Apple Q3 results

No Comments

After the closing bell yesterday, Apple (AAPL) reported its fiscal third quarter results.

iphone 5Apple beat analyst estimates for revenues and earnings per share. However, the beat was not very convincing and relied heavily on strong iPhone 5 sales.

First the numbers:

Q3 Results:

The following table shows an overall breakdown of Apple’s results over the past three fiscal Q3 periods.

Past Results Q3 FY 2011 Q3 FY2012 Q3 FT2013
Revenues in $B 28.57 35.02 35.32
EPS 7.79 9.32 7.47
Gross Margin 41.73% 42.81% 36.87%
Operating Margin 32.83% 33.04% 26.05%
Profit Margin 25.58% 25.19% 19.53%
Units Sold
Macs 3.95 4.02 3.75
iPod 7.54 6.75 4.57
iPhone 20.34 26.03 31.24
iPad 9.25 17.04 14.62

 

Apple’s revenues of $35.323 billion were $300million analyst expectations, analysts were looking for $35.01 billion. However, it is important to note that just one week ago, that estimate stood at $35.18 billion. Even the day before Apple reported (Monday), the average was $35.09 billion. So a lot of the beat had to do with analysts cutting their estimates into this report. Apple had guided to revenues in a range of $33.5 billion to $35.5 billion, so they were at the upper end of their range.

Earnings per share came in at $7.47, which beat analyst estimates for $7.32. Apple’s diluted share count for the quarter was only 924.265 million, as Apple bought back $16 billion worth of stock during the quarter.

It is also interesting to note that if Apple had maintained the same diluted share count as Q2, 946.035 million, earnings per share would have come in at $7.29. That would have been a three cent miss. So in total, you are looking at a roughly 18 cent impact on earnings per share from the buyback. Analysts will now need to adjust their models going forward, reducing their share counts.

Product Breakdown:

Let’s first start with the iPhone. Apple sold 31.24 million iPhones, well more than the 26-27 million analysts were expecting. That is an extremely positive number on the face of it, meaning the iPhone drop-off was not as much as expected. However, this good comes with a bad. The average selling price for the iPhone was just $581.10, down more than $32 sequentially from the $613 plus we saw in fiscal Q2.

Apple either discounted a number of phones to generate sales, they came from markets where Apple does not generate as much revenues from the phone, or Apple sold many older models of the phone (4 and 4S). It seemed mostly due to the last point, higher sales of older phones, but it also appears that there was some discounting. If the 5 is not selling very well, Apple may be losing pricing power on newer phones, meaning Apple may be forced to come out with a cheaper, and lower margin, iPhone.

The second area of focus is the iPad, which was a tremendous disappointment. The average street expectation called for about 18 million units, with many people higher than that. Apple came in at 14.62 million.

Apple did not refresh the iPad in March this year, which is why the sales number was so light, along with some channel inventory issues. The average selling price came in at $436.07, down $13 from Q2. We knew that the average price would come down thanks to the iPad mini, but it would have come down even more if Apple was at 15 or 16 million unit sales with a majority of those extra sales being from the mini.

Next we will move to the Mac line. Apple sold 3.754 million Macs, a little below the 3.8 million or so analysts were looking for. Additionally, like the iPhone, the average selling price dropped. In Q3, the average Mac was sold for $1,303.41, down about $75 from the Q2 average. That is a huge drop, almost six percent. We know that the PC industry is a bit weak right now, but that’s a large drop in selling prices.

While the iPod is not the revenue driver it used to be, it still does count for the business. Apple sold 4.57 million iPods in the quarter. The average selling price declined by more than $10 to just over $160.

Apple also reported $5.169 billion of “other revenues”, which includes iTunes, accessories, and other items. Revenues from iTunes, software, and services were up 25%, but accessories revenues were down 4%. This is probably due to the fact that three of Apple’s product lines reported year over year unit sales drops.

Overall, I think you have to be a little disappointed here. Even though the iPhone reported 20% unit growth year over year, revenue growth only came in at 15%. Also, the iPad had a 14% drop in unit sales, but a 27% decline in revenues due to the iPad mini. Across the board, except for the iPad, selling prices were very weak. With such a large iPhone unit sales number, I would have expected a lot more from Apple.

Margin Analysis:

The following table shows Apple’s three primary margin categories, which I will further use to analyze the quarter’s results. Numbers may appear slightly off due to rounding.

Q3 Margins 2012 2013 Change
Gross 42.81% 36.87% -5.94%
Operating 33.04% 26.05% -7.00%
Net Profit 25.19% 19.53% -5.66%

Apple reported gross margins of 36.87%, which was at the higher end of their 36% to 37% guidance range. This is because the iPhone generated a higher percentage of revenues (51.39%) and the lower margin iPad had a lower percentage (18.04%). That seems all and well, but if you had told me ahead of time the unit sales numbers for the iPhone and iPad, I would have thought gross margins would have been much higher, maybe 37.50% or higher. Again, this was due to the low average selling price of the iPhone, which took a chunk out of margins.

On the operating side, Apple reported operating margins of 26.05%. This is primarily due to the fact that Apple came in slightly better than expectation for operating expenses, as they reported $3.823 billion. Apple guided to $3.85 billion to $3.95 billion for Q3, so they came in under their guidance.

A little further down the income statement, things got a little worse. Apple reported other income of $234 million, well below the $300 million they had guided to. This is also down from the $288 million in the year ago period, most likely due to the $17 billion in debt Apple took on during the quarter. Apple will now be paying interest expenses, and this was the first quarter it happened. Also, Apple’s effective tax rate was 26.87%, which was a bit above their guidance for 26%. On the bottom line, net profit margins were 19.53

Balance Sheet / Buyback Update:

Apple had $106 billion of that cash pile located overseas, which means about $40 billion of that cash was located in the United States. Remember, Apple can’t use the overseas cash for dividends and buybacks unless they bring it back to the U.S., which would involve repatriation taxes. That’s why Apple borrowed $17 billion to buy back stock, to avoid paying taxes.

There are a couple of key items to note here. Apple’s cash and investments pile increased by $1.9 billion. This is despite the fact that Apple took out all that debt, because the company bought back $16 billion in stock during the quarter. Apple had planned to buy back $10 billion originally over three years, to offset the dilution from executive option dilution and other share-based payments. So that $10 billion was not really a buyback, it was an effort to just stop the share count from rising further. At Apple’s Q2 earnings report, Apple boosted this plan by $50 billion.

Apple stated that they expected to repurchase all $60 billion by the end of calendar 2015, which means they have about two and one third years left. They have bought back $17.95 billion already, thanks to the huge Q3 purchase, but that means that the average per quarter the rest of the way won’t be as much.

It’s interesting to note how this buyback was executed, and this is something covered on the conference call. Apple spent $4 billion to repurchase shares during the quarter. The other $12 billion was part of an accelerated repurchase. The accelerated purchase program is a bit complex, so here’s what they said.

An initial delivery of 23.5 million shares was made under this program with the final number of shares delivered in average price per share to be determined at the conclusion of the program, based on the volume weighted average purchase price of Apple’s stock over the program period, which will conclude in fiscal ’14.

Q4 Guidance:

Apple gave the following guidance for fiscal Q4:

Revenues between $34 billion and $37 billion.

Gross margin between 36% and 37%.

Operating expenses between $3.9 billion and $3.95 billion.

Other income of $200 million.

Tax rate of 26.5%

This guidance is slightly disappointing in my opinion. I mentioned in my preview article that Apple was up against a tough Q4 comparable, where they had $35.97 billion in revenues last year. Remember, Apple launched the iPhone 5 with about ten days left in the quarter, which provided a nice late revenue boost. So at the midpoint of Apple’s guidance, Apple is guiding to a year over year decline in Q4 revenues. They did the same thing with Q3, but still managed to show a $300 million increase.

It’s very interesting to note how analyst estimates have changed for Q4 over time. Apple analysts have a tendency to panic into the quarter. They lower estimates again and again, which made the Q3 beat bigger, and made the Q4 guidance look a little better. The following table shows a brief history of the average revenue and earnings estimate for fiscal Q4.

On the last day before earnings, since there were no changes on Monday, the average revenue estimate dropped quite a bit. In the past two weeks, the average has come down by about $750 million. Apple’s guidance would have been much more disappointing had the analyst average still been near $38 billion. Again, this is the game analysts can play with any stock, and with Apple, it has gotten quite predictable.

This disappointing Q4 revenue guidance also questions the launch of a potential cheaper iPhone or a revamped iPhone 5S. Now, there have been some concerns that Apple’s 5S supply has been limited by component issues. So it is possible that Apple will launch the new phone during the quarter, but might not have as many to sell as they would have hoped. But if they are also launching a cheaper version, or any other new products, you would have expected revenue guidance to be higher, maybe around $38 billion. This means that most launches should be in fiscal Q1 (calendar Q4) or in 2014, something I’ll expand on in the next section.

Apple does not provide earnings per share guidance anymore, so we have to estimate where they could be. If you use the midpoints of their Q4 guidance for revenues and gross margins, I come up with $7.34. That is also based on the diluted share count from Q3, so if they buy back any shares, earnings per share will improve. Also, they could come in at the higher end of their ranges, which they did in Q3. Still though, analysts were looking for $7.96 in Q4, so this forecast is probably a bit light. It’s even lighter when you consider how much estimates have come down in recent weeks, as I showed above.

Making the long case for Apple:

While there were some disappointments with the Q3 results, it overall was a good quarter. Like I said, it really was a throwaway quarter, and many are focused on Apple’s future. Q4 guidance was a little light. So why should investors be long Apple? Let me make my case here.

First, the Q4 guidance. It could have been worse. The guidance was certainly higher than the company’s Q3 guidance. The top end of the Q4 guidance was $1.5 billion more than the Q3 top end. That leads me to believe something is coming during the quarter. If nothing was coming, guidance would be in the low $30 billion area, because you would see a continued sales drop-off as we got closer to new products. With guidance in the mid $30 billion range, that means something is coming. Now it could be a supply constrained product, but for now, that’s okay. Something is better than nothing.

The second reason is the buyback. Apple bought back a lot of stock in Q3, which significantly improved earnings per share. While I would have liked to see the buyback a little more spread out, Apple made a clear signal. They wanted to return capital to shareholders, and they believed the stock was undervalued. This will improve earnings per share even more in Q4 and Q1 than originally thought, which means we might have to start raising earnings estimates for certain quarters. Raising earnings estimates has not been a phrase used much with Apple in the past year.

Third, the death of the iPhone and saturation of the smartphone market were greatly exaggerated. Apple produced a tremendous sales figure in terms of units, but selling prices were low. Looking back at the Q3 results, it was better for an iPhone blowout than an iPad blowout. The iPhone is much higher margin, which is why gross margins came in towards the upper end of the range, instead of the bottom end like Q2. People still are buying lots of iPhones, and that’s good when it is your top product and a higher margin one.

Another reason to be positive is the following quote provided directly in the earnings release, not the conference call. This is what CEO Tim Cook had to say:

We are really excited about the upcoming releases of iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, and we are laser-focused and working hard on some amazing new products that we will introduce in the fall and across 2014.

For those that believed Apple could not innovate anymore, you may be wrong. Cook did not just say that Apple has some new products coming, he used the phrase “laser-focused”. There have been many that have questioned Cook’s leadership in the past, and I believe that the above statement proves he does have a clue right now. This wasn’t a quote buried in the conference call, it was a direct statement in the earnings release from the CEO.

Also, you cannot forget about the dividend! Apple is paying shareholders $12.20 a year, which represented about a 2.80% yield based on after-hours prices. That yield would be 30 basis points more than a 10-Year U.S. Treasury bond currently.

Final Thoughts:

Apple’s Q3 report was decent, but not spectacular by any means. While the company sold a ton of iPhones, the average selling price was really disappointing. Mac sales were a bit light, and selling prices were worse. Apple’s iPad sales greatly missed expectations, but selling prices were fairly decent in my opinion. Apple’s “other revenues” and iPod line also disappointed slightly. Thanks to the iPhone surprise, Apple’s margins were decent. The company bought back a ton of shares, which really helped the EPS figure.

Apple’s stock rose about 4% in the after-hours session, which is a fair gain in my opinion. Everyone seems to be focusing on the iPhone sales unit number, and that’s not a bad thing to look at. I think that Apple is a decent buy here, and my price target of roughly $485 reflects that. Of course, I have always advised to buy on pullbacks, so if Apple (or the market) pulls back, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to buy if shares went back to the $400 to $425 range. Apple’s future seems a little brighter today than it did at this time yesterday. I might have been slightly disappointed with some of the Q3 numbers, but I’m a little more hopeful on Apple’s future.

About us and this blog

We are a digital marketing company with a focus on helping our customers achieve great results across several key areas.

Request a free quote

We offer professional SEO services that help websites increase their organic search score drastically in order to compete for the highest rankings even when it comes to highly competitive keywords.

Subscribe to our newsletter!

More from our blog

See all posts

Leave a Comment