Apple faces questions over future performance Anxiety over the pace of Apple's growth this year will overshadow the company's latest results, which are expected to be the second strongest in its history. Wall Street forecasts that demand for the iPhone 5, which was released in the middle of September, catapulted profits to $12.4bn (7.8bn pounds) in the final three months of last year. That is up from $8.2bn in the third quarter and trails only the record $13.6bn Apple made in the final three months of 2011. iPhone sales, though, are expected to have reached about 50m for the quarter as customers snapped up the iPhone 5. Both the bulls and the growing, though still small camp of bears, will want to hear how Mr Cook intends to cope with the increasing effort of Google, Amazon and Microsoft to compete in the smartphone and tablet market. Despite the renewed push from rivals who see the PC market shrinking further, Mr Gillis says it would be a mistake for Apple to compete on price. "Apple clearly won the battle when the first billion smartphones were sold," argues Mr Gillis. But if they were to chase down rabbit holes on price, they may lose their margins and their brand cache. Even so, there is increasing speculation that Apple will introduce a cheaper iPhone later this year aimed at the rapidly growing economies outside the West such as China. Those who argue that Apple will still become the first company to reach a $1trillion valuation believe that China will be central to it. An expected deal with China Mobile, the country's largest phone company with more than 700m customers, could prove a "major catalyst" for Apple, said Mr White of Topeka Capital. Shares in Apple closed up 1pc at $504.77 on Wall Street.