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Apple Sets a New Record For iPhone Sales (theverge.com)
Apple has reported strong financial results for the first quarter of 2017. According to CEO Tim Cook, the "holiday quarter results generated Apple's highest quarterly revenue ever, and broke multiple records along the way." The company took in $78.4 billion in revenue and sold 78 million iPhones. The Verge reports: Apple reported a profit of $17.8 billion, and said its earnings per share were boosted by the high demand for the larger models of its iPhones, which have higher margins. On the earnings call, Chief financial officer Luca Maestri said that customer satisfaction with iPads, and the new iPad pro, was very high. He predicted strong growth in that category. But the sales figures don't reflect that optimism, with unit sales and revenue from iPad both down around 20 percent year over year. With over a billion iOS devices active around the world, Apple has been able to shore up its flagging hardware sales growth with an increase in revenue from services to those devices. This includes money from Apple Pay, iCloud storage, Apple Music, and App Store sales. It was by far the fastest-growing segment of Apple's revenue this quarter, climbing 18 percent to $7.17 billion since the same period last year. Cook said Apple is aiming to double service revenue over the next four years. Maestri said Apple's App Store had double the revenue of Google's Play Store in 2016. Apple has more than $200 billion in cash parked overseas. Cook said on today's call that he was optimistic about tax reform in the U.S. happening this year, and that this might allow Apple to bring a lot of that money back home. "With our toe in the water, we're learning a lot about the original content business," Cook said, hinting at one way Apple might deploy all that capital.
According to slashdot, the iPhone 7 should have failed, just like the iPod.
Sometime soon, I swear.
The company is balanced on a tiny wire, with all its appeal based on fashion and the whims of teenagers, and soon it will trip over itself, and totally bungle it's designs and delivery, on such an epic scale that the whole business will collapse like a soufflé and the stock will tank and huge layoffs will happen and everyone will walk away. And that prediction of demise that I made fifteen years ago will be COMPLETELY ACCURATE. The fact that they've had the most profitable year of any company in recorded history is just another nail in the coffin; you'll see...
The company is balanced on a tiny wire, with all its appeal based on fashion and the whims of teenagers
If that were true Apple would have come and gone, blown away by the whims of fashion as all who walk that write are.
Instead Apple is like a Turtle, a very determined Turtle - not on that wire, but moving forward on solid ground. Many claim the Turtle is slow or lacks fancy features but it always seems to get where it is going despite many attacks that bounce of its pretty shell.. for the strength of the turtle is not in the beauty of the shell, but in the relentless motion forward protected by many layers or hardened experience from those that would attempt to stop it.
You keep hoping, but the turtle keeps moving... you keep waiting for the turtle to fall, but where is it to fall from solid ground?
Meanwhile the turtle finds ever larger ponds to explore, each time you claiming the pond they have found will dry up... that may be true, but the Turtle Moves.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apple had a 14 week Quarter as compared to a 13 week quarter and grew revenue 3.9%. So for a 7% longer period a 3.9% higher revenue looks like a drop . No wonder the profit dropped as 14 weeks means 7% more costs but only 3.9% more revenue so profit has to fall.
**Life is too short to be serious**