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Apple juggernaut sends ripples through tech world

Saturday, April 30, 2011 · 9:56 am · 32 Comments

“Consumer technology companies reporting financial results this week are looking like rowboats bobbing in the wake of Apple Inc.’s supertanker,” Peter Svensson reports for The Associated Press.

“Close to oblivion in 1997, Apple is now the world’s second-most valuable company, after Exxon Mobil Corp. On April 20, it reported net income of $5.99 billion for the January-to-March period, nearly double that of a year ago,” Svensson reports. “It shipped a record 18.65 million iPhones during the quarter. Its iPad tablet computers are so popular, the company couldn’t make enough.”

Apple’s ascendancy has produced many losers and a few winners, as underscored over the past two weeks:

• Microsoft Corp.: loser.
• Nokia Corp.: loser.
• Research In Motion Ltd.: loser.
• HTC Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. and Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.: winners, indirectly. [However, all three companies are] embroiled in patent litigation [cases] with Apple.
• Verizon Wireless: winner.
• AT&T and Sprint Nextel Corp: mixed.

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Comment Feed

32 Comments

Billy Bob Gaits

Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 10:02 am · Reply

How is Verizon Worthless a winner? Their network is a cobbled together network of outdated crap.
- MrMcLargeHuge
  
  Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 10:45 am · Reply
  
  Read the ar…oh, just forget it…
  - jim
    
    Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 11:14 am · Reply
    
    I’ve just read the ARgh…
    - Macheadb
      
      Monday, May 2, 2011 - 3:19 am · Reply
      
      My Stock Account: Winner
btaylor

Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 10:21 am · Reply

The world weening itself off Microshaft Winblows – winner.
- nomoremsbs
  
  Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 10:38 am · Reply
  
  And your excellent observation……Priceless!
daugav369pils

Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 10:57 am · Reply

“Apple is now the world’s second-most valuable company, after Exxon Mobil Corp.”

How is ‘most valuable’ defined? Most employees,highest
gross,highest profit,highest stock earning ratio,most
money ‘in the bank???? I have no idea. Any info would be
appreciated.
Getting my iPad 2 on coming Tuesday. Original date of
delivery was May 11.
- ObamaKenyanSlug
  
  Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 11:10 am · Reply
  
  Value by market cap, slickstone.
- Edbern
  
  Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 11:11 am · Reply
  
  By market capitalization, a/k/a market cap. Number of shares outstanding x share price.
  - STEVE
    
    Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 12:47 pm · Reply
    
    980 million shares times 350 a share = 343 Billion
    
    Don’t forget the 60 Billion cash and securities, but it’s not included in the calculation for market cap.
    - chano
      
      Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 1:55 pm · Reply
      
      Cash is included in the valuation as it is factored into the share price. MC is the total value of the company, including everything from the cash to the total of paperclips.
      - senz
        
        Sunday, May 1, 2011 - 9:04 am · Reply
        
        It does not include cash and other assets…from investopedia:
        
        What Does Market Capitalization Mean?
        The total dollar market value of all of a company’s outstanding shares. Market capitalization is calculated by multiplying a company’s shares outstanding by the current market price of one share. The investment community uses this figure to determining a company’s size, as opposed to sales or total asset figures.
        
        Krioni
        
        Monday, May 2, 2011 - 7:31 pm · Reply
        
        You don’t understand what chano is saying. The Market Capitalization is determined by share price, and share price is determined by how the market values the company. One of the factors investors use to determine how much they think a share is worth is the assets of the company, including cash. In other words, the assets are not “added” in some mathematical way – investors “include” the assets when determining how much they are willing to pay for a share.
        
        That’s how the market works – investors value companies by “putting their money where their mouth is.”
- Gilles
  
  Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 2:35 pm · Reply
  
  “How is ‘most valuable’ defined?”
  
  Easy: Just imagine the world without Apple.
  - Jackh
    
    Monday, May 2, 2011 - 2:29 am · Reply
    
    even tho it’s scary, I love thinking about that.
    
    Just image… Our smartphones would be running msdos
tomL

Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 11:14 am · Reply

market cap
m159

Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 11:15 am · Reply

Read the Motorola Mobility report they are calling a “win.” Mostly smoke. They counted every unsold channel stuffed unit. There was no mention of product returns (which I have read are significant, at least for the xoom). Suspicious analyst asked about smartphone and xoom sell-through to customers. CEO wouldn’t provide numbers, but said “they were good.”

He has the numbers. If “they were good,” he would have shouted them. In these presentations, using a vague adjective instead of the numbers always tells you the very thing they don’t want to.
- Ballmer's left nut
  
  Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 12:24 pm · Reply
  
  It wasn’t that they were ‘good’ but that they were ‘smooth’. LOL.
  
  No, I’m with you there. He should have said how many units were sold through into the hands of the consumer. Camouflaging the numbers by using slick marketing talk only reinforces the notion that actual numbers sold were ‘disappointing’.
  
  Refer to RIM’s statement on the sell through of the Playbook. Same vague maketing speak, “Sales met our targets.”
  
  The bullshit runs strong & deep in these ‘droids’. These are not the droids you’re looking for. Loser is an epithet commonly attached to companies hiding behind market speak.
  - DMac
    
    Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 1:24 pm · Reply
    
    Yeah, the same smoke and mirrors talk I used to answer my wife when she asked me how much the new motorcycle was going to cost: $150/mo. To which she replied, “That doesn’t tell me anything.”
    
    When they delivered it, and she asked me, “What’s that?” I said, “OUR new motorcycle.”
    
    Total cost? I’m sticking with $150/mo. LOL
    - DMac
      
      Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 1:36 pm · Reply
      
      Boy I miss her.
      
      (The bike, silly. Of course I’m still with the wife!)
  - qka
    
    Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 2:13 pm · Reply
    
    “Smooth” sales was Samsung tab sales, Q4 2010, not MotoMob, and not this quarter.
  - alanaudio
    
    Monday, May 2, 2011 - 3:27 am · Reply
    
    But it’s also fair to point out that if an analyst asked Apple for more clarification about the numbers given, they would most likely get fobbed off with some comment along the lines of ‘we don’t reveal that degree of detail’.
    
    The big difference is that Apple does that even when there is no bad news to conceal, they simply are a rather secretive company.
    
    However, companies can conceal poor sell through figures in one quarter in the manner that Motorola have done, but they are only storing up trouble for later. If consumers are not buying the products, it will become obvious in subsequent quarters.
- m159
  
  Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 5:27 pm · Reply
  
  They were right to call microsoft a loser, based on long-term decline, but also their Q report, which supposedly beat the numbers, had so many turds floating right on the surface that the after-hours market started selling it off within two minutes.
castlebuono

Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 11:36 am · Reply

Despite wave after wave of analyst and mfg driven FUD since the iPod was first introduced, Apple stands alone as a true innovator in technology. Hard to imagine what the next 5 years will bring (other than the continued demise of the above “losers), however, Apple’s upside remains huge.
Steve

Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 12:42 pm · Reply

RIPPLES? more like a TSUNAMI
But unlike the Japanese people that we all wish well. The tech industry will be laid to waste by the Apple Tsunami.
- Macheadb
  
  Monday, May 2, 2011 - 3:26 am · Reply
  
  ‘RIM, Microsoft, Nokia, and Dell are all toast in the mobile market—the walking dead who should be looking for burial plots. Mourn them if you must, but it’s time to move on. Don’t get buried along with them.’ – MacWorld
G4Dualie

Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 1:30 pm · Reply

Innovation is one thing, when trying to differentiate yourself from the rest of your competitors but, innovation that is so compelling it not only eclipses your competition, but changes whole industries, is just phenomenal.

These past few months have been extraordinay. People who would have ordinarily bought a new computer bought iPads instead!

Microsoft and all the industry pundits were rightfully concerned that netbooks would cannibalize PC sales, but who could have imagined it would be Apple all by themselves to derail PC sales. I haven’t heard jack squat about netbooks, since iPad debuted.
LordRobin

Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 2:31 pm · Reply

Second only to ExxonMobil… and they did it without huge government subsidies! How about that!

——RM
shinolashow

Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 3:17 pm · Reply

I miss MDN posting the “MC list” every qtr.

And by ripples I the author meant tidal waves. How many companies and products blew out in the last 6 years because they couldn’t compete against apple?
Thelonious Mac

Sunday, May 1, 2011 - 3:43 pm · Reply

If I’d spent every dime I spent on houses up until 2008 on Apple Stock, I’d be worth many tens of millions of dollars now. Sigh.
- Max
  
  Sunday, May 1, 2011 - 10:39 pm · Reply
  
  But, you would be homeless.
- Macheadb
  
  Monday, May 2, 2011 - 3:31 am · Reply
  
  Its not to late to start. Apple will go much higher still.