AAPL Financial News Weekly Roundup: Cook Looks for New Board Members, Bad Quarter for Samsung and More

After a relatively quiet last week, we can expect a bit more action this week as Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is set to report its third quarter earnings after the bell on Tuesday July 22. Analysts largely expect Apple will report $1.22 in earnings per share on $37.864 billion in revenue for expected year over year growth of 14% and 7% respectively. Q2 saw Apple's revenue increase by 5% and operating income increase by 8%. iPhone sales were up 15% while iPad sales were down 3%.

AAPL stock news roundup and outlook.

Samsung announced its Q2 earnings last week and reported a whopping 24% decline in income. This marks the third consecutive quarter in which the Korean giant reported a decline in profit. It pointed to increased competition in China and Europe as the primary culprit.

Tim Cook is reportedly looking for new board members. The current Board of Directors at Apple is aging, with six of the seven outside members over the age of 63. They are also known for their loyalty to Steve Jobs, which might not serve Cook

well as he looks to start new initiatives to keep Apple on top of the marketplace.

Apple's CarPlay, according to an ABI Research report, could be equipped in as many as 24 million cars by 2019. Apple has been steadily adding auto makers to its CarPlay roster, and now has a total of 29.

Apple's App Store celebrated its 6th anniversary last week. Over the past six years, the App Store has seen over 75 billion downloads and generated $15 billion for its nine million registered developers. According to Morgan Stanley, App Store revenue is on track to surpass iTunes revenue by the end of this year.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has pushed back his time frame for mass iWatch production. The analyst initially pointed to late September as the start of mass production, but now has pushed it back to mid to late November. He cites difficulties in both hardware and software engineering as the reason for the change. Some manufacturers will go ahead with production, and the iWatch is still expected to launch in October. Ming-Chi has lowered his 2014 sales estimates by 40%.