A series of pre-Christmas product launches will take its toll on Apple ’s gross margins for the three months ended December. Speaking at the conference call for the tech giant’s fourth quarter (ended 29 September) results, finance director Peter Oppenheimer warned gross margins would drop to around 36 per cent in the run-up to Christmas from 40 per cent during the fourth quarter.
As well as unveiling the iPad mini this week, Apple launched the iPhone 5 in September. Together with revamps to the iPad, MacBook and iMac, manufacturing costs have soared. Apple says it will improve manufacturing efficiency later on in the new product cycles. Anticipated first-quarter earnings per share, guidance was at $11.75, is nevertheless well down on analyst expectations of $15.41.
For the three months to 29 September Apple reported a rise in both revenue and net profit, but not enough to generate analyst excitement. Sales of 26.9m iPhones were roughly in line with forecasts - not smashing them as was once Apple’s forte - while 14m iPad sales, down 18 per cent from the previous quarter, was a disappointment.
A weak economy and growing competition from Samsung, Amazon, Microsoft and Google are no doubt factors, but Apple can also make the case that iPad sales have been adversely affected by customers waiting for either the upgraded iPad or the mini version. Apple reckons that its new products will rack up $50bn (£31bn) of revenue in the October to December period, which represents a third of the sales made during the 12 months to September.
