The Wall Street consensus on Apple Computer Inc’s fiscal fourth quarter and next fiscal year’s earnings is likely to be cut, analysts say after a conference call following Apple’s third quarter results (see page 5): sales in the third quarter were up 12%, compared with a 19% rise in the second quarter and while unit shipments rose 60% year-on-year, that too was below the 85% seen in the previous quarter – andgross margins slipped further – to 45.8% from 54% in the year-ago period; the size of the restructuring charge was more than double what most analysts had anticipated and caught them by surprise; Apple said one-third of the charge was related to redundancy payments, half was for cutting back facilities and moving operations to lower-cost areas and the rest represented reserves taken in connection with the Beatles’ trademark infringement lawsuit against Apple; no further employee reductions beyond the 15,000 already announced are seen.
