and money from 39, an agreement with Google to make Google the default browser search engine of the iPhone.

Dividends and redemptions

Analysts and investors are also looking to see if Apple indicates how much it plans to spend on return on capital. It is the time of year.

Last April, Apple announced that it would spend $ 100 billion in dividends and redemptions over the next year, thanks in part to the tax reform adopted in December 2017.

He also indicated that he wanted to become "net cash neutral over time", which means that he intends to spend all of his cash and marketable securities in his balance sheet.

Strong said the announcement of Apple's return on investment "derisively" the quarter in case of failure.

Morgan Stanley expects Apple to announce a 10% dividend increase and an increase of at least $ 50 billion from the authorized redemption fund.

"We continue to anticipate that Apple will repurchase between $ 15 billion and $ 20 billion of shares each quarter by the year 2021, which will reduce the total diluted shares outstanding by a percentage." annual figure above 1% and will add more than $ 1.00 to the FY2020 BPA, "wrote Huberty. .

Apple is buying so much stock that it may not even fear a slightly lower stock price.

"The company is not afraid that their shares will not be on fire, because they will be able to buy them back cheaply," Forte said. "Apple would like the stock to go straight up, but they agree that it is not."

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