AT&T Earnings Tuesday, First Look at Formal iPhone Sales? (T, VZ, AAPL)

Dow Jones Industiral Average component and reconstituted "Bells" telecom player AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is set to report earnings Tuesday morning.  Shares initially did quite well this year after a a near 50% recovery from lows, even if they have been a bit rangebound for the last 60 days.  Analysts are looking for $0.67 EPS on revenues of $29.6 Billion according to First Call. If the company offers formal guidance, next quarter EPS is pegged at $0.70 and revenues are pegged at $29.9 Billion.

The difference today compared to its earnings last quarter is that the chart has flattened out more than it had next quarter.  It won’t be known if it this was just a consolidation for a breather back to the upside or if this was a near-term top until after the report.  Wall Street analysts still have an average price target of close to $44.00 based on their fundamental analysis for the next 12 to 18 months.  This is also only the second report out of the company that has all of the full integrations of the AT&T-SBC-BellSouth-Cingular all truly under one name and roof, and those integrations will probably be a focus. 

This will also be the first real analysis offered on the prized iPhone from Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), so look for some focus there and see if that can impact estimates on Apple’s numbers or future guidance coming later in the week; and we may get to glimpse at least some formation of what AT&T can expect financially from teh exclusive alliance.  It will be interesting to see if the company comments on the recent telegraph by Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) that it wants to bid in the next spectrum auctions, as well as how well the company is winning broadband customers with high speed web access and digital TV packages againt the cable operators. 

Shares spent most of Monday higher by 2% along with a strong market, so investors weren’t showing any signs of panic ahead of the numbers.  This could also be viewed as a harbinger for competitor Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ), which reports earnings on July 30.

Jon C. Ogg
July 23, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.