Earlier this week Apple's CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, held a conference call to discuss the company's third-quarter results and give fourth-quarter guidance.
Despite beating the earnings forecast for the 3rd quarter, taking in $1.07 billion ($1.19 per share, 11 cents better than Wall Street's forecast), the company expected a drop in profit for the upcoming 4th quarter. Apple, long known for conservative outlooks, predicted profit of $1 per share and $7.8 billion for the year's final quarter. Analysts, however, had expected Apple to reach $1.24 per share on $8.32 billion in sales.
To justify the bearish outlook, Oppenheimer cited "a future product transition."
From there, nothing could be predicted credibly, save for the barrage of rumors that began flying.
MarketWatch probed the possibility of
"a refresh for the iPod".
Gary Krakow at TheStreet believes the 'mystery' will unfold as an
"iPhone-based tablet computer."
Fortune cites investment banker Piper Jafrray in a note to clients on Tuesday morning, citing that changes and
price-drops for the MacBook and MacBook Pro might be in order, possibly starting at $999.
Even still, some Apple faithful are hoping for the launch of the long-rumored and much-discussed Mac Tablet.
Oppenheimer also said: “We’re delivering state of the art products at pricepoints that our competitors can’t match."
Regardless of the specifics, it appears Apple is sacrificing a little in the short-term for a lot of potential long-term growth.
