A New Apple Product Will Have “Technologies And Features That Others Can’t Match”

Peter Oppenheimer, CFO of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) provided details on Apple’s quarterly earnings in a conference call yesterday.  A “future product transition” was repeated several times during the conference call that would affect company’s margins in the current quarter.

In the last quarter, Apple’s gross margin dropped to 34.8% from 36.9%.  This quarter, gross margins are expected to drop down by close to 30% due to the mysterious product.  The new product will have “technologies and features that others can’t match,” according to Oppenheimer.

In the last quarter Apple:
* sold roughly 2.5 million Macs
* sold 717,000 iPhones (due to unexplained shortages)
* had over 30 million store visitors
* App Store had 25 million downloads
* is releasing the iPhone 3G into 20 additional countries by August
* sold over 11 million iPods
* hosts over 8 million songs, 20,000 TV shows, and 2,200 movies (450 in HD) on iTunes

And what is the deal with the Apple TV?  It’s just a hobby for the company for now.  The company was pleased by it’s sales, but not pleased enough to report the numbers.

One of the biggest concerns on Wall Street is the health of Steve Jobs.  At the last WWDC, Steve Jobs looked like he had lost a lot of weight.   “Steve loves Apple, serves at the pleasure of the board, has no plans to leave Apple. Steve Jobs health is a private matter,” stated Oppenheimer.

Any guesses on what the new product will be?  Some are predicting that it will be a new line of iPods.  Clearly iPods are Apple’s best selling product in terms of units sold so the company must be doing something to continuously improve them.  The only thing we can really do is wait till September to find out.  I’d like to see an iPod with a built in FM and XM tuner.

Related Links:
1. ArsTechnica
2. AppleInsider

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