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Apple is simply printing money now. Remarkable financial success. It is notable that between Q4 2010 and Q1 2011 (the latter includes the holiday season), the

by ergo98 16y ago

Apple is simply printing money now. Remarkable financial success. It is notable that between Q4 2010 and Q1 2011 (the latter includes the holiday season), the growth areas were the iPod [115%] and the iPad [75%]. Macs increased 6%, but actually decreased by 7% in the Americas. It's hard to hold it as a "bad" result, but among such stellar results the relatively small 15% growth of the iPhone does stand out. Tomorrow the talking heads will probably play that up despite the incredible scale of these results.

ugh 16y ago
How do the holidays come into play if you look at numbers like that? iPods have always spiked tremendously in the holiday quarter and iPads might be similar while the iPhone might be less of a Christmas present. Is there some way to normalize the data?
- Samuel_Michon 16y ago
  Good question. If you look at Apple's revenue by product line [1], it does appear that iPad is following the same seasonality as iPhone sales. That means that sales spike in FQ1 and the other quarters are roughly similar. It looks like iPad sales in FQ2 will be about 5 million, slightly higher than FQ4-2010 [2]. Even though the iPad is on a refresh pattern two months earlier than iPhone, I don't think it's going to hamper performance for FQ2, especially since enterprise makes up an increasingly large part of sales. [1] http://images.macworld.com/images/news/graphics/157242-corrected-results_original.png http://images.macworld.com/images/news/graphics/157242-corre... [2] http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/10/18results.html http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/10/18results.html
wiredfool 16y ago
It's really hard to look at quarter to quarter numbers and say that it's good or bad when you have the holiday buying season involved. It's better to look Year on Year (except for the iPad) There's also different bits of the product lifecycle to consider. Ipods were refreshed in September, (probably in anticipation of the holidays), but they're down year on year. Iphones are nearing the mid point of the yearly cycle, and I'd expect them to be relatively flatish until summertime. (except for that whole verizon thing). Ipads should be mostly flatish, since world + dog expects a refresh in April. The fact that the ios devices aren't flat is saying that there's a huge demand for these things that hasn't been filled yet.
- ergo98 16y ago
  It's better to look Year on Year (except for the iPad) Sure, but in this case the input in question is the renewed competition courtesy of Android. The natural question everyone will have is how that impacts the iPhone. For reference, for the same quarter over quarter of 2009, iPhone sales increased 68%. Iphones are nearing the mid point of the yearly cycle, and I'd expect them to be relatively flatish until summertime I wouldn't expect this at all. While we might get a sense that everyone is like us, most consumers aren't planning their purchase around Apple's update cycle. They decide they want a smartphone so they go and buy one. We all know that the smartphone market is exploding, and there is a huge untapped reserve of potential customers, so the numbers now are generally big. Regardless, the iPad and iPod more than make it up. While everone was talking about the 300,000 Android devices activated per day, over this quarter the combined iOS devices hit a simple division rate of almost 360,000 per day. That is amazing.
  - blinkingled 16y ago
    Not 300000 "Android devices" - 300000 Android "Phones". You are comparing Phones vs. Phones+Media Players+Tablets.
    - ergo98 16y ago
      Sure, but the Android tablet + media player market has been generally a giant bust thus far. A tonne of vapor, but very little action. I think that was a strategic failing on Google's part, as they intentionally kept criteria that crippled those markets while iOS was spreading far and wide (and that's all that really matters to a game developer).
      - blinkingled 16y ago
        Curious - If you add the Million+ Galaxy Tabs sold and every other manufacturer that sells Android like the Archos, B&N Nook Color, Chinese Androids(ZTE, Meizu) (see here for more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Android_devices http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Android_devices ) then where does the Android vs iOS equation stand? There is no point in playing the Android vs iOS game if you include all iOS devices. The only meaningful/hard numbers available for Android are for SmartPhones - so Android SmartPhones vs. iOS SmartPhone is the only comparison you could validly make.
phil 16y ago
Q/Q iPhone growth isn't that meaningful because they've been supply constrained. What you're actually seeing in that growth figure is how fast they've been able to grow iPhone production.

by ergo98 16y ago

ugh 16y ago

How do the holidays come into play if you look at numbers like that? iPods have always spiked tremendously in the holiday quarter and iPads might be similar while the iPhone might be less of a Christmas present. Is there some way to normalize the data?

Samuel_Michon 16y ago
Good question. If you look at Apple's revenue by product line [1], it does appear that iPad is following the same seasonality as iPhone sales. That means that sales spike in FQ1 and the other quarters are roughly similar. It looks like iPad sales in FQ2 will be about 5 million, slightly higher than FQ4-2010 [2]. Even though the iPad is on a refresh pattern two months earlier than iPhone, I don't think it's going to hamper performance for FQ2, especially since enterprise makes up an increasingly large part of sales. [1] http://images.macworld.com/images/news/graphics/157242-corrected-results_original.png http://images.macworld.com/images/news/graphics/157242-corre... [2] http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/10/18results.html http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/10/18results.html

wiredfool 16y ago

It's really hard to look at quarter to quarter numbers and say that it's good or bad when you have the holiday buying season involved. It's better to look Year on Year (except for the iPad) There's also different bits of the product lifecycle to consider. Ipods were refreshed in September, (probably in anticipation of the holidays), but they're down year on year. Iphones are nearing the mid point of the yearly cycle, and I'd expect them to be relatively flatish until summertime. (except for that whole verizon thing). Ipads should be mostly flatish, since world + dog expects a refresh in April. The fact that the ios devices aren't flat is saying that there's a huge demand for these things that hasn't been filled yet.

ergo98 16y ago
It's better to look Year on Year (except for the iPad) Sure, but in this case the input in question is the renewed competition courtesy of Android. The natural question everyone will have is how that impacts the iPhone. For reference, for the same quarter over quarter of 2009, iPhone sales increased 68%. Iphones are nearing the mid point of the yearly cycle, and I'd expect them to be relatively flatish until summertime I wouldn't expect this at all. While we might get a sense that everyone is like us, most consumers aren't planning their purchase around Apple's update cycle. They decide they want a smartphone so they go and buy one. We all know that the smartphone market is exploding, and there is a huge untapped reserve of potential customers, so the numbers now are generally big. Regardless, the iPad and iPod more than make it up. While everone was talking about the 300,000 Android devices activated per day, over this quarter the combined iOS devices hit a simple division rate of almost 360,000 per day. That is amazing.
- blinkingled 16y ago
  Not 300000 "Android devices" - 300000 Android "Phones". You are comparing Phones vs. Phones+Media Players+Tablets.
  - ergo98 16y ago
    Sure, but the Android tablet + media player market has been generally a giant bust thus far. A tonne of vapor, but very little action. I think that was a strategic failing on Google's part, as they intentionally kept criteria that crippled those markets while iOS was spreading far and wide (and that's all that really matters to a game developer).
    - blinkingled 16y ago
      Curious - If you add the Million+ Galaxy Tabs sold and every other manufacturer that sells Android like the Archos, B&N Nook Color, Chinese Androids(ZTE, Meizu) (see here for more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Android_devices http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Android_devices ) then where does the Android vs iOS equation stand? There is no point in playing the Android vs iOS game if you include all iOS devices. The only meaningful/hard numbers available for Android are for SmartPhones - so Android SmartPhones vs. iOS SmartPhone is the only comparison you could validly make.

phil 16y ago

Q/Q iPhone growth isn't that meaningful because they've been supply constrained. What you're actually seeing in that growth figure is how fast they've been able to grow iPhone production.