Apple expected to up the ante with new iPhone

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) —

While Apple Inc. may be keeping its latest product unveiling low-key, the iPhone event slated for Tuesday carries major implications for the company’s largest business.

More than 15 months after the launch of the iPhone 4, Apple’s

AAPL -2.37%  smartphone business is still going strong. More than 55 million iPhones were shipped in the first nine months of the company’s current fiscal year, accounting for 45% of total company revenues for that time. While Apple doesn’t break down profitability per device, analysts estimate the iPhone delivers margins in the low-to-mid 50% range — making it by far the most profitable product in the company’s lineup.

 

Still, competition is growing stronger, especially from phones using Google’s GOOG -2.36%  Android operating system. And Apple has taken longer than usual to update the iPhone this time around, a fact that kept the stock relatively flat in the first half of this year.

“To get the stock right over the next year, they have to get the iPhone right,” said Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray in an interview on Friday.

Apple sets iPhone event for Oct. 4

Apple invited reporters to an iPhone-related event Oct. 4, setting the stage for the widely anticipated launch of its latest smartphone. Stacey Delo has details from San Francisco on The News Hub.

Apple has scheduled an event for Tuesday morning at its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. While the famously tight-lipped company promised to “talk iPhone” in the invitation, it has given no further details as to what is expected.

The stock has been on an upswing of late, adding more than 22% since mid-June. Much of the upside has come on anticipation of the up-coming iPhone refresh as well as the growing dominance of the company’s iPad in the burgeoning tablet market. But the shares have remained relatively range-bound since Apple reported results for its third fiscal quarter on July 19.

Munster said the stock’s mixed performance has come largely from predictions that Apple may launch a special, low-end iPhone to go after emerging markets and segments like pre-paid services in North America. Such a move could strain Apple’s already full production capacity as well as crimp overall margins — if a low-end phone were to cannibalize sales of the regularly priced product.

Apple

Apple’s media invite for the Oct. 4 event.

“Given their production constraints, I think it would be a bad idea,” Munster said of a low-end iPhone. He believes Apple instead will lower the price of its older phones when the new one hits, as it has done in the past.

Since the iPhone 4 has remained a big-seller even past its one-year mark, many believe Apple can address other parts of the market with a lower price on the device. The company has cut the price on its last models — the 3G and 3GS — once newer products have launched.

“We are upbeat about the next iPhone but we wouldn’t be surprised if we saw the iPhone 4 remain in the line-up at lower price points to fend off the competition,” wrote Ben Reitzes of Barclays Capital in a note to clients on Wednesday.

iPhone 5?

The new iPhone to be unveiled on Tuesday will be the fifth in the product’s history, though there is some disagreement as to how the product will be designated.

Several analysts believe — and leaked images on gadget blogs suggest — that the new device will have a few outer design tweaks compared to the iPhone 4, including a larger screen, thinner body and a possible new backplate made from aluminum. 

Most also predict a new, faster processor, likely Apple’s own A5 chip that currently powers the iPad 2. Also, many believe Apple will ship the new device as a “world phone” that can use the differing wireless network standards. The company currently makes two different versions of the iPhone 4 for GSM network operators like AT&T T -1.11%  as well as one for the CDMA networks operated by carriers like Verizon. VZ -0.94%

What few expect is for Apple to incorporate 4G technology like LTE into the new device, given the limited availability of those networks. The company is widely expected to launch an LTE version of the iPhone in 2012.

Chris Whitmore of Deutsche Bank believes a lower-priced iPhone 4 will also be significant for Apple as new countries are added to its market. A lower production cost on the device would allow Apple to maintain its margins while lowering the price for other parts of the wireless market.

“An aggressive push into the mid-range will essentially double Apple’s iPhone TAM [total addressable market] in the near term and position it for more share gains in the 700M-plus unit smartphone market by 2014,” he wrote in a note to clients.

AAPL 381.32, -9.25, -2.37%

Aside from the hardware, the new iPhone is expected to be optimized for the company’s iOS 5 operating system update that is also expected to launch this month. Apple previewed the new software at its developer’s conference in June, which included the new iCloud service that synchs files across multiple devices and stores backups in the company’s cloud servers. Read full report on iCloud introduction.

The June event was also the last public appearance of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs before he stepped down from the CEO role in late August for health reasons. New chief executive Tim Cook and other top-ranking Apple executives are expected to run the event on Tuesday.

Apple is currently slated to report results for its fourth fiscal quarter on Oct. 18. Analysts expect strong results for the period, though iPhone sales may show some effect of consumers holding off purchases until the launch of the new device.

That means the December quarter will likely feel the full effect of the new iPhone, with many analysts expecting unit shipments in the 25-30 million range for the quarter. The company shipped about 16.2 million iPhones in the same period last year.

“We expect Apple to sustain its current momentum as its most recent [third fiscal quarter] results illustrate its impressive success in penetrating the Asia Pacific market and the company is ramping up in key emerging markets as well,” wrote Jeff Fidacaro in a note to clients.

Dan Gallagher is MarketWatch's technology editor, based in San Francisco.

17 years later, ‘Lion King’ still roars

Disney animated classic returns to win box-office weekend derby

 By Russ Britt, MarketWatch

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — Seventeen years after its initial theatrical release, Walt Disney Co.’s “The Lion King” returned in a new, 3-D format to beat all rivals over the weekend with nearly $30 million in box-office receipts.

Showing in 2,330 theaters, “Lion King” raked in an estimated $29.3 million, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com. Disney’s DIS -0.09%  take was nearly double what some prognosticators had predicted for the weekend.

Hollywood.com box-office president Paul Dergarabedian said the film’s performance was a “total shocker,” as the studio itself had predicted box office of roughly $12 million for the weekend.

“Nobody expected this. This was the most underestimated film opening,” Dergarabedian said. He pointed out “Lion King’s” Saturday gross was $12 million. “That’s what people thought the weekend would be.”

Disney took a chance by re-releasing the film in the 3-D format, since a number of films designed for the 3-D screen have floundered lately, Dergarabedian said.

“This is a good PR coup for the 3-D format,” he said.

“Lion King” also was far ahead of its nearest competitor, the pandemic thriller “Contagion” from Time Warner Inc.’s TWX +0.23%  Warner Bros. unit. “Contagion” made an estimated $14.5 million in its second weekend in theaters.

Fourth place was occupied by another Disney entry, “The Help,” a drama that made $6.4 million in its sixth weekend. The drama, which has shown strong staying power, has made $147.4 million thus far.

“Lion King” is the story of a lion cub exiled from his African kingdom after his father dies who returns to assume his throne. It originally was released in June 1994. It represented the pinnacle of Disney’s revival of its animated unit under the leadership of Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Eisner and studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg.

The film made $328 million in domestic receipts at the time, strong enough to land 24th on the all-time list. Worldwide, the film made $783 million, and is 35th on that all-time list.

“Lion King” is the strongest Disney performer of its pre-Pixar films. Only last year’s “Toy Story 3” and 2003’s “Finding Nemo” rank ahead of it in all-time worldwide receipts among Disney animated films.

UBS hit by $2 billion loss from rogue trader

LONDON (MarketWatch) — Swiss bank UBS AG said Thursday that a rogue trader in its investment-banking division ran up $2 billion of losses, which could push the firm’s third-quarter results into the red.

Click to Play

Three Years After Lehman

Nearly three years to the day since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, WSJ Marketplace Editor Dennis Berman stops by Mean Street to discuss who the winners and losers are.

The announcement followed the early-morning arrest of a 31-year-old man in London on suspicion of ”fraud by abuse of position,” according to a statement from City of London police. The suspect remains in custody.

A spokesman for UBS CH:UBSN +5.23%   UBS +4.12%   declined to name the trader, but The Wall Street Journal identified him as Kweku Adoboli, an employee in the firm’s exchange-traded funds unit.

The bank, which has battled a string of high-profile crises over the past couple of years, said it may now report a loss for the current quarter, but added that none of its clients were affected.

Shares in UBS dropped 9.9% in afternoon trading.

According to his profile on networking site LinkedIn, Adoboli is a director of ETF and Delta One — a class of derivatives that are intended to move in very close step with the underlying asset.

Delta One is also the division at Societe Generale SA FR:GLE +3.44%  where Jerome Kerviel was a trader in 2008, when Kerviel’s unauthorized trades cost the French bank 4.9 billion euros ($6.7 billion).

In that case, Kerviel was accused of placing €50 billion of bets on stock-market futures — more than the entire market capitalization of SocGen at the time.

Latest crisis

The latest scandal for UBS comes on the back of several major setbacks in recent years.

The bank took some of the heftiest write-downs in Europe following the subprime crisis and was at the center of a recent high-profile tax-evasion scandal. It agreed to hand over the names of thousands of possible tax dodgers to U.S. authorities as part of a settlement.

UBSN 10.26, +0.51, +5.23% 2

5

The loss of confidence among clients led to a massive outflow of funds from the group’s private-banking operations, which it had only recently managed to stem.

Deutsche Bank analyst Matt Spick said a $2 billion loss would more than wipe out his current forecast for a third-quarter pretax profit of 1.5 billion francs ($1.7 billion).

On top of that, the announcement “may undo some of the reputational improvement in the private bank,” he added.

“Perhaps the silver lining is that this event could accelerate the decision-making progress at UBS on how to position and right-size the investment- banking operations within the group,” Spick said in a note to clients.

The investment-banking arm has struggled compared with rivals such as Credit Suisse Group AG CH:CSGN +4.75% CS +2.47% , leading the group to announce last month that it will cut around 3,500 jobs in the face of weaker earnings and slowing economic growth.