5 ms·

2 points: 1. Journalists love to headline percentage profit declines, because it's a bigger number, but large companies often have big swings in profitability.

2 points: 1. Journalists love to headline percentage profit declines, because it's a bigger number, but large companies often have big swings in profitability. Revenue changes are much more important, and the article states the revenue was down 24%. 2. I'm still baffled that this can be remotely surprising to anyone. All these "pandemic surge" companies (think Home Depot, Lowes, Peleton, and here Lenovo with laptops) had to have known this was just temporary. I mean, they sell durable goods, and obviously the pandemic pulled a ton of demand forward (as well as added demand). Nearly every kid in the country needed a laptop for remote school during the pandemic. How on earth did anyone think that demand could continue?

version_five 3y ago
Re: 2, it's just that nobody involved has any incentive to act like good times won't continue indefinitely. That's the natural consequence of pricing companies as the present value of their future earnings.
- thx-2718 3y ago
  That's why you pick stocks on what you think is run well/built to make money within the time frame you want your money there. Because then there's presumably a better chance that they will deliver on those earnings.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
bastardoperator 3y ago
Executives don't care. Of course they knew. They'll do anything for money even if it means destroying lives. They need that bonus and they need it now.
- happymellon 3y ago
  I don't see anywhere in that fine article that stated that Lenovo implied that sales were going to continue to go up, or that their actions were going to "destroy lives". Where did you come up with this?
  - Karunamon 3y ago
    Steelman: the irresponsible hiring sprees that many companies went on could be considered rather unethical considering all of them have the foreknowledge that the corona-era growth was temporary. Layoffs do cause damage to people's lives.
    - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      Steelman of the other side: Not producing the laptops that children needed to school from home during Covid would have been damaging, too. Not producing exercise equipment for people stuck at home would have been damaging, too. And so on.
      - Karunamon 3y ago
        Absolutely nothing stopped them from advertising those positions as temporary. I would be willing to bet most job offers seen by normal people said nothing about urgency, they were likely sold as permanent positions. And no, I do not think it should be up to the job seeker to understand larger industry trends before signing on.
        MattPalmer1086 3y ago
        Which positions should be temporary? Only new hires? A company sees demand and hires people. If demand falls, some people will be let go, but not necessarily the ones who just joined. All jobs are temporary, there has been no such thing as jobs for life in my entire lifetime.
        Karunamon 3y ago
dustedcodes 3y ago
I didn't think PCs were part of the "pandemic surge" like Peleton was. If that was true then surely we should see a similar drop in MacBook sales. Do we have any figures on that?
- secabeen 3y ago
  Yes, sales down 40%, worse than the overall PC market decline of 28%: https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/04/17/apples-mac-had-a-tough-first-quarter-of-2023-in-a-bad-overall-pc-market https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/04/17/apples-mac-had-a-...
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  All of the PC spike and drop data is in the article. The Mac slump is even worse: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/04/analysts-say-mac-sales-are-down-40-as-post-pandemic-pc-sales-slump-continues/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/04/analysts-say-mac-sal...
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Macs also have the Apple Silicon effect. My M1 Pro replaced a 2015 MacBook as my primary laptop. Though, in fact, for a lot of things (though not generative art and a lot of multimedia in general), the 2015 system is still fine. Don't expect to need a new laptop soon.
    - jamiek88 3y ago
      Yeah I was thinking about this. I have a 2021 M1 Pro mac, an iPhone 14 pro and the M1 iPad. I have an oled LG TV and an Xbox series x. I won’t be looking to upgrade any of those for the foreseeable future. For the first time in my life I’m sated when it comes to tech. I’ve always had one eye on the next thing since I was 12 but right now all my devices have reached the point where they are so good I have no FOMO at all. I have no real interest in VR but will keep an open mind over apples head set. To be honest if Apple made a fucking toaster I’d probably be one of the losers lining up for it!
candiodari 3y ago
It reminds me how this shows the true capabilities of management. You see, if management and economists could do what they claim to do, predict changes in the market and adapt to them. Well then the 24% and 75% numbers would be the same number. Why? They would have seen it coming, and responded and adapted the firm, before it did this kind of damage. I've never once seen managers actually succesfully to do this, or even close. I've seen them keeping up hiring and scaling companies right into oblivion though.
marcosdumay 3y ago
About 1. Yes, that. The headline means that even in our current maybe-huge Schrodinger-crisis the company is still profitable, despite being clearly impacted.
flappyeagle 3y ago
No one wants to pour cold water on excitement. Apple did the disciplined thing. I think it’s much more understandable for software companies, especially subscription based ones to have bet on a “new normal”
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  > I think it’s much more understandable for software companies, especially subscription based ones to have bet on a “new normal” Glad someone posted this, I completely agree. After all, there are still many aspects that are a new normal, e.g. the cratering of central business district commercial real estate values reflects this, and many more people are using things like video conferencing than before the pandemic. But durable goods? Did they think we would all remodel our kitchens twice??
than3 3y ago
Not sure I'd classify Lenovo as a durable good in the strictest sense of the word. I know many who overpayed for a Lenovo laptop only to find, it was intentionally made incompatible with Linux (microcontrollers between core components), the firmware updates from a legitimate source would brick the battery charger, the hardware under limited use would fail within the warranty period (1 year, from GPU overheating), and a number of other issues. I'll never buy a Lenovo again after this, and my experience has been common based on what others have said. This has nothing to do with the pandemic and everything to do with quality of product that was released at a premium price. They made their sales initially, but they burned their brand down in the process.
- shrimp_emoji 3y ago
  Tfw you get bought by a Chinese company
- Krisjohn 3y ago
  Lenovo have a problem with their USB C ports. Durability is not good enough for them to be the only source of power. Daily plugging and unplugging breaks them eventually. Accidentally pulling the cable sideways breaks them quickly. We stopped selling them a year or two ago.
- antisthenes 3y ago
  Lenovo lost me as a customer when I tried to order a laptop from them, their garbage website refused to work (some random error during the checkout process). I contacted their support for help and to check stock. Never heard back. Several months later they begin spamming me with marketing emails and feedback about how much I'm enjoying my purchase (???). Not giving them a single cent after that experience.
MattPalmer1086 3y ago
Yep. It was like in Y2K. I told the companies I was advising at the time that the boom in sales would nosedive afterwards, because everyone used it as an excuse to replace all their kit. They didn't believe me...
roundandround 3y ago
In an alternative world where laptops are selling like hot cakes I would say it's because AMD woke people up who hadn't seen enough improvements to justify a purchase since 2012, the wild economy that has people job hopping, and of course the massive power requirements as Meta pushes APIs from the wildly successful metaverse to Facebook feeds.

version_five 3y ago

Re: 2, it's just that nobody involved has any incentive to act like good times won't continue indefinitely. That's the natural consequence of pricing companies as the present value of their future earnings.

thx-2718 3y ago
That's why you pick stocks on what you think is run well/built to make money within the time frame you want your money there. Because then there's presumably a better chance that they will deliver on those earnings.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

bastardoperator 3y ago

Executives don't care. Of course they knew. They'll do anything for money even if it means destroying lives. They need that bonus and they need it now.

happymellon 3y ago
I don't see anywhere in that fine article that stated that Lenovo implied that sales were going to continue to go up, or that their actions were going to "destroy lives". Where did you come up with this?
- Karunamon 3y ago
  Steelman: the irresponsible hiring sprees that many companies went on could be considered rather unethical considering all of them have the foreknowledge that the corona-era growth was temporary. Layoffs do cause damage to people's lives.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    Steelman of the other side: Not producing the laptops that children needed to school from home during Covid would have been damaging, too. Not producing exercise equipment for people stuck at home would have been damaging, too. And so on.
    - Karunamon 3y ago
      Absolutely nothing stopped them from advertising those positions as temporary. I would be willing to bet most job offers seen by normal people said nothing about urgency, they were likely sold as permanent positions. And no, I do not think it should be up to the job seeker to understand larger industry trends before signing on.
      - MattPalmer1086 3y ago
        Which positions should be temporary? Only new hires? A company sees demand and hires people. If demand falls, some people will be let go, but not necessarily the ones who just joined. All jobs are temporary, there has been no such thing as jobs for life in my entire lifetime.
        Karunamon 3y ago

dustedcodes 3y ago

I didn't think PCs were part of the "pandemic surge" like Peleton was. If that was true then surely we should see a similar drop in MacBook sales. Do we have any figures on that?

secabeen 3y ago
Yes, sales down 40%, worse than the overall PC market decline of 28%: https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/04/17/apples-mac-had-a-tough-first-quarter-of-2023-in-a-bad-overall-pc-market https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/04/17/apples-mac-had-a-...
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
All of the PC spike and drop data is in the article. The Mac slump is even worse: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/04/analysts-say-mac-sales-are-down-40-as-post-pandemic-pc-sales-slump-continues/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/04/analysts-say-mac-sal...
- ghaff 3y ago
  Macs also have the Apple Silicon effect. My M1 Pro replaced a 2015 MacBook as my primary laptop. Though, in fact, for a lot of things (though not generative art and a lot of multimedia in general), the 2015 system is still fine. Don't expect to need a new laptop soon.
  - jamiek88 3y ago
    Yeah I was thinking about this. I have a 2021 M1 Pro mac, an iPhone 14 pro and the M1 iPad. I have an oled LG TV and an Xbox series x. I won’t be looking to upgrade any of those for the foreseeable future. For the first time in my life I’m sated when it comes to tech. I’ve always had one eye on the next thing since I was 12 but right now all my devices have reached the point where they are so good I have no FOMO at all. I have no real interest in VR but will keep an open mind over apples head set. To be honest if Apple made a fucking toaster I’d probably be one of the losers lining up for it!

candiodari 3y ago

It reminds me how this shows the true capabilities of management. You see, if management and economists could do what they claim to do, predict changes in the market and adapt to them. Well then the 24% and 75% numbers would be the same number. Why? They would have seen it coming, and responded and adapted the firm, before it did this kind of damage. I've never once seen managers actually succesfully to do this, or even close. I've seen them keeping up hiring and scaling companies right into oblivion though.

marcosdumay 3y ago

About 1. Yes, that. The headline means that even in our current maybe-huge Schrodinger-crisis the company is still profitable, despite being clearly impacted.

flappyeagle 3y ago

No one wants to pour cold water on excitement. Apple did the disciplined thing. I think it’s much more understandable for software companies, especially subscription based ones to have bet on a “new normal”

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
> I think it’s much more understandable for software companies, especially subscription based ones to have bet on a “new normal” Glad someone posted this, I completely agree. After all, there are still many aspects that are a new normal, e.g. the cratering of central business district commercial real estate values reflects this, and many more people are using things like video conferencing than before the pandemic. But durable goods? Did they think we would all remodel our kitchens twice??

than3 3y ago

Not sure I'd classify Lenovo as a durable good in the strictest sense of the word. I know many who overpayed for a Lenovo laptop only to find, it was intentionally made incompatible with Linux (microcontrollers between core components), the firmware updates from a legitimate source would brick the battery charger, the hardware under limited use would fail within the warranty period (1 year, from GPU overheating), and a number of other issues. I'll never buy a Lenovo again after this, and my experience has been common based on what others have said. This has nothing to do with the pandemic and everything to do with quality of product that was released at a premium price. They made their sales initially, but they burned their brand down in the process.

shrimp_emoji 3y ago
Tfw you get bought by a Chinese company
Krisjohn 3y ago
Lenovo have a problem with their USB C ports. Durability is not good enough for them to be the only source of power. Daily plugging and unplugging breaks them eventually. Accidentally pulling the cable sideways breaks them quickly. We stopped selling them a year or two ago.
antisthenes 3y ago
Lenovo lost me as a customer when I tried to order a laptop from them, their garbage website refused to work (some random error during the checkout process). I contacted their support for help and to check stock. Never heard back. Several months later they begin spamming me with marketing emails and feedback about how much I'm enjoying my purchase (???). Not giving them a single cent after that experience.

MattPalmer1086 3y ago

Yep. It was like in Y2K. I told the companies I was advising at the time that the boom in sales would nosedive afterwards, because everyone used it as an excuse to replace all their kit. They didn't believe me...

roundandround 3y ago

In an alternative world where laptops are selling like hot cakes I would say it's because AMD woke people up who hadn't seen enough improvements to justify a purchase since 2012, the wild economy that has people job hopping, and of course the massive power requirements as Meta pushes APIs from the wildly successful metaverse to Facebook feeds.