Upcoming Earnings Reports to Watch This Week

This week's upcoming earnings reports feature some big names, including four tech giants, a $245 billion consumer goods company, and one of America's largest automakers.

Here's a look at the six must-watch companies on this week's earnings calendar and what to expect before the reports...

Upcoming Earnings Reports: Six Q4 Reports to Watch This Week

MicrosoftUpcoming Earnings Reports No. 1: Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) shares rose 11.2% between July and September, and 25.8% overall in 2014. But the stock's momentum slowed at the end of 2014 when MSFT stock gained just 0.2% last quarter.

According to Yahoo! Finance, analysts are looking for earnings per share (EPS) of $0.71, down from $0.78 a year ago. Microsoft's EPS has declined in seven of the past 10 quarters. The revenue forecast is for $26.32 billion, up from $24.52 billion in the year-ago quarter.

In Q3, Microsoft's revenue soared. The company raked in $23.2 billion, beating estimates set at $22.02 billion. It was also an increase of 25% from the previous year. Microsoft's gaming sector continues to drive margins and revenue growth. Xbox sales increased 54% in Q3 2014 and 74% year-over-year. The company will release its earnings report today, Jan. 26, five days after revealing new details about its Windows 10 operating system.

Upcoming Earnings Reports No. 2: Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) is expected to set holiday sales records when Q4 numbers come out. According to financial services company UBS, Apple sold an estimated 69.3 million iPhones in the last three months of 2014. That shatters the previous record of 51 million. But iPad sales are a different story. Average estimates put iPads sales last quarter at 21.5 million. That's a 17.4% drop from last year's 26 million.

The company had revenue of $42.1 billion in Q3 2014. That's a $4.6 billion increase from the year before. The company estimates revenue between $63.5 billion and $66.5 billion for Q4.

Apple is set to release its Q4 results after the closing bell Tuesday, Jan. 27.

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Upcoming Earnings Reports No. 3: Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG) had a challenging third quarter due to struggling foreign markets. You see, about 60% of the company's revenue is generated outside North America. That, along with a strong U.S. dollar, decreased the value of international sales. The company reported $20.79 billion for Q3 2014. That's a loss of 2% from Q3 2013.

But those down figures didn't weight on PG shares. PG stock jumped 8.8% between October and December. In fiscal 2014, shares rose 13.2%. The consumer goods giant will release its upcoming earnings report Tuesday, Jan. 27.

Upcoming Earnings Reports No. 4: Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) is expected to deliver another earnings report that beats expectations. The company posted $3.2 billion in revenue in its Q3 report. That beat Wall Street's expectation of $3.12 billion. Its growing advertising sector made $2.96 billion that quarter, a 64% increase from Q3 2013.

Facebook's user numbers have also been growing. The third quarter saw 1.35 billion monthly active users, up 21.6% since the first quarter of 2013. Mobile monthly active users numbered 1.12 billion in that same time, with daily active users totaling 864 million.

FB stock reached a record high of $81.45 a share in late December. However, FB was down 1.3% overall in Q4. But despite the down end to the year, FB stock soared a whopping 43% in 2014. Facebook is expected to release earnings after trading closes on Wednesday, Jan. 28.

Upcoming Earnings Reports No. 5: Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) earned $0.24 per share, beating analyst expectations of $0.19 in its last report. But the company missed on several other figures.

Revenue came in at only $32.8 billion. That's shy of $33.3 billion estimates and was a 3.2% year-over-year decline. North American revenues dropped 6.1% to $19.9 billion. Ford attributed the drop to a volume shortage at one of its biggest plants.

Ford stock finished the year strong with a gain of 4.8%in Q4. But even with that gain, the stock finished the full year up just 0.6%.

Watch for production figures in this week's report, as the company expects volume of 1.54 million units in Q4. Make sure to keep an eye on product launches, as Ford expects to release 16 new models in 2015. Ford will release its Q4 report Thursday, Jan. 29.

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Upcoming Earnings Reports No. 6: Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL, GOOG) missed both its revenue and earnings per share marks in Q3. The company reported an EPS of $6.35 and revenue of $16.52 billion. Those missed estimates by 0.4% and 2.9%, respectively.

One of the biggest numbers to watch this week is average cost-per-click (CPC). That's the amount advertisers pay the company when their ads get a click. The average CPC fell by about 2% year over year in the third quarter.

According to eMarketer, Google dominates the mobile ad sector. But its market share is struggling due to growing competitors like Facebook.

Both classes of stock fell by an average of 9.3% in Q4, but analysts estimate Google will post better numbers in its Q4 report. They project an EPS of $7.13 and revenue of $18.5 billion. The search giant will release its upcoming earnings report Thursday, Jan. 29.

More on Google Stock: There are about 11.944 billion Google searches every month, and the company has almost twice as many users as Yahoo! and Baidu combined. And it just formed a business partnership that will make the World Wide Web truly worldwide...