Apple’s October-December quarter sales results are expected on Tuesday, 24 January

Apple has been in a drive uptown since Tim Cook took to the helm of the company in August, 2011. Apple saw its fair share of ordeal last year; the stepping down of Co-founder Steve Jobs in the summers and then his mournful departure from this world. However, the company survived these catastrophes both in the consumer and stock markets.

Tim Cook’s first full quarter as Apple’s Chief Executive posts its results for the holiday quarter this Tuesday afternoon. The moment of truth is near mostly it is expected that the company will pass the test with flying colours.

Apple shares dipped last October after the Cupertino, Calif.-based Mac maker missed earnings expectations as sales of Apple’s aging iPhone 3GS sagged.

This time, Apple entered the holiday quarter with a new handset to complement a slate of strong-selling products, including the MacBook Air and the iPad 2.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expect Apple to post an earnings jump of 58% over the-year ago quarter.

Net income is expected to rise to $9.6 billion, or $10.08 per share, on sales of $38.9 billion, compared to net income of $6.0 billion, or $6.43 per share, on sales of $26.7 billion during the year-ago quarter.

Analysts expect Apple will report gross margins of 40.8%, up from 38.5% during the year-ago quarter.

If anything, however, consensus estimates understate expectations, points out blogger Philip Elmer-DeWitt, since the estimates reported by Thomson and others include projections that have not been updated in months.

In a note to investors last week, Jeffries & Company analyst Peter Misek penciled in iPhone sales of 33 million units, iPad sales of more than 14 million, Mac sales of 5.6 million units, and iPod sales of 12.9 million units for the quarter ending in December.

For the current quarter, analysts expect Apple will report net income of $7.5 billion on sales of $32.0 billion for the quarter ending in March.

Apple shares have risen more than 30% to 427.41 from $337.45 over the past year. They’re up 5.53% so far this year.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Jan 24 2012. Filed under Business, Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.