Wall Street is bullish about Apple as shares soar to all-time highs
Apple beat Wall Street's expectations on both revenue and earnings, sending its stock jumping more than 5%, and also issued strong revenue guidance for the next quarter - hinting at the launch of an eagerly awaited redesigned iPhone in September.
Apple's stock is sitting close to $150.
In a research note, analysts for Macquarie wrote that the firm's call "was one of its most bullish in recent memory," and they touted augmented reality as a potential growth area: "We expect that in addition to being a key marketing and functional driver of iPhone hardware, AR is going to be directly monetized via the App Store ... We think AR will have some important near-term and many significant long-term implications for Apple and others."
William Blair, meanwhile, said it remained "bullish on the iPhone segment due to a combination of positive demand trends in emerging markets ... a weak competitive landscape in the smartphone space ... and the company taking an aggressive approach to enabling the device for next-generation applications."
Not everyone was so positive, though, with Barclays analysts warning that "pre-launch fervor" for the iPhone 8 "could get frothy" and that they remained "skeptical."
Business Insider has rounded up a load of analyst reactions to Apple's third-quarter results, and you can read them all below. We have illustrated their comments with charts from BI Intelligence.
But first, here are all the key numbers, via Business Insider's Kif Leswing:
- Q3 earnings per share (GAAP): $1.67, up 17% year-over-year, versus expectations of $1.57
- Q3 revenue: $45.4 billion, up 7% year-over-year, versus expectations of $44.95 billion
- Gross margin: 38.5%, up 1% year-over-year, versus expectations of 38.2%
- iPhone unit sales:41.0 million, up 1% year-over-year, versus expectations of 41.1 million
- iPad unit sales: 11.42 million, up 14% year-over-year
- Mac unit sales: 4.292 million, flat year-over-year
- Q4 revenue guidance: $49 billion - $52 billion versus expectations of $49.21 billion