Apple, Microsoft and GoPro reported their respective June quarter results on Wednesday. Surprisingly, shares of all three technology heavyweights are down on Wednesday even though they handily exceeded Wall Street expectations. Apple shares fell 6.58% to $122.15 in early trading Wednesday as investors were disappointed by its fiscal Q3 results and guidance for the current quarter.
Why Apple investors are disappointed
Yes, investors were disappointed by a company that just reported a mammoth $10.7 billion in quarterly profits. Apple earned $1.85 per share in Q3 earnings on revenues of $49.6 billion. Analysts were expecting $1.81 in EPS and $49.43 billion in revenue. Greater China revenue almost doubled to $13.23 billion from $6.23 billion in the same quarter a year ago.
So, what disappointed the Wall Street? Well, there are three things: it was Apple’s smallest EPS beat in two years, bearish guidance for the current quarter, and lower-than-expected shipments of iPhones.
Apple shipped 47.5 million iPhones during the quarter, slightly less than the bullish Wall Street expectations of 49 million units. Gross margins improved YoY from 39.4% to 39.7%. Apple’s fiscal Q4 revenue guidance was $49 billion to $51 billion with gross margin between 38.5% and 39.5%. By comparison, analysts were anticipating $50.85 billion in revenue and 39.1% in gross margins.
Microsoft earnings hit by one-time charges
Microsoft shares were down 2.59% to $46.05 at 11:02 AM EDT on Wednesday. The Redmond-based software giant posted fiscal Q4 earnings of 62 cents a share on $22.18 billion in revenue. Analysts on average were expecting 56 cents a share in EPS, including one-time charges, and $22.03 billion in revenue. However, Microsoft’s results were hit by restructuring charges and cooling demand for its legacy software products.
Microsoft took $7.5 billion hit from its Nokia acquisition, plus other restructuring charges. Total impairment and restructuring charges stood at $8.4 billion. These write-downs led to a $3.2 billion quarterly net loss. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been focusing on cloud services. Microsoft’s commercial cloud computing revenue surged 88% YoY. Meanwhile, Windows OEM revenue fell 22% and Office revenues were down 4% from the corresponding quarter a year ago.
Longboard Asset Management CEO Cole Wilcox told CNBC that the software giant was in a “transition phase as a business.” Wilcox added that Microsoft was poised to make huge advances in the cloud segment.
GoPro offers upbeat guidance for the current quarter
GoPro reported June quarter revenue of $419.9 million, up 71.7% from the corresponding quarter a year ago. The action camera maker posted earnings of $0.35 per share. Analysts on average were anticipating $0.26 per share in earnings and $395.2 million in revenue. GoPro CEO Nick Woodman said in a statement that the company had launched five new cameras in the last 10 months, including the latest Hero4 Session and Hero+ LCD.
The San Mateo-based company shipped 1.647 million devices during the quarter. Sales in North America rose 39% YoY to $212.3 million. Even more impressive was the revenue growth in international markets. GoPro said its EMEA revenue surged 105% to $137.2 million and Asia-Pacific revenues shot up 183% to $70.4 million. Notably, China has now become one of the top-10 revenue generating countries for GoPro.
GoPro also issued upbeat guidance for the current quarter. The company expects September quarter revenue of $430 million to $445 million and EPS between 29 and 32 cents. That’s well above the consensus estimate of $404 million in revenue and 23 cents in EPS.
