Some company called Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) sneaked out its results last night and as it rarely gets publicity, we'll start this report with that.
The results covered the third quarter of the calendar year but the fourth quarter of the iPhone maker's fiscal year.
The numbers were above expectations. Adjusted earnings per share came in at US$2.07 versus the consensus forecast of US$1.87.
Revenue of US$52.6bn was almost US$2bn above expectations.
Apple said it sold 46.7mln iPhones in the quarter, which was above the consensus forecast of 46mln.
“ Apple reported good results and guided strongly for FQ1 18 as it has managed to deal with some of the production problems with the iPhone X which will result in slightly better than expected shipments in FQ1 18. FQ4 17 revenues / EPS were $52.6bn / $2.07 compared to estimates of $50.7 / $1.87,” noted Richard Windsor, an analyst at Edison Investment Research.
“Slightly soft iPhone 8 demand has been offset by a 25% jump in Mac shipments and a 14% jump in iPad. Both of these products have clearly gained some share as the end markets for PCs and tablets have remained quite soft. The big problem with the iPhone X has been the facial recognition system where suppliers have struggled to produce enough components to the specification demanded by Apple,” he added.
Shares in Apple were up 4.5% in screen-based trading.
Overpriced coffee seller Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) initially saw its stock ease on its fiscal fourth quarter earnings before recovering.
Like-for-like sales year-on-year growth of 2.0% was some way below the 3.2% expected by analysts.
Earnings per share of 55 cents were in line with expectations but revenue of US$5.69bn, down 0.4% year-on-year, was US$110mln below the consensus market forecast.
Music streaming pioneer Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P) let all sorts of bad things out of the box with its third quarter earnings.
The stock lost more than a fifth of its value in after-hours trading after posting losses per share of 27 cents on revenue of US$378.6mln.
The revenue number was a bit shy of expectations of US$380.76mln.
Listener hours fell to 5.15 billion from 5.4 billion in same period of 2016.