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Apple 4Q Profit Jumps 47% On Higher Mac, IPhone Sales
- schammy 17y agoWhoopee. Wake me up when you an interesting story to report.
- stcredzero 17y agoTime for them to come out with the next big thing, before they become the captives of their own success. (Has that happened to Google? Definitely happened to Yahoo.)
- pieter 17y agoTheir iPhone is their current 'next big thing', with iPod sales declining, the iPhone is what is keeping their profits up.
- unalone 17y agoThe curious thing is that the only reason iPod classic sales are declining is because Apple beat its own product with the iPhone and iPod touch. They're their own best competition.
- joez 17y agoI'm not sure if I can agree 100% with this statement. While Apple is long touted as a company built on innovation, they can probably extract profits without any new innovations for a while. (A while being 2-3 years, doesn't mean to stop trying though.) And it's true that iPod sales decreased 8% over last year's Q3, they expected this because of increasing iPhone sales. I believe while other hardware companies are racing to the bottom in prices, Apple is able to extract premium on its hardware and this is really reflected in the gross margin and bottom line. Could Apple produce a 600$ laptop? Sure. But it is not worth the temporary gains they'd see. A low end line would cannibalize the margins of their other computers. The quality would probably suffer and it would hurt their brand equity. Apple could introduce an economy line of computers and take over way more of the market, probably grow their sales by 25-40% in a year. To me, that is a strong statement... in that they could but they don't. I think one thing that Apple will have to contend with is the image. As iPhone's and Macbooks become more and more mainstream, the elitism behind it is decreasing. They will need to do some kind of segmentation (and price discrimination). I wouldn't be surprised if they came out with a higher end Pro series priced around 2500. Full disclose, I do own a few shares of AAPL. So I believe the future is bright for Apple.
- stcredzero 17y agoI also believe the future could be bright for Apple. Even if they've peaked, or soon will peak, they'll be profitable for a good, long time. That's not my point. My point is that they can keep on the upward side of the peak by coming out with another game changer. I fully expect them to. As iPhone's and Macbooks become more and more mainstream, the elitism behind it is decreasing. They will need to do some kind of segmentation (and price discrimination). Elitism is easy to maintain. Just make the packaging fancy and charge lots of money! The ability to charge a premium also enables innovation, however. You can charge more for your new, different thing, and if it's truly different then it probably does cost more since economies of scale aren't fully in play. Also your new thing can be truly new and different -- this enhances the caché and lets you tap into status-seeking early adopters. Apple seems to be in the space where Mercedes used to be -- able to charge a premium for well engineered and truly (though conservatively) innovative high-quality products. The danger is in too much power in the marketing arm. If the company succumbs to the temptation to sacrifice quality and innovation for better marketing, then it is done for. If that happens, Apple will become a vacuous status symbol, and the real engineering innovation will come from someone else. A clear and present danger! (Many would say it has already happened.)
- joez 17y agoYep. The day Apple is fully ran by MBA's and the Marketing department is the day it peaks. This will probably be around the same time it comes out with an low end laptop. The power right now is Apple's marketing arm is backed up by technology and it is really in the pricing sweet spot.
- stcredzero 17y agoThe incentive structure of the marketing department is almost designed to produce short term thinking. So of course marketdroids have a bad name. They're basically incentivized to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. I wonder if there's a better way we could structure this?
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- brianobush 17y agoI think the next big thing will be when the iphone is not locked into AT&T only. The growth will surely accelerate when it is more easily available.
- whatusername 17y agoI'd be quite interested to see what the International breakdown of those 7 million iPhones are. Because the iPhone is available on a lot more than 1 carrier. (And it is available for the other 5.7 billion people in the world.
- shiranaihito 17y agoThe problem is that it's often (or always?) limited to only one carrier per country. That sucks.
- Devilboy 17y agoNot true, most countries offer both carrier-locked and unsubsidized (unlocked) iPhones.
- shiranaihito 17y agoAlright, I guess I'm just lucky to be in Finland then.
- borism 17y agoBesides Germany and Hong Kong, where else is unlocked iPhone available?
- netsp 17y agoHere it is offered by most carriers.
- lallysingh 17y agoWhere's "here" ?
- phil 17y agoIt's too soon: we've just begun year 3 of a roughly 5 year cycle.
- tsally 17y agoUgh, this morning I almost put some capital in Apple stock. Now it's up 12% in after hours trading. Investing is stressful as hell. I'm coming to the conclusion that lacking a large amount of money or extraordinary skill, $/hour is far better working a part time job.
- Stegg 17y agoI dabbled with investing in Apple stock a few years back and it turns out I don't have the stomach for it. I hear ya.
- sahaj 17y agoit's up ~$12, or ~6%.
- jonknee 17y ago"Investing" in the short term is simply gambling. It can be a lot of fun, but the average person is (as you note) better off working.
- yardie 17y agoMy mom is still kicking herself for not buying Apple when it was trading for $2 (~'97). I knew as soon as Steve Job's stepped in things could only get better. It's the same feeling you get when you forget to buy the lottery ticket the day they call your number.
- seiji 17y agoWho killed the link to the primary source non-subscriber content with actual numbers? http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/10/19results.html http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/10/19results.html
- netsp 17y agoQuarter: Macintosh sales: 3.05 up 17% Ipod sales: 10.2 down 8% Iphone Sales: 7.4 up 7% Revenue: $9.87b (up from $7.9b) Profit: $1.67b (up from $1.26b)
- spicyj 17y agoAnd earnings of $1.82/share, way above analysts' predictions of ~$1.42.
- 10ren 17y agoFor context, the 2008 iPhone sales (whole year, not a quarter) were $1.84B. And now it's $7.4B in one quarter. Is that even possible? http://blogs.eweek.com/applewatch/content/corporate/apple_fiscal_2008_by_the_numbers.html http://blogs.eweek.com/applewatch/content/corporate/apple_fi... Here's 2009 figures in a similar table: quarter not whole year: http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-Q4-2009-by-the-numbers-Beats-street-posts-167B-profit/1255985794 http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-Q4-2009-by-t...
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- gamble 17y agoApple's 10% market share is actually a financial advantage now that application support isn't such a big issue. Whereas it would be hard for Microsoft to grow beyond the overall market for PCs, Apple has plenty of room to grow.
- netsp 17y agoDefinitely. They have 10% of the OS market, 10% of the hardware market & good margins on both. Growing from 10 - 15% is admirable, but not as hard as growing from 70% to 105%.
- wmeredith 17y ago"Growing from 10 - 15% is admirable, but not as hard as growing from 70% to 105%." I just emailed this around the office. Hilarious.