Time Of The Season: Apple's Q3 A Prelude To Anxiously Awaited September

Like barbecue equipment and snow shovels, the price of Apple Inc.AAPL tends to be influenced by the season, with the upcoming third-quarter report likely to be relatively weak in the run-up to a big final quarter, an analyst said Tuesday.

"Q3 tends to be seasonally weak for Apple as consumers await release of new products in Q4. The main thing will be number of iPhone units they've actually moved,” said Victor Jones, director of international trading at TD Ameritrade.

“We'll be looking to see whether they beat that number from a year ago."

Projections To Beat

The world’s richest company is projected to post quarterly earnings at $1.57 per share on revenue of $44.8 billion. That would be up 10.7 percent jump in earnings per share and a 6-percent jump in revenue from the year-ago period.

Related Link: Apple Stock Holds Steady Ahead of Q3 Report

Jones said services such as iCloud and iMusic are 13 percent of revenue, an area that will be watched closely when Apple releases its report when the market closes Tuesday.

“They said they're looking to double that by 2020. Obviously, Apple's revenue is fairly seasonal. That sector provides an opportunity for them to diversify and provide non-seasonal revenue," he said.

What To Expect?

Wall Street will likely want to know about rumors swirling around the company’s supply chain and whether the September release of the iPhone 8 — the 10th anniversary of the phone that changed the world — might be delayed.

Other things investors might want to know? Whether Apple supplier Foxconn’s plans to build a $10 billion plant in Wisconsin is a precursor of Apple’s own intentions. President Donald Trump told the Wall Street Journal that Apple CEO Tim Cook told him the company planned to build three plants in the United States.

"They're going to get questions from analysts on their plans to build plants in the U.S. And they're also going to get questions around their supply chain,” Jones said. “I'm not expecting them to give many details about that."