Apple juggernaut sends ripples through tech world

“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.

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Macbart” for the heads up.]

32 Comments

  1. “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. 🙂

        1. 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.

        2. 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.

        3. 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.”

  2. 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.

    1. 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.

      1. 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

      2. 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.

    2. 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.

  3. 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. 🙂

    1. ‘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

  4. 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.

  5. 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?

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