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Apple Crushes Expectations, Sees Record Holiday Quarter (axios.com)
Apple on Thursday reported sales and earnings well ahead of projections, and said holiday sales should be a record and ahead of many analysts' expectations. The company sold 46.6 million iPhones last quarter, which came in about 500,000 units ahead of expectations. Axios reports: Going into the earnings report, there were concerns about both iPhone 8 demand and iPhone X supply. Thursday's report should go a long way toward answering those questions. Sales were up in every region expect Japan, where business was down from the prior year, though up sequentially. Notably, the company finally saw a much-needed turnaround in Greater China, where sales of $9.8 billion were up 22% from the prior quarter and 12% from a year ago. The company's business has been weak in China for some time, though the company had predicted improvement this quarter. Apple reported $52.6 billion in revenue (vs $51.2 billion estimated) and per-share earnings of $2.02 (vs $1.87 estimated). In addition to the 46.6 million iPhones sold (vs 46.1 million estimated), the company sold 10.3 million iPads (vs about 10 million expected) and 5.4 million Macs (vs about 5 million expected).
Apple is in the business of selling hardware, not selling your data. That plus creating a premium experience translates to a device that people will pay a premium to get.
As history has shown, there is little difference between huge governments run amok and huge corporations run amok. See: East India Company.
I wonder what type of games they're playing with the books to make this happen.
Cute. I'm an accountant and I've seen zero evidence that Apple is cooking the books. Every indication is that they are simply moving a lot of product and getting very handsome margins on that product.
It's well known that without Jobs Apple has already started going into the meat grinder.
Someone should tell Apple because they are moving more product than ever and profits are UP. People have this bizarre notion that Apple should be releasing some new world changing technology every 18 months. If you look at their history they tend to have about one big idea every 10-15 years or so. The 70s was the Apple II. The 80s was the Mac. The 90s was the Newton (which flopped) and the Powerbook. The 2000s was the iPod and the most recent decade or so was the iPhone/iPad (which are the same device really). What will Apple do next? We should know in the next few years. In the mean time they are doing fine and there is little evidence to suggest they are in any danger of decline. Not to mention that they have a ludicrous amount of cash in the bank - enough to buy both Ford and GM outright in cash if they wanted to.
I have no doubt they can keep this up maybe for decades (Jobs did leave a bank of ideas) but Apple in the end is headed towards the toilet. Just like the last time Jobs left them.
While losing a visionary leader certainly is a big loss, there is no evidence to reflexively assume Apple is going to turn into a dumpster fire without him. Companies don't succeed or fail based on a single person. The question is how well Jobs did in succession planning and in setting up robust management systems. If Jobs did a good job of that then Apple will be fine just like other large successful companies. Part of the reason Apple struggled without him the first time is that they were still a rather young company in a new industry. A lot of the problems Apple had in the 80s and 90s were actually caused by Jobs. Jobs leaving the company probably made him a better leader than he would have been had he stayed.
Unless you are a (very) high level accountant at Apple, I don't see how you could possibly know whether they are cooking the books or not. They're not going to publish anything egregiously wrong like claiming sales of 5 million iPhones in the Principality of Liechtenstein (pop. 37,000).
The simple fact is that it is plainly obvious that they are selling a LOT of iPhones and selling them at price points that are higher than most Android devices. Since they don't cost more to make then it's a pretty simple logical leap that their business model simply works.
No one predicted the collapse of Enron or RBS by looking at their published accounts.
Did you actually look at the financial statements of Enron? I did. They were the most (intentionally as it turned out) incomprehensible mountain of obfuscation you've ever read. They were written to be effectively incomprehensible even to experts at reading such financial statements. The signs were there and there were people pointing out the concerns even prior to the revelation that it was a huge fraud. Apple's financial statements (which I have also read) are NOTHING like Enron's. While they don't provide unlimited detail, they are pretty straight forward as these things go.
Sure Apple could in theory be covering up a fraud but you could say that about any company. The simple fact is that you have ZERO evidence to suggest Apple is doing anything other than selling a lot of product for a good margin. People love their products and it is clear that they are selling millions of them. Furthermore we can see their supply chain with reasonable clarity and all the evidence there backs up the thesis that they are moving a huge amount of product. If that strains your credulity then by all means provide us with a thesis and evidence with anything to back it up. Otherwise you are simply wasting our time.