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Can Apple earnings top its historic last quarter?

Jon Swartz
USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple made history — not to mention an obscene amount of money — in its last quarterly result.

The Apple Watch during the media hands-on event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

Let us count the ways: A record 74.5 million iPhones sold. The largest quarterly profit — a staggering $18 billion — in corporate history. A mountain of revenue generated ($74.6 billion) on stellar earnings of $3.06 a share.

So, can it possibly top such an historic quarter, when it reports its fiscal second-quarter results late Monday?

As sequels go, this one is as foreboding as improving on Jaws and Blade Runner. (Realistically, the last three months of 2015 are the true litmus test.)

No one reasonably expects the same iPhone results. Apple (AAPL) was the beneficiary of white-hot sales of a long-awaited bigger-screen smartphone during the holiday season, its best quarter of the year. (Stifel analyst Aaron Rakers expects quarterly iPhone sales of 59.6 million, compared to a previously predicted 53.6 million, because of strong demand in China.) Analysts polled by FactSet also anticipate it sold 15 million iPads.

Tim Cook at a recent Apple developers conference.

On the revenue side, analysts expect Apple to ring up $55.9 billion, up 22% from the same quarter a year earlier, according to research firm FactSet.

Analysts are calling for the company to report 29.5% higher adjusted earnings of $2.15 a share. Investors are gobbling up shares in anticipation of the results, to be announced after markets close.

Apple's stock closed at $130.28 on Friday, up 18% for the year and 61% in the last 12 months. It was up 1.8% Monday afternoon.

The X-factor this quarter, and a harbinger of the next several quarters, is how receptive the American public is to Apple Watch, which went on sale earlier this month.

Colin Gillis, research director at BGC Financial, expects a pop. He predicts Apple will sell 30 million Apple Watches in the first four quarters they are available. By comparison, 19.4 million iPads and 11.6 million iPhones were sold in their first years, respectively.

Apple, which started taking advanced orders for the watch on April 10, sold watches to more than 1 million people in the first day, estimates Slice Intelligence, a market researcher that tracks online shopping.

Another narrative for Apple's results: Long-term shipment forecasts for Apple Watch, the first new hardware category for Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Apple Watch "may be the future, but the phone is the here and now," says Cathy Boyle, senior mobile analyst at eMarketer.

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