“Apple shocked the street by missing analyst estimates as iPhone sales disappointed the financial prognosticators,” Michael Yoshikami, CEO, Founder and Chairman of YCMNET’s Investment Committee, writes for CNBC. “But rather than providing an indication of Apple’s decline, it instead highlights how easily influenced the investment community can be, caught up in momentum, and prone to setting unreasonable expectations for earnings estimates.”
“Apple is obviously in transition mode as the iPhone 4S was delayed by three months and released off its usual cycle. And with the new iPhone release, they appear back on track,” Yoshikami writes. “Just this last week, Apple reported record iPhone sales for this product despite geek disappointment that the next iPhone iteration did not change the form factor. Lines were back and sold out signs were the norm once again.”
Yoshikami writes, “with their pipeline overflowing with products including the iPhone5 and the iPAD3 heading our way, as well as very strong unit sales for Mac OS computers, you can expect this company to march forward. Look at the earnings miss as more of an indictment on overly optimistic guesses about earnings rather than a misstep by Apple. For the street to be shocked that the company missed lofty earnings estimates (despite business lines showed massive unit growth) simply illustrates that Wall Street has sometimes unreasonable expectations… Don’t blame Apple if expectations were more euphoric than they should have been; a $100 billion dollar fiscal year sales result is far from a disappointment.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
An analyst than actually analyzes … Go figure
The delay in the iPhone 4S hurt Apple in more ways than one. Depressed Q4 revenues by a couple of billion for one. Given that it’s a repackaging of existing externals and recycled internals (CPU from the iPad) I don’t see how the 3 month delay could have been justified.
More ways than one? Please explain.
The “repackaging” has sold more than 4 million iPhone 4S’s over its opening weekend. Carriers are reporting record sales. There’s a 2 week delay on shipping from Apple because of the high demand.
Apple does one thing that EVERY other company should think about, ignore its stock-holders.
Couldn’t disagree more… One thing that Apple has learned is that you do not rush to market with anything. They will release product when they are damn well ready. There is more to making a product than specs. You try making millions of anything, keep quality in place and get them in channel. It looks as if Apple is learning with each launch, better presales, more stock, better line flow, etc. How much manufacturing equipment do you think there is in the world? I know for a fact it not as much as you think and Apple either owns or has tied up most of it. The companies that make the machines that make Apples machines can’t make em fast enough.
Besides, Apple breaks its own cycles and precived traditions all the time, think different, think fast, fear no analyst or armchair CEO…….
I’d wager it has more to do with them wanting to shift the release date. Instead of releasing in June every year, now they can release in the fall, when the iPod press conference used to happen.WWDC still happens in June, so there will always be excitement there, but with the decline of the iPod line, they have now moved the iPhone to the fall to generate excitement before the Christmas shopping season.
Yes, quite plausible. Thanks for pointing that out.
I totally agree. I think they wanted a Fall event since the emphasis on iPods seems to have decreased. I doubt there was any delay that was not intentional.
Of course you don’t see. Let me show it to you…. Software.
And it is not whether it’s justified. It is simple, corresponding software was likely not ready to go out the door, and that was very likely, but not limited to, Siri.
See.
Siri is beta. It wouldn’t have mattered when they pushed it out the door. But of course unlike Google Apple wants to keep its beta as close to eventual release as possible. But then again looking at it another way has Siri been used to justify poor (unchanged) hardware. Not as crystal clear as you think.
No so, Siri works, it may not have worked quite so well in june (and been a disastrous launch)
AND…
Unchanged hardware, Dude… WTF have you been smoking?
They took the iPad2 (it self a totally revolutionary product in size, speed and function, released only 9 mos ago) and shrank it to the size of a phone. Then they installed one of the most amazing camera’s ever invented (given it’s size constraints)
And also developed a “go around” to a problem that was inherent in all previous phone designs and rooted in RF physics: shielding of the antennas with your hand
Dude… engage you brain before you hit that “post comment” button.
My thoughts as well.
Has a complete fuckwit stolen BLN’s identity? Are you really fracking serious? The screen’s the only bit that hasn’t changed, even the steel frame has been modified so it now has antenna top and bottom, with switching tech to get the best Rx/Tx results, there’s the new processor, more storage, a completely new and outrageously stunning camera, better battery, GPS using two different satellite networks for improved performance in higher latitudes…
Recycled processor indeed, it’s been the principle from the beginning that iOS devices share processors, you can’t possibly tell me with a straight face that you imagine Apple would waste money designing and producing different processors for devices that share OS. Next you’ll be dissing Apple for sharing processors and other internals among its laptop and desktop computers. Jeezus, you have truly taken leave of what few senses you appeared to have.
Your posts get dumber by the day.
Recycled internals?! Where is it written that a chipset may only be used in one product before its useful lifespan has been exhausted?
Where’s the 8MP camera in the iPad? Where’s the new antenna in the iPad? Where’s Siri in the iPad? Where’s the new ISP in the iPad? Where are the new optics and wider aperture in the iPad?
It’s a freaking recession out here and they score 100,000,000 in one year, sounds disappointing to me.
dude, go back to counting school — you’re missing three zeros! 😊
Actually, 108,000,000,000.
How can something that was never announced be delayed? Has something in the world changed?
Yes. Rumors are now announcements. Didn’t you get the memo?
You are right… However, I think Apple’s leadership probably anticipated releasing iPhone 4S during the last quarter (instead of immediately after the quarter), when the last quarter began. That is why they gave “guidance” (at the beginning of the quarter) that was HIGHER than consensus expectations, because they anticipated including revenue from the initial sales surge of at least the first weekend of iPhone 4S sales.
So in that way, it was “never announced,” but it may have been “delayed.” And Apple STILL met and exceeded its original guidance, despite not having any iPhone 4S revenue during the quarter.
I think the big dissapointment for me is that MDN posts the same stories over and over…
Yeah i know i can not read them, leave etc… que the braindead responses in 3,2,1…
You commented to yoursel in the same message with your own reasoning , and if it helps talking to yourself so much the better.
Guess it helped you, and you at least got a response.
Night… Night…
” overly optimistic guesses ”
What perplexes me the most is that these “anal-ysts”, not only guess but they continually change their numbers during the quarter. As the quarter comes to a close and they have up’d their “guesses” even higher, they seemed shocked and say how Apple missed estimates. When was the last time Apple missed their own projected estimates? Which estimates are the “analysts” referring too, their “guess” at the beginning of the quarter or their adjusted guess at the end?
I think I will stick to what SJ said and be patient. I challenge anyone find me something or someplace else to put my money in right now.
I’m all ears.
An “analyst” these days is anyone who can count to ten and stick “anal—” after their name.
Geek disappointment ! INDEED !!!
useful concept..
So, Apple either did better as expected, or not well enough.
They’re screwed either way.
Fuck the analysts.
“… a $100 billion dollar fiscal year sales result is far from a disappointment.”
That’s true. Now how do you feel about a $108 billion fiscal year? That (not “$100 billion”) was Apple’s revenue for fiscal 2011. I don’t think it’s a good idea to throw away $8 billion because you love round numbers…