4 ms·

Apple Reports Third Quarter Results

24 points by antr 14y ago

Steko 14y ago
Crossposting from the other thread, I thought this was the best part of the earnings call... From Jacqui Cheng's liveblog of the call on ars: Q: Can you talk about what your conversations are like with carriers in terms of pricing, subsidies, etc.? Tim Cook: (laughing out loud) I don't want to talk about specifics with carriers, but generally I'd say our role is to make the very best smartphone in the world that has an incredible user experience that's far superior than anything else, that customers want to use every day at the end of the day, carriers want to provide what customers want to buy the most important thing for Apple is to continue making the best products in the world. we are maniacally focused on it
rmckayfleming 14y ago
Mountain Lion tomorrow eh?
- taligent 14y ago
  It's been GM for about a week or two now.
  - duaneb 14y ago
    In the past GM predates release by a few weeks - this is a little quicker than expected, I think.
- ctdonath 14y ago
  And maybe new iMacs? Need more than one sub-model to show off that OS X "retina" support. (please please please...)
  - taligent 14y ago
    Well if the rumored plans are true new iMacs will be coming out towards the end of the year. The 13inch MacBook Pro is the next Retina in line.
antr 14y ago
The truly amazing number from this Q3 results, is not that it has missed most analyst estimates (and that's what the tech press will focus on), but that it has generated $41.7bn of accumulated cash flow during the first 9 months. That's +54% jump from the previous year's 9 months accumulated cash flow ($27.1bn). That is record breaking, whatever the benchmark.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
mckilljoy 14y ago
As impressive as this is, it is below analyst consensus, and the stock is down 5% afterhours :-(
- elithrar 14y ago
  > As impressive as this is, it is below analyst consensus, and the stock is down 5% afterhours :-( This happens every time. Apple exceeds their own guidance; grows at a rate faster than nearly anyone else in the Fortune 500, and yet still fall short of the (insane) analyst guesses (predictions would be unsuitable). I believe Horace Dediu did an article some time ago on amateur vs professional analysts and their track records against Apple's earnings calls. I can't seem to find the link but the degree at which some were off (with regularity) would be concerning if I were paying them for the advice.
  - mckilljoy 14y ago
    I remember that as well -- bloggers got it right, analysts got it wrong. This morning I read "somewhere on the internet" that bloggers were predicting ~$10 while analysts where predicting ~$12. If I didn't just imagine that, this would remarkable in that even the bloggers overestimated.
    - hkmurakami 14y ago
      This reminds me of "The Wisdom of Crowds"[1]. Could it be a case of the masses collectively being more intelligent than the so called experts? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds
      - Steko 14y ago
        The experts are generally over-conservative for a reason. The tldr reason is that they get fired for losing people's money so absolute accuracy (where misses are 50% high and 50% low) is not their incentive.
      - mrkmcknz 14y ago

24 points by antr 14y ago

Steko 14y ago

Crossposting from the other thread, I thought this was the best part of the earnings call... From Jacqui Cheng's liveblog of the call on ars: Q: Can you talk about what your conversations are like with carriers in terms of pricing, subsidies, etc.? Tim Cook: (laughing out loud) I don't want to talk about specifics with carriers, but generally I'd say our role is to make the very best smartphone in the world that has an incredible user experience that's far superior than anything else, that customers want to use every day at the end of the day, carriers want to provide what customers want to buy the most important thing for Apple is to continue making the best products in the world. we are maniacally focused on it

rmckayfleming 14y ago

Mountain Lion tomorrow eh?

taligent 14y ago
It's been GM for about a week or two now.
- duaneb 14y ago
  In the past GM predates release by a few weeks - this is a little quicker than expected, I think.
ctdonath 14y ago
And maybe new iMacs? Need more than one sub-model to show off that OS X "retina" support. (please please please...)
- taligent 14y ago
  Well if the rumored plans are true new iMacs will be coming out towards the end of the year. The 13inch MacBook Pro is the next Retina in line.

antr 14y ago

The truly amazing number from this Q3 results, is not that it has missed most analyst estimates (and that's what the tech press will focus on), but that it has generated $41.7bn of accumulated cash flow during the first 9 months. That's +54% jump from the previous year's 9 months accumulated cash flow ($27.1bn). That is record breaking, whatever the benchmark.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

mckilljoy 14y ago

As impressive as this is, it is below analyst consensus, and the stock is down 5% afterhours :-(

elithrar 14y ago
> As impressive as this is, it is below analyst consensus, and the stock is down 5% afterhours :-( This happens every time. Apple exceeds their own guidance; grows at a rate faster than nearly anyone else in the Fortune 500, and yet still fall short of the (insane) analyst guesses (predictions would be unsuitable). I believe Horace Dediu did an article some time ago on amateur vs professional analysts and their track records against Apple's earnings calls. I can't seem to find the link but the degree at which some were off (with regularity) would be concerning if I were paying them for the advice.
- mckilljoy 14y ago
  I remember that as well -- bloggers got it right, analysts got it wrong. This morning I read "somewhere on the internet" that bloggers were predicting ~$10 while analysts where predicting ~$12. If I didn't just imagine that, this would remarkable in that even the bloggers overestimated.
  - hkmurakami 14y ago
    This reminds me of "The Wisdom of Crowds"[1]. Could it be a case of the masses collectively being more intelligent than the so called experts? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds
    - Steko 14y ago
      The experts are generally over-conservative for a reason. The tldr reason is that they get fired for losing people's money so absolute accuracy (where misses are 50% high and 50% low) is not their incentive.
    - mrkmcknz 14y ago