“The ongoing saga of Apple (AAPL) should go down in history as an resounding vindication of behavioral finance. 12 months ago, the obsession du jour was with declining iPhone and iPad margins to the exclusion of higher unit sales in Asia and North America,” Kyle Spencer writes for Seeking Alpha. “Today, Wall Street’s obsession is with slight and ultimately meaningless decline unit sales growth.”
“One thing analysts fret over is whether or not Apple will lose its ability to charge a premium for its devices. Despite increased competition, evidence for shrinking margins via commodization just isn’t there,” Spencer writes. “iPhone and the Mac Desktop/Portable ASPs are actually rising, while lower iPad margins are due to the inclusion of the iPad Mini line.”
“Apple’s nominal R&D spend has increased dramatically. Apple’s recent $360 million acquisition of PrimeSense and as well a flurry of recent patent awards suggests that a new wave of product releases is on the horizon, including curved screens, enhanced biometrics, 3D gesturing, wireless charging and a major upgrade to Apple Maps are all in the works for 2014,” Spencer writes. “Increased R&D spend typically coincides with new product releases.”
Much more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Apple’s sudden urge to splurge on acquisitions – December 20, 2013
Apple’s 2013 R&D spending up 32 percent vs. last year, 87 percent over 2011 – October 31, 2013
Apple spent 3.4 billion on R&D in FY12, up $1 billion – the largest increase in company history – November 1, 2012
However, Apple doesn’t typically release new hardware products with technology included from its acquisitions for a year or more. It takes time to properly integrate the hardware and software, and Apple refuses to pull a Samsung Half-A** release.
Apple will develop things with proprietary technology when they think they can negotiate a license or buy the tech./patents or just buy the whole company.
I have no doubt Apple has extensive analysis from day one when a project starts of the key technology used, who has it and how much it will cost to license or buy.
i heard holodeck technology from star trek tng is right upon us so maybe apple is working on that. or perhaps they’re going all out and building star cruisers so we can travel to pluto and beyond
Only build one, and send all our fearless leaders to Pluto on that.
Then Pluto would become Planet of the Asses.
Everyone says Tim Cook is full of crap and there are no worthwhile products forthcoming from his mythical pipeline. It’s claimed he’s being saying this since the end of 2012 and the new Mac Pro was the end of the line for new products.
There’s been little said about the new Mac Pro from the news media and although it certainly is an innovative desktop computer design it’s still being said that innovation has died at Apple. I have never heard of any desktop computer ever using that thermal-core design which seems to be extremely efficient at cooling internal components. With Apple, the news media usually ignores the positives and focuses on the negatives.
The press also ignores the negative and focuses on the positive about Apple’s competition. The press went all gaga over the Surface’s keyboard cover while failing to mention it could not stay closed. Not even talk about battery life or lack of cell and GPS. The press praises the fact that it can do Office without pointing out that doing work in Office on a small keyboard and screen sucks. The press keeps talking about how great large screen phones are and skips over the fact that they are not the top selling Android phones. Most people need a phone that actually fits in their pants pockets when they don’t where a jacket or purse.
Last sentence: not BLN.