Here is your daily Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock news and rumors report for Oct. 15, 2010. Following up on the announcement that it would begin selling the iPad later this month, Verizon reveals discounted data plans for new buyers of AAPL’s tablet. Skype debuts version 5.0 of its VoIP service that sports Facebook integration, but stays mum on the unreleased Mac version. Finally, Piper Jaffray analyst says that Apple shareholders should rein in expectations for Monday’s fourth-quarter earnings report due to the summer’s iPad and iPhone 4 supply shortages.
Verizon Lays Out iPad Data Plans: Apple and Verizon (NYSE: T) announced their first official partnership yesterday, revealing that the powerful telecom would begin selling the iPad tablet computer on Oct. 28. Verizon said it would not be supporting the 3G models of AAPL’s tablet, but would offer devoted Internet communication to customers using Novatel Wireless’ Verizon-supported MiFi 2200 Mobile Hotspot, a portable wireless router. When the announcement was first made, data plan pricing was not available beyond the base package, giving users 1GB of data for $20 month. Late yesterday, Verizon rolled out the rest of its data plan options, including a 3GB plan for $35 per month and a 5GB at $50 per month. The data plans are discounted over Verizon’s traditional data rates on devices like the Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android-powered Droid X from Motorola (NYSE: MOT), which run $35 per month for just 250MB of data and $60 for 5GB. The rates are lowered to accommodate for the high price of the three iPad and MiFi Mobile Hotspot packages available to Verizon customers.
Skype 5.0 Coming to Apple Platforms Soon: VoIP service Skype pulled the curtain back on its next major update, Skype 5.0, yesterday. The new Skype brings with it a wealth of new features, including group video calling and a completely redesigned interface. The update also heavily integrates social network Facebook into the service, letting Skype users see Facebook updates directly in the Skype interface and allowing for text messaging and voice calls to Facebook friends’ mobile and home phones. Skype 5.0, however, was only announced for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows yesterday. This morning, Skype posted on its official Mac blog that the updated service will be coming soon to Mac platforms, but it does not guarantee that Mac users will enjoy the new Facebook functionality found in the Windows version.
iPad, iPhone 4 Shortages May Affect Fourth-Quarter Earnings for Apple: Apple is expected to report unprecedented revenue and profits when it discloses its fourth fiscal quarter earnings on Monday morning. After breaking the $300 per share barrier this week, it’s hard to think that Apple’s conference call could yield anything that could be seen as bad news. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, however, is advising AAPL shareholders to temper their expectations as profits may not be as high as hoped. This is because of the supply shortages that plagued both the iPhone 4 and the iPad throughout the summer. Munster expects Apple to report 11 million units in iPhone sales and 4.5 million units in iPad sales, numbers that are “slightly below street due to uncertainty regarding the impact of supply shortages that we have monitored throughout the quarter.” Under ideal circumstances, Apple could report earnings of $4.80 per share on $18.8 billion in revenue, but Munster says a more realistic expectation that takes shortages into consideration is $3.87 per share on $18.7 billion in revenue.
As of this writing, Anthony Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here.
