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Apple to hold call March 19th to talk about its $97.6B in cash
- twiceaday 15y agoI know it's not feasible but I would love for them to become a telephone service provider.
- brico 15y agohow many percent of customers would the other carriers lose if apple made the iphones/ipads apple-carrier-only?
- ugh 15y agoHow many percent of customers would Apple lose if Apple made the iPhones/iPads Apple-carrier-only? Not gonna happen.
- EnderMB 15y agoFor the uninformed like myself, why is this not feasible with the amount of cash they have? Could Apple not acquire a global carrier and mount a hostile takeover of the market? A lot of people believe that this is the route that Google will eventually go down as they've had a tougher time with carrier support than Apple. From the outside it seems logical to eliminate a market should it pose opposition and if money and logistics were no issue I would think that it'd be an issue of when, rather than if.
- phil 15y agoI will eat my shoe if Apple buys Twitter. Edit: In light of this post (http://dcurt.is/100-billion-units-of-strategy http://dcurt.is/100-billion-units-of-strategy) I'll add that I will also eat my shoe if Apple buys Netflix.
- mburns 15y agoTwitter wouldn't even put a significant dent into the nearly $100B in cash they have. They'd still have ~$90 billion left over after buying out Twitter.
- AznHisoka 15y agoThen buy Facebook.
- phil 15y agoThat's more than they can afford, at least without substantial equity in the deal.
- ma2rten 15y agoIn theory they try to buy the big blue book of faces. Not sure the merger would be approved, though. Also it would be a waste of money, just like buying Twitter.
- sliverstorm 15y ago10% isn't a significant dent?
- SandB0x 15y agoApple sell products and they sell content. I couldn't imagine them running a free service.
- 2muchcoffeeman 15y agoiCloud.
- meepmorp 15y agoYou buy iCloud, just as part of the purchase price of Apple hardware/software.
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- petercooper 15y agoI swear it's Apple's only choice, throw up your hands and raise your voice.. monorail!
- jballanc 15y agoWell, maybe not a monorail, but I feel compelled once again to point out that Apple could afford to build its own space station: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_space_station#Program_cost_in_United_States_dollars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_space_station#Pro...
- InclinedPlane 15y agoIndeed! And that's at inflated government prices. If they just contracted with SpaceX and Bigelow or others they could probably have a space station for a tenth of that or less.
- topherjaynes 15y agoThat's more of a Shelbyville idea.
- petercooper 15y agoHa! I'm almost disappointed I got voted up actually. This is more of a Reddit conversation ;-) I wonder what a monorail could do for Silicon Valley though..
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- ntkachov 15y agoI'm really hoping apple will try to become an ISP and revamp our infrastructure.
- brico 15y agoI always wondered what apple's plans were for the next 10 years. The iPad is close to perfection, the next iterations surely will improve but only slightly and in maybe 3 or 4 years most people won't need the newest device anymore. The same will be for smartphones in a couple of years, the limitations will be in the speed the carrier provides.
- AlexMuir 15y agoIt absolutely has to be the living room. And domination of the laptop market. http://www.alexmuir.com/2011/12/apple-must-build-a-console/ http://www.alexmuir.com/2011/12/apple-must-build-a-console/
- apaprocki 15y agoGiven how dependent Apple's devices are on wi-fi, I'd love to see them invest in building out real, full-coverage wi-fi in the top 10 U.S. cities available for free to any Apple device. Getting into the cellular game seems like a mistake, but investing in wi-fi "towers" to side-step cellular companies seems like a win.
- rdl 15y agoI'd like to see them take $10b and create a huge amount of free educational content on the Internet. In the long run, this would drive enough sales to be a worthwhile commercial decision for Apple, but it would also make the world a much smarter, more peaceful, and more economically vibrant place. Particularly, I'd like to see this content available in Spanish, Arabic, various subcontinental languages, and Chinese. There's been some progress in English, but not a whole lot in other languages. Online (free) education is right where technologies usually are before apple swoops in and makes the Apple version -- concept proven, but somewhat painful user experience (no one could look at coursera, khan academy, mitx, etc. and call them Apple-quality UX). It would also be a great way to deploy part of the $70b or so which is trapped outside the US. As much of the US portion of the cash as possible should be returned to shareholders as a dividend (assuming the tax code doesn't change in 2013 to change dividend taxation from 15% to 39.6+3.8%; if so, a buyback makes much more sense, or just holding cash).
- zitterbewegung 15y agoSince when is Apple a charity and should do altruistic things? I don't see how this will help apple and just seems like a way to spend money.
- tl 15y ago$10b of anything that is locked to Apple-only devices (distributed through iBooks or some other app) would likely help Apple sell more hardware. It's harder to say than it would sell enough hardware to be a profitable decision.
- notatoad 15y agoeven if it's not locked into apple devices, apple currently has the most desirable devices for consuming digital content. if they make something that causes people to switch from paper to digital, they're going to sell a more iPads.
- vladd 15y agoMake it available for free but only via their AppStore (platform lock-in).
- wavephorm 15y agoMonthly dividend. End of story.
- jballanc 15y agoI think a one-time dividend is much more likely. A recurring dividend sends the wrong signal to Wall Street (we're no longer a growth company). A one-time dividend says something more like, "Yeah, we have a crap load of cash...here, have some."
- apaprocki 15y agoTo anyone who has made a lot of money off of AAPL in the past X months, I'm sure the dividend would be tiny in comparison. I don't see the point. I do think they should have a $0.01 dividend (see my other post).
- eli_gottlieb 15y agoA recurring dividend sends a signal that they are no longer a speculative fool's investment but a solid cash-cow.
- wavephorm 15y agoA reasonable dividend (1% per yr) leaves more options open for a big acquisition in the future if they want, eg Sony, or Comcast, or Netflix (they can afford all three if they want). I highly doubt they'll blow the whole load in one shot.
- jonnathanson 15y agoIf they're going to make an acquisition of that magnitude, then they should buy a controlling interest in Amazon.
- wavephorm 15y agoThey can afford a monthly dividend for the next year, and still buy 100% of Amazon.com.
- apaprocki 15y agoI'd love to see Apple hack the system. There are a huge number of institutional funds that are not allowed to invest in Apple due to regulation that limits them to companies which provide a dividend. It would be awesome if they announced a $0.01 dividend, simply so that they were now an investment vehicle for all such funds. edit: I could have been a bit more clear.. I was referring to funds such as pension/mutual funds, not banks.
- patrickk 15y agoInventing the personal computer is what I'd call hacking "the system". Pandering to institutional investors...well I don't know what I'd call it exactly, but it certainly wouldn't be "thinking different". It would seem like a corruption or mockery of the ideals of the company that effectively invented the personal computer market and was anti-authoritarian in so many ways for so long.
- apaprocki 15y agoWhat about doing this is pandering? Almost all of Apple is owned by institutions and they have been reaping all of the benefit of the company's crazy growth. The total ownership of all pension funds (29 of them) and mutual funds (626 >= 1000 shares) account for < 5% of the float. I'd love to see the wealth spread around to all who want to participate. That could possibly do more for the common person than a dividend ever would. Apple is 72% institutionally owned. Paying a dividend at all is directly pandering to institutional investors!
- Danieru 15y agoAre you suggesting that Apple is undervalued and therefore would be a great longterm vehicle for your parent's pension?
- jballanc 15y agoTheir P/E is currently lower than Amazon and Google, and just about even with Oracle. Yeah, I think it's undervalued.
- 15y ago
- ma2rten 15y agoI would love if Apple would try to buy out one of major Hollywood studios or music labels. For instance Disney's market cap is $80B and Steve Jobs also was the largest shareholder of Disney. This could truly cause a revolution in digital content delivery. I know making films or music has nothing to do with their core business, but if a search engine can buy Motorola. Why the hell not?
- ahi 15y agoAntitrust among other non-regulatory reasons.
- ma2rten 15y agoOkay. To buy a music label, would be problematic, but Apple is not really a big deliver of movie content in terms of market share, yet, are they?
- thetron 15y agoIt would be great if Apple could deal themselves into the content creation game a little. If they purchased an existing studio and were able to distribute their own TV shows and Films in the manner that they wanted, then they would not longer have to go through lengthy deals with other studios before releasing new products. And having that content would put pressure on other studios to negotiate quicker (I would think). Whilst that would be exciting and interesting - I think it will only be something boring like a dividend.
- xsmasher 15y agoBuying a cell carrier, movie studio, or music label would only alienate other partners. Apple's other acquisitions were software, to compliment their hardware business.
- apaprocki 15y agoAlso, Apple does not hold $97.6B in cash in the United States. Over 50% of their cash is overseas, which prevents them from using it in the United States unless they take a huge haircut. So keep that in mind when theorizing on U.S. centric uses of cash. Think global! edit: Pretty graphs: http://seekingalpha.com/article/318794-apple-s-foreign-cash-hoard http://seekingalpha.com/article/318794-apple-s-foreign-cash-...
- InclinedPlane 15y agoFor the same reason Microsoft paid far, far too much money for Skype. It's a bit of silliness that really ought to go away. Corporate taxes are rather silly. Get rid of them and make capital gains count as regular income for tax purposes.
- apaprocki 15y agoSay for a minute that Congress announced a moratorium on tax of repatriated foreign funds. Do you believe this would be viewed as "evil" companies gaming the system, or do you think that the huge influx of funds back into the U.S. would actually help spur economic growth?
- jvm 15y agoThe choices > would be viewed as "evil" companies gaming the system and > huge influx of funds back into the U.S. would actually help spur economic growth are in no way mutually exclusive.
- jvm 15y ago> make capital gains count as regular income A huge tax increase on savings and investment serves what policy goal again?!??!?
- hevical 15y agoThey're going to acquire every startup they possibly can and then turn into what we all feared.... Skynet
- sliverstorm 15y agoWhy would we fear that? Skynet was an unparalleled pinnacle of engineering achievement.
- pm90 15y ago...and almost killed off the human race