Apple Records Q4 2011 Earnings of $6.6B on $28.3B

Apple - Press Info - Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results


Apple today announced financial results for the third calendar quarter and fourth fiscal quarter of 2011 -- plus the full fiscal year. For the quarter, Apple posted revenue of $28.27 billion and net quarterly profit of $6.62 billion, or $7.05 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $20.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $4.31 billion, or $4.64 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.3 percent, compared to 36.9 percent in the year-ago quarter, and international sales accounted for 63 percent of the quarter's revenue. Apple now has $81.57 billion in cash and marketable securities. (from Macrumors)


Apple shipped 4.89 million Macintosh computers during the quarter, a unit increase of 26 percent over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone unit sales reached 17.07 million, up 21 percent from the year-ago quarter, and the company also sold 6.62 million iPods during the quarter, representing 27 percent unit decline over the year-ago quarter. Apple also sold 11.12 million iPads during the quarter, up 166 percent over the year-ago quarter.

 

Let's see here. The wall street guys were expecting 20M iphone sales; Apple only sold 17.07M...2.93M less. So the stock drops...

The first opening weekend in October they sold 4M iPhone 4S'...too bad for Apple that those sales were after the Sept 24 quarter close, to match the forecasts.

Or perhaps kudo's to apple for waiting to release a good product, and not worrying too much about wall street.

After all, any smartphone manufacturer would love to sell this many phones. "oy, I should have such a problem!"

 

It is every company's worry. Investor analyst's know that company stocks cannot go up forever, and yet they expect just that and react to it. Most CEO's don't worry about stock prices, because they have had, many times no relationship to the actual health of the company.

Apple is a high margin product company. They don't cater to the flavor of the month, but rather, historically, have created the new flavors. After the first iPhone a few years back, they changed the name of the game...effectively contributing to the slow demise of Nokia, Motorola, RIM, etc.

But how many really new things can we have to the smartphone today, as Apple did 3 years ago. I forecast a slowing of breakthrough innovation with year to year smartphones arrivals, even for apple. However there is lots of market share to still gather. I think the emphasis will be on durable products, smooth and trouble free software, with consumer ease of use the key. Something Apple excels at. So , as always, they don't always go for market share, but high profits and good engineering. But they have stumbled in the past, and I'm sure that they will again.

There was so much hype that it has to have a bigger screen and a new shape, and LTE. Yet in the end, the sales tell us that most consumers didn't care about that. There was a lot of pent up demand from 3G's who bypassed the iP4, and new buyers from new carriers, and in new countries. ( I read that iPhone 4S go for $2,000 in China today).

I only buy their products, I don't own any stock ( I do wish I still had the 100 shares I bought for a dollar each in 1985 though).

Tonight, there was still a line of of 20 people outside the Apple store...

Chinese Lenovo bought IBM's consumer PC business, and they just replaced Dell as the number 2 PC vendor behind HP. Rumor is that they may buy HP too. They made a business where IBM did not want to go. Apple had a rise in Mac's this quarter. Even though one can buy a spec equivalent PC for $500, people still will shell out $1500 for a Mac. They sold mac's way above expectations.

Anyhow, this was just a post of quarterly statements....I don't pretend to be any kind of pundit on Apple's future, but it does look strong, and I don't agree that this bump really meant anything. The next quarter will most likely be beyond expectations.

But nothing lasts forever. Look at Microsoft...and Google is losing people to Facebook

 

That is not a hard prediction to make, when you are talking about a company (Apple) that is within a hairs breath (and even succeeded momentarily) of Exxon to be the world’s largest corporation. There is only one way to go…and that is downward. These kinds of predictions are the stuff of talking heads on CNN.

The harder prediction is who or what will be the source of the next major innovation. It’s not coming from bigger screens, or faster processors, longer battery life and even better cameras. That is just incremental stuff. Aside from these, the major reasons for more smartphone purchases are from those that have not entered the market yet, or those waiting to upgrade to LTE for more speed.

I certainly am not seeing the next big step, and I don’t seeing it coming from Motorola, HTC, Nokia, Google, or even Apple. It is just too hard to do.

I don’t think anyone thinks that Apple will remain where it is, or cares. Supporters of innovative engineering are mostly happy that after 30+ years, Apple won one of the metals of corporate success. Not the bronze, silver, but the gold medal. Totally unexpected. And just like the Olympics, one cannot win the gold year after year. But you can’t take that win away from them either. Just as Motorola or HP have been very successful companies in the past. And they still are.

It may surprise you but I’m not a fanboy of Apple’s brand; I dropped them completely in the ‘90’s only to come back when the iPhone was far more innovative than anything BB or Nokia had. Most of my IT friends stayed with them throughout however. I would drop Apple just as quickly if something else truly appeared on the market novel; in all aspects: hardware, software, quality build and device design. I think Apple would lose greatly with the loss of J. Ives in the design category for example. I certainly don’ t go on Android only forums posting how crapping it is (the way some do on MacRumors or other forums).

IMO, one aspect of ‘spec watchers’ that is missed, is Apple’s customer support. What other company gives the kind of phone (or computer) support that Apple does with its retail stores? Where can you walk in with your HTC hardware variant with the latest version of Android ‘ice cream’ software and get help with it or get it replaced so easily? ATT or Verzion or even Best Buy’s Geek team are overwhelmed with so many devices. I still remember shipping my Nokia away for 2 weeks.

As you point out many times, the Android OS is on more phones that Apples’ iOS, meaning that Android is already appealing to the critical masses, non-techie, ‘mom and pop’ crowds. Google is not making money on Android (only advertising, yuck!). And the companies that are using Android in their 80+ phone models, are operating in a low margin area already for the most part (with exceptions). It is a cut throat business model for them. Apple is, and has always gone for the high end appeal, high margin and few devices. Most consumers are not spending $1500 on a metal clad laptop from Apple, but rather the plastic $500 pc. But Apple is more profitable, and that is what Wall Street likes. Nearly all the analysts’ comments about the failure/disappointment of the 4S were wrong. It is looking like a great success. And nearly all of the analysts have a strong buy for Apple stock today.

But no, Apple will not remain on top forever. They don’t have a commodity that we need like oil from Exxon. Apple did make a big coup though by having one CDMA/GSM/WCDMA phone that is unbranded (by ATT/Verizon/sprint), no bloat ware to remove, and one phone that can be sold by nearly everyone and a network of retail stores for support. That is the model to make high profits on hardware.

I’m sure that you will want the last word here…

 

As I said, the iPhone 4S is a great success, and all the talking head were flat out wrong.... period.

Verizon iPhone Sales More Than Double to 4.2 Million in (2011)Holiday (4th)_Quarter

Verizon Wireless Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo today participated in Citi's Global Entertainment, Media & Communications Conference, and as part of his presentation revealed some iPhone sales numbers for the carrier. As noted by StreetInsider.com, Shammo announced that Verizon sold 4.2 million iPhones during the fourth quarter of 2011, a quarter which saw the launch of the iPhone 4S.

That performance more than doubled the previous quarter's sales of 2.0 million iPhones. Overall, Apple sold just over 17 million iPhones during that third calendar quarter, and while it is difficult to extrapolate Apple's total fourth quarter sales from the performance of a single U.S. carrier, the 4.2 million number could at least put Apple in the range of 35 million iPhones for the quarter across all carriers and markets. Apple today announced that it will report its holiday quarter sales and earnings numbers on January 24.

As a result of the strong performance of the iPhone 4S, Verizon is projecting a reduction in its profit margin as it absorbs the upfront subsidies paid to Apple for the device. Those subsidies will, however, be recouped over time from subscribers' service contracts.