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Shares were up about 1% before the opening bell
on Monday. They had closed down 3.3% on Friday.
The court issued a permanent injunction that would let app
developers route players to alternative platforms to make
payments, allowing them to avoid Apple's 30% App Store fees.
Analysts said that while the ruling had the potential to eat
into Apple's services revenue, a big driver of growth in recent
years, any hit was still unclear, would be spaced out in time
and liable to be only a small fraction of overall income.
"In the end, I expect this to have at most a 2% headwind to
overall revenue and 4% to earnings," said Gene Munster, managing
partner at tech-centric VC firm Loup Ventures.
"After the first year of these changes, app store growth rates
will return to normal. Bottom line, it's at most a one year
headwind and does not change the big picture of where Apple is
going over the next 5 years."
Wedbush analysts also estimated that in a worst case scenario,
Apple would lose roughly 3% of total revenues and would be
closer to about a 1% revenue and profit headwind over the next
few years, given a vast majority of consumers will continue to
use the App Store for in-app purchases.
On Sunday, Epic said in a legal filing that it plans to appeal a
ruling in the antitrust case.
(Reporting by Nivedita Balu and Tanvi Mehta in Bengaluru;
Editing by Arun Koyyur and Patrick Graham)
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