All eyes on Apple earnings and iPhone demand for the holidays

Apple is expected to post a fourth consecutive quarterly revenue decline after the close of trading Thursday, with all eyes on the company’s guidance for iPhone demand heading into the crucial holiday shopping period.

Martin Baccardax for TheStreet:
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Apple shares moved higher in pre-market trading ahead of its fourth quarter earnings after the closing bell, with investors likely focused on the tech giant’s outlook for holiday sales of its signature iPhone…
Apple is likely to post its fourth consecutive quarterly revenue decline after the close of trading, with analysts looking for an overall sales tally of $89.284 billion, with stronger, high-margin services sales powering a 7.7% increase in its bottom line, which is forecast to come in at $1.39 per share.
Key to the update, however, will be Apple’s holiday quarter outlook for sales of the iPhone 15, which launch in late September and thus will only have a minimal impact on the group’s fiscal fourth quarter sales.
“The elephant in the room this quarter is clearly China demand around iPhone 15 units which appears to have slowed the last month after coming out of the gates strong with pre-order activity,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, who carries an ‘outperform’ rating with a $300 [recte $240] price target on Apple stock.
“To this point, we believe Cook will have a generally positive tone on the call around China iPhone demand for the December quarter despite massively negative Street sentiment building around the Cupertino story,” he added. “In a nutshell, we believe over 100 million iPhones in China alone are in the window of an upgrade opportunity and that remains the golden goose on this cycle for Apple.”

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MacDailyNews Note: As always, we’ll have Apple’s results for you on Thursday right around 1:30 p.m. PDT / 4:30 p.m. EDT (just check our home page at that time). Following the earnings release, we’ll cover Apple’s fiscal Q423 conference call with live notes starting at 2:00 p.m. PDT / 5:00 p.m. EDT.
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