“Apple Inc.’s fourth quarter results came with a dose of caution given the economic uncertainty it faces, but analysts remain optimistic based on the company’s solid market position, particularly given impressive iPhone shipments of 6.9 million,” Jonathan Ratner reports for The Financial Post.
“‘We appreciate the reset to expectations and continue to believe that the company’s model ultimately will weather the macro storm better than most of its peers,’ JPMorgan analyst Mark Moskowitz told clients… ‘We still believe that Apple’s market share momentum in Macs, iPods, and iPhones could help the company weather the macro storm better than most of its peers in coming quarters,’ Mike Abramsky at RBC Capital Markets said in a research note,” Ratner reports.
“Mr. Abramsky expects the shares will remain range-bound and volatile until growth and margin trends become clearer to investors,” Ratner reports.
Ratner reports, “Meanwhile, the macro uncertainty and Apple’s US$25-billion cash war chest could present ‘extraordinary opportunities,’ according to CEO Steve Jobs, so stay tuned.”
Full article here.
“Peers”??? Who are these peers he speaks of?
Yeah, they wish they were on the level of peer.
Peer,– one who pees.
OMG. I don’t even know what the article said as I refuse to read a site so glaringly UGLY as that. 2″ wide bright blue banners and 100 point text? Arghhhh!!!
There is only one area where Apple still lags, and that is in gaming. Apple has been gaining ground in little steps, but at some point they are going to have to go all in. That could mean buying NVIDIA, building their own gaming platform, or developing a console or quasi-mac ultra-gaming station. Who knows. But I figure if Apple is going to really do it, they will do something unexpected and mind-blowing. They need another game changer (so to speak) and gaming their next frontier.
i think apple is not interested in gaming as a whole. having more current titles on the mac? sure that would be great and they are working on it. casual games on iphone/ipod touch? sure, this will sell even more of them. but a real investment in computer/console gaming? no way.
die hard pc-gamers will stay with a pc. it is essential to be able to put in the best graphic-card in your system. i am a gamer myself and i have a pc standing beside my G5 for that sole purpose (man, that ugly thing is loud!) and i find myself upgrading that graphic-card every 6 months just to keep track. (i couldn’t do that to the extent necessary on a mac, even with my G5) still the market is so small that some of the gaming companies don’t even bother to bring out pc-titles anymore or only much later as a scondary market.
the game-console space is also quiet small (15 million units for an average price of $220 in 2007 for nintendo, sony and microsoft combined). so even if apple could have 30% of that market that would translate to only 1bn in anual sales. too small for the amazing amount of investment you have to make. (remember, up until now microsoft invested more than 8 bn in the xbox venture and only as of recently they made some money from it).
i would propose another direction: a hdtv with built in apple tv functionality and an integrated innovativ soundsystem would be a huge future market for apple. According to a new report from Global Industry Analysts, Inc, the HDTV market is expected to exceed 50 million units in 2008. apple could easily charge a premium for an integrated device so an average price of $1500 for a 42″ unit woudn’t be far off. and with only 10% of that market that would translate to anual sales of 7,5 bn. almost the fourth leg steve is looking for to finally have a real apple-chair.
@Ashami,
I think Apple is sneaking in through the backdoor (hehehe) in gaming. They are making the iPhone a great small game product hoping things trickle up to their desktops and laptops.
If Apple is interested in gaming, then Apple needs to put some effort into high-end graphics cards. The new nVidia graphics in the MacBook and MacBook Pro is a good step ahead of the Intel GMA graphics. But that does not address the high end space.
Apple has adopted (and/or fostered) a number of industry standards over the past decade, starting with USB and PCI in the 1990s. The Mac Pro sports a PCIe interface – why do we still need special Mac graphics cards? Apple needs to get past that.
MDN – Thanks, Keep ’em Coming
Always appreciate these “analyst projection” stories
Gives us our daily laugh at Wall Street
Especially in light of the Current Situation™
Is like listening to a back-seat driver
Describe a slow motion car wreck
i.e.
“…shares will remain range-bound and volatile until growth and margin trends become clearer to investors.”
Which is Wall Street Speak for:
“We don’t know what the fsck is going on, or when it will happen, but give us your money anyway.”
25 Billion in cash…. well Apple should buy Sun Microsystems. They are worth 3.53 Billion, I thought I saw somewhere. Apple would get ZFS, Java and perhaps some talented engineers to add to the pool of Apple engineers working on XServe. Kind of spin Sun off as Apple’s Server division.