By AppleInsider Staff

Published: 12:00 PM EST (09:00 AM PST)

Apple Computer at the close of the stock market on Wednesday will report earnings for its fiscal fourth quarter of 2006 and offer guidance for its fiscal first quarter of 2007.

On average, analysts polled by Thomson Financial expect the Mac maker to post earnings of 51 cents per share on sales of $4.66 billion. They're predicting shipments of 1.47 million Macs to offset relatively flat iPod sales of 8.6 million.

While most analysts are modeling in-line with consensus estimates, Shaw Wu of American Technology Research, Gene Munster of PiperJaffray and Jesse Tortora of Prudential, have each said the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is likely to beat those estimates.

What's unclear is whether yet-to-be disclosed non-cash charges related to its options scandal will prevent Apple from fully disclosing its fiscal year 2006 financial results. Wu recently told clients there is a fair likelihood the company will disclose only limited financial. "Should Apple give out full financials, we believe this would be viewed a positive," he said.

Following its earnings release Wednesday, Apple will also hold its quarterly financial conference call in which it will disclose guidance for its fiscal first quarter of 2007 (ending December), expected to deliver the highest sales and earnings in the company's history.

Like Wu, UBS Investment Research analyst Ben Reitzes believes Apple is likely to guide conservatively for the quarter as it attempts to reset high investor expectations.

"We believe Apple is likely to guide below our current estimate of $6.36 billion (+38 percent quarterly or +11+ yearly) citing last year's extra week in the December [quarter] as creating a tougher [comparison]," Reitzes wrote in a note to clients. "Based on what we know now, we see no reason for Apple to miss our new 1Q07 revenue estimate, but we also don’t see why Apple would diverge from its practice of guiding conservatively (i.e. below the street in terms of revenues)."

The call will also give Apple chief operating office Tim Cook and chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer the opportunity to offer an update on the company's stock option investigation. In a statement earlier this month, Apple said its internal probe "raised serious concerns regarding the actions of two former officers in connection with the accounting, recording and reporting of stock option grants," but did not disclose the names of those officers.

In previous financial conference calls, Apple executives have also provided updates updates on the company's iTunes sales and hinted at the ongoing development of an iPod-enabled cell phone. Analysts on Wednesday are likely to probe the company for an update on its first month of iTunes movie sales. After introducing the movie service in the middle of last month, Apple said it sold 125,000 movie downloads in the first week of operation, but has yet to provide any followup sales figures.