“Google Inc.’s prospects haven’t looked so promising to investors relative to Apple Inc. since before the iPhone was introduced,” Brian Womack reports for Bloomberg. “Google’s shares, which climbed to a record yesterday, are now trading at 25 times profit, compared with a price-to- earnings ratio of less than 10 for Apple, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That gap is at its widest since June 2005, two years before competition between the two companies in mobile devices began to intensify.”
“There’s no guarantee Google will remain investors’ favored stock,” Womack reports. “Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has said the company is exploring new TV-related products, and he has a team of engineers developing a wristwatch device, according to people with knowledge of the plans. A more robust Apple TV could add to revenue while spurring demand for other products, from apps to movies to high-end electronics. An iPhone-like watch could command margins in the neighborhood of 60 percent, according to a Bloomberg Industries analysis.”
Womack reports, “Google, for its part, is vulnerable in key areas. The company has yet to produce a hit product that would help it make good on the $12.4 billion acquisition last year of Motorola Mobility Holdings. The shift to mobile also has disadvantages because ads shown to handheld device users command lower prices than those appearing on personal computers.”
Read more in the full article here.
Nothing shows the obscene state of the market more than this comparison…
Isn’t that sort of like saying, “Hey, man. I make half your wage, own half the house that you do and have twice the debt. I’m awesome and you suck!”
I make a good living on Main Street. And I could give two shits about Wall Street. It’s too bad that short term gain and a stable economy don’t go better together than ice cream and ketchup.
Your last phrase is totally sickening, you perv! Of course ketchup doesn’t go with ice cream. It’s better with some goose fat (schmalz in German). 🙂
I can’t tell what’s going on behind the scenes at Apple, but on the surface it sure looks like they just up and completely threw away all of 2012 for themselves and shareholders. And if Tim Cook said Apple did rather well in 2012, then I’d hate to think what would happen to Apple shareholders if Apple really screwed the pooch. It’s almost impossible to get a handle on Apple’s value. Everything that Apple does seems to have no worthwhile value for the stock.
Thank you for this, Mr. Cook. Now would you please leave so someone could come in and fix it? Unbelievable. The awful mole has won.
Do you really think Cook has made Apple look this miserable as far as Wall Street is concerned? There is a equal chance that anyone but not Cook who becomes a worse victim of this Wall Street’s bloodsuckers.
Easy to blame others who don’t perform according to the Wall Street craps. Blame us all who can’t fight great enough to make a great company “look” great as it has been.
Let don’t jump ship so easily. SJ is gone, but we shall help him maintain his dream as long as a fan for excellence should.
We’ll be patience until another SJ arises. For Apple or not. I dislike Google and Samsung for all these instead. They don’t deserve what they have in this smartphone space.
I still believe that Apple could have crushed so many of its rivals in the smartphone industry if they could have just produced iPhones at a faster rate. Consumers had to wait so long just to get one. I suppose it’s not as simple as just throwing dollars at a problem, but most other companies cut all sorts of corners to gain market share. I don’t want Apple to do that, but shareholders really did take it in the buttocks because iPhones have such lousy production rates. At one time, I thought a high-quality product was important to people, but apparently Wall Street doesn’t share those same sentiments. Whichever company pushes out the most product, wins. Apple won’t be able to beat anyone or gain share value with those sort of conditions. Apple has already lost before it starts and being number two isn’t worth anything to Wall Street.
So, if Apple has no longer has value as a smartphone company to Wall Street then Apple needs to start looking elsewhere. Take several billion unused dollars, Join forces with Yahoo or DuckDuck-Go and go after Google with a vengeance. At least beat Google at something. Any damage to Google’s bottom line should knock Google off its high horse and give some added revenue to Apple. At least Wall Street might feel as though Apple is actually trying to do something instead of just lying down and getting stomped all over. At least use that damn money for something. Google is making Apple look like a teacup monkey instead of a 800 lb. gorilla. I find it very, very disheartening that Apple offers no aggressive stance to companies like Google or Netflix.
For whatever reason, I just can’t grasp how such a profitable company has become relatively worthless in share value. I’m not even talking $800 or $1000, but is $600 a share that much of a leap of faith? If Apple doubles my present dividend I’ll shut up and be patient. I really hate to see Apple made the laughingstock of Wall Street and the smartphone industry. It just seems so darn pathetic being an Apple shareholder. Apple owns no space that’s worth anything to anyone.
Shareholder : Who is this “we” you speak of? Investors? Investors invest to make money. “Maintain his dream”? Steve Jobs is dead. Move on. You don’t invest in a company to maintain someone’s dream. You invest to make a profit. Nothing more. Nothing less. Ask all those AAPL shareholders who have lost so much money since September if they care about “maintaining his dream”? Ahhhhhhhhh…………………I don’t think so. “Blame us all who can’t fight great enough”?????? Son, take your medicine. Take it now.
Investors, large and small, put their money where they think it will grow the most. Investing in GOOG is nothing new. They didn’t just show up today. GOOG has been a highly valued stock for years. It’s been above $400 since 2009 when the recession hit. It was at $600 before that. So it’s used to these high levels. Like it or not it’s not some Johnny-come-lately. AAPL didn’t touch these levels until briefly last summer. GOOG may be evil but they’re used to these heights. They own the ad market. That’s simply a fact. Apple is perceived as a value stock not a growth stock. I don’t know if that will work out correctly but that’s the way things are now. Smart phones are becoming a commoditize product. Apple has tremendous competition from Android phones. Those are facts too. Future growth for Apple is perceived to be slowing and slowing rapidly by some observers. Google isn’t dependent upon selling devices or an ecosystem. Google owns the search engine world. It has no competition. Thus it owns ads. Apple doesn’t own it’s world. Those are just facts. And yes, I understand Apple makes more profit than android. I understand margins. But great margins on a fixed or diminishing number of products is not growth. AAPL ramped up over the last few years on tremendous growth and growth possibilities for the future. That has changed. Google has not lost but rather gained in it’s world. Again, Google has no competition. If competition were ever to pop up in the future then GOOG would run into pressure on its stock. It’s not a conspiracy against Apple. It’s not a plot. It’s not like a bunch of people on Wall Street hate Apple and want to take it over ( that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life). It’s just business. And Apple has a fantastic business. But their growth is predicted to be holding steady or declining. Not so for Google. Same applies to Amazon. How many analysts were predicting AAPL would hit $1000 last summer? A bunch. How many analysts were saying that AAPL was overhyped and that it was way ahead of itself last summer. A bunch. It’s just that people here don’t want to remember that. The people who are still holding AAPL have a selective memory. But no one was complaining last summer as their investment in AAPL grew bigger every day. Right? Why wasn’t everyone complaining about the dumb shit analysts back then? Uh huh. Right. You know you should have been complaining but you didn’t. You know you should have sold when you were so far ahead. But you didn’t. Now all the analysts are dumb shits. Clueless morons. Uh huh. Right. The fact is that GOOG may hit $1000 and it may not. That’s not for me to say. But like it or not it is a very valuable company. It’s a company that owns its space. A company that has virtually no competition. That is why it is valued so highly. It has great potential going forward. And that like it or not, is a fundamental just like earnings, margins and revenue. And Google has plenty of revenue. Apple can come back but it is not likely to ever own it’s space again. So don’t expect it to ramp up to $700 again. Or at least not for a long long time. It’s behind the curve on a larger iPhone and a more affordable phone for the emerging markets. And that doesn’t just mean China either. There’s talk about the Apple iTV but talk isn’t making them any money. Same goes with the iWatch. And Apple is fighting a lot of battles on a lot of fronts. Guess what, that happens when you get this big. You want to be the biggest company out there? Okay, here comes the competition. And they are not going to be nice. Deal with it. You don’t have to like Google to understand that it is a very valuable company and is perceived that way. Personally I think they are evil. I don’t even use Google search. But I’m not dumb enough to act like a fanboy and stick my head in the sand. I made money in GOOG in the last few months. Really good money. Money that I took out of AAPL in September. It’s business. When it comes to your own money, be responsible.
Do you talk without ever taking a breath ?
Yup
Wow…!!!
“Lame” elaborated!
Flap your lips in the breeze with redundantly exaggerated vigor!
Sorry you can’t handle the truth. Short enough for you? Fanboy.
Google’s prospects:
They make almost all of their money from exploiting the traditional desktop PC, which is now being displaced by mobile.
They’re floundering in mobile. The only decent money they on it making comes from iOS.
Every single new product they come up with has been a terrible failure. Nexus Q anyone?
There’s nothing promising on the horizon. Just more flashy, overhyped, soon to be dud products(that’s right, Google Glass, I’m looking right at you.)
Oh yeah. Sounds like an awesome investment to me. Well, actually it might be if you get the hell out before the house of cards topples over.
unlikely apple, google has invested tons of money for new experiment so far. it shows that future will be more brighter than apple. apple is dead after Steve Jobs era. what they do is just to add little function to new products which other competitors already added couple of years ago. their price strategy won’t be successful anymore. they should make cheap product more. otherwise, they will fail, nobody wants to pay premium price. in terms of quality, mostly mobile, PC makers have worked very hard to close it to apple. now, their quality is very high. plus, they offer it with cheaper price tag. apple will lose the position anytime soon. iwatch whatever will be failed as well because it is pointless product. Tim Cook should step down, someone would be replaced it. he is not Steve Jobs, and only thinks about profit for himself. that’s why he sold most stock option last year when it was $700. Steve Jobs would spend more time to develop new product while Tim sold stock. innovation is dead already. apple is stopped to make ‘cool’ stuff. it became very lazy. apple is over. sooner or later Google will take over all over the place. look at the stock since 2005. right now the gap is very huge. google is two times bigger than apple.
the gap will be more wider after all. people disappointed apple performance. iwatch doesn’t persuade people to boost stock price at all. I also don’t think that iwatch will be successful, it is pointless product. apple really needs to create entirely new market. but I don’t think that Tim Cook has that kind of ability to do. apple is done, over. it slowly sinks to the bottom.
Apple is screwing up again as always. The world needs a mobile platform that IS a computer. Not just a tablet. People have to do things. Apple could be THE mobile platform. But they don’t even make apps anyone NEEDS. They should own anything third party that is vital. Include in the os. Blow Microsoft away finally. Go into search. It’s just frustrating. Slowest product line updates ever. Unkept promises. I feel like it is 1995 again. Window 95 came out and Apple lost all its momentum. I can’t name many “killer apps” by apple since then. Just updates. Bad ones like FCP x vista for youtube. (Owned by google). I mean how dumb to not even go after YouTube if not search. Apple employees are rich and don’t care. I don’t even feel a personal presence. Cook sucks.
Apple is the mobile platform of choice and dominants it
Google even realizes this… catering its apps into Apples ecosystem like redoing YouTube and Maps.
Apple is screwing up again as always. The world needs a mobile platform that IS a computer. Not just a tablet. People have to do things. Apple could be THE mobile platform. But they don’t even make apps anyone NEEDS. They should own anything third party that is vital. Include in the os. Blow Microsoft away finally. Go into search. It’s just frustrating. Slowest product line updates ever. Unkept promises. I feel like it is 1995 again. Window 95 came out and Apple lost all its momentum. I can’t name many “killer apps” by apple since then. Just updates. Bad ones like FCP x vista for youtube. (Owned by google). I mean how dumb to not even go after YouTube if not search. Apple employees cased out. I don’t even feel a personal presence. Cook sucks.
Well that’s great and all but most people don’t give a damn about how big a company is. People admire value-adding products, and investors want value added to their portfolios. Bigger can be, but usually isn’t, better for consumers or investors.
By the way, Womack, did you not notice that over the last 2 years, GOOG is up 40% and AAPL is up 20% ?!?!?!?. Might want to keep things in perspective before calling for the decline of Google (much as we all wish it were true).