Apple Expected to Report Best-Ever Second Quarter Today With Anticipated Clues About iPhone X Sales

aapl logo 2018Apple is set to report its earnings results for the second quarter of its 2018 fiscal year at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time today.

The quarter began December 31, 2017 and ended March 31, 2018, according to Apple's fiscal year accounting calendar.

Apple provided the following guidance for the quarter back on February 1:

  • revenue between $60 billion and $62 billion

  • gross margin between 38 and 38.5 percent

  • operating expenses between $7.6 billion and $7.7 billion

  • other income/expense of $300 million

  • tax rate of approximately 15 percent

Apple's guidance suggests the company will report its best second quarter results ever, topping its previous record of $58 billion:

  • 2014: $45.6 billion

  • 2015: $58.0 billion

  • 2016: $50.6 billion

  • 2017: $52.9 billion

  • 2018: $60+ billion

Wall Street analysts forecast that Apple will report $60.9 billion revenue, meeting roughly the midpoint of its guidance, and earnings per share of $2.69, according to over 30 estimates averaged by Yahoo Finance.

MacRumors has compiled second quarter revenue and EPS estimates from a handful of Apple-focused analysts:

aapl q2 2018

Key Takeaways and What to Look For

  • Apple is expected to report iPhone unit sales of 51.9 million, a roughly two percent increase over 50.8 million in the year-ago quarter, according to average analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

  • Apple doesn't break out iPhone sales on a model-by-model basis, but the iPhone's average selling price should reveal whether there's any truth to reports that iPhone X sales have slowed significantly. iPhone ASP was $796 last quarter, up from $695 a year earlier.

  • Of increasing importance is continued growth of Apple's services category, including the App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, iTunes, Apple Pay, and AppleCare. The average analyst estimate is around $8.3 billion, according to Gene Munster, up from $7.04 billion in the year-ago quarter.

  • With increasing competition from Huawei, Vivo, and Oppo, Apple's performance in Greater China will be a focus. Apple reported revenue of $10.4 billion in the region in the year-ago quarter.

  • Apple said it would provide an update on its capital return program during today's conference call, and many analysts expect significant increases, given the company's plans to repatriate an estimated $250+ billion in overseas cash under new tax laws in the United States.

  • Apple's third quarter guidance will set expectations for April-June, which has historically been the slowest period of the company's fiscal year. The average revenue estimate is currently $52.04 billion, according to Yahoo Finance, which would top $45.4 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Apple's CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri will discuss the company's earnings results on a conference call at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time today. MacRumors will loosely transcribe the one-hour call as it happens.

Tags: AAPL, Earnings

Popular Stories

iOS 18

Apple Expected to Release iOS 18.3 Next Week With These New Features

Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones. Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3. Notification Summary Changes Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries Apple Intelligence...
iOS 18

5 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.3

Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes. While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...
Generic iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Beta Coming Soon With These New Features for Your iPhone

Friday January 24, 2025 8:16 am PST by
iOS 18.3 is expected to be widely released next week, and that means the first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner. Apple has previously implied that iOS 18.4 will be released in April, as that is when it promised to make Apple Intelligence available in even more languages. Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far. Apple Intelligence for Siri Siri ...
Apple Pay Walmart Feature

Walmart Stands Firm on Why It Doesn't Accept Apple Pay in the U.S.

Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today. A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
apple tv 4k new orange

New Apple TV Launching This Year With These New Features

Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device. The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
iOS 18

Here Are Apple's Full Release Notes for iOS 18.3

Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes. The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Horizontal Single Feature

Kuo: iPhone 17 Models Won't Have Smaller Dynamic Island

Friday January 24, 2025 9:09 am PST by
The upcoming iPhone 17 models that Apple plans to release this year will not feature a smaller Dynamic Island, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today. On social media, he said that he is expecting the size of the Dynamic Island to remain "largely unchanged" across the iPhone 17 lineup. His statement is contrary to prior rumors that we've heard about planned changes for the iPhone 17 models. ...
iPhone 16 Apple Store Levels

Gurman: Apple Stores Receiving 'Merchandise' Updates Next Week

Saturday January 25, 2025 5:07 pm PST by
Apple's retail stores will be rolling out "merchandise/floor marketing updates" next week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman did not explicitly say if the store updates are related to any upcoming product announcements, but he did mention that next week is around the time that Apple rolls out its annual Black Unity watch band for the Apple Watch. In each of the past four years, ...
apple power beats pro 2

Apple's First Product Announcement of 2025 is Imminent

Thursday January 23, 2025 2:48 pm PST by
It's also time for Apple's first product announcement of the year. Last year, Apple said it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and the wireless earbuds are expected to launch very soon. Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code In his Power On newsletter last weekend, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the...

Top Rated Comments

WWPD Avatar
88 months ago
I really hope Apple can pull through, I like to root for the underdogs.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Rogifan Avatar
88 months ago
I’ve never seen another company that generates so much noise around earnings. Every quarter Wall Street is in a panic about Apple. And it’s always that the next quarter is going to be bad. So last earnings call Wall Street was panicked about the March quarter. Now they’re panicked about June. And two months from now they’ll be panicked about September. What other company (tech or not) continuously has Wall Street panicked the way Apple does. I can’t think of one.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
5105973 Avatar
88 months ago
Hope everyone is ready to see Apple is doing quite well.
I’m neither ready nor unready. They aren’t giving me any of those billions. I also don’t own any of their stock. I’m just the idle curious up in the peanut gallery.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dirt_farmer Avatar
88 months ago
What the actual SNAP?! Can I call Google that, too? It's not 1990 for Apple. It's not 2001 for Google. If anyone really see Apple as the little guy shoving elbows just to get a seat on the big bus is astonishing, seeing history unfold as it has.
You have to look at trajectory, not position.

Apple today is what Blackberry was in 2007. Amazing at what they did and the de facto standard among wide swaths of society.

But also camping on ten-year-old ideas with no significant game changers in the R&D pipeline.

If you were at Blackberry in 2008 you would be reveling in the greatest balance sheet in the company's history...and in dominating your market space!

What you would not realize and what Apple does not realize is that the old ideas can't carry you forever.

And in case you don't think that the comparison is fair, remember that Blackberry at it's peak was #1 in the smartphone market.

Apple is currently #2 and declining.

Scroll through this and tell me that Blackberry didn't just have a few revolutionary ideas from the 90's that they milked all through the 2000's for obscene profit:

https://www.engadget.com/2009/12/28/ten-years-of-blackberry/

Meanwhile, every world-changing paradigm at Apple was developed by Steve Jobs.

Since then, they have invented dongles and baubles and earphones and a speaker that no one bought. And a watch that didn't really take off.

So yes, it's 1990 again for Apple. They just don't know it yet.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dumastudetto Avatar
88 months ago
I’ve got four words for you:
I.
Love.
This.
Company.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bluecoast Avatar
88 months ago
I’ve got four words for you:
I.
Love.
This.
Company.
Developers, developers, developers!
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)