Scott Olson
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is scheduled to report fiscal first-quarter results after the close, and Wedbush Securities said the print is yet another “testing moment” for the tech giant amid growing negative sentiment.
“The negative narrative on the street has been building “Over the past year for Apple, the lack of growth from the iPhone unit has caused many investors to question the future growth story in Cupertino,” analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note to clients. “To this point, Apple reports key December earnings on Thursday after the bell with the entire street watching with headline estimates of $118 billion and $2.10 likely beatable in our view.”
The “big focus” for Wall Street will be iPhone revenue and double-digit growth for its Services segment, which Ives believes “performed relatively well during the holiday quarter.” Recent reports of iPhone weakness in China are also likely to be a hot topic during the earnings conference call, Ives said.
“We estimate that ~100 million iPhones are in the window of upgrade opportunity in China, which has been a tailwind that has helped offset some of Huawei's competitive pressures in mainland China,” Ives wrote.
apple stock rose 0.6% in early operations on Thursday.
