NEW YORK (TheStreet) Apple (AAPL) announces its fiscal first-quarter earnings report after the close, and the whole investing world will be watching its numbers, especially the iPad figures.
Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brian White notes that the iPad Air really helped drive results this quarter, given the enormous amount of positive praise from tech reviewers, media, analysts and consumers alike. "For the iPad, we believe Apple could exceed our 24.5 million unit forecast for 1Q:FY14 driven by strong demand for the higher-margin, higher-ASP iPad Air," White wrote in his note. "We believe the first-generation iPad mini outsold the recently introduced Retina Display version in 1Q:FY14."
Though it's expected that Apple will have sold more than 20 million iPads during the quarter, its market share continues to drop due to Apple's high pricing. Credit Suisse analyst Kulbiner Garcha says he expects Apple's market share to fall to 22% in 2014, down from 41% in 2012. "While we see the tablet market growing to 447mn units by 2017 (nearly twice CY13 estimates) we see most of the incremental growth in the sub $200 ASP segment where Apple is not currently exposed," Garcha wrote in his note.
For the full quarter, analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect Apple to earn $14.07 per share on $57.45 billion in revenue.
TheStreet is live-blogging the results, starting at 3:45 P.M.