“If a business fails to take care of its customers, its customers will go elsewhere. Every businessman knows this to be true, and for those who are prudently observing the trend in one of our giants, forward risks become a reality,” Thomas H. Kee Jr., president and CEO of Stock Traders Daily writes for MarketWatch. “In the case of Apple, this is happening in front of our eyes, and the risks are therefore very high. Apple has stopped serving their customers well, and unless they start to serve their customers better the company will begin to lose more market share and revenue and earnings projections will come down aggressively.”
“Most people think Apple’s customers are the end user, but because Apple relies so heavily on third-party resellers like Verizon and Sprint, both of which are feeling margin contraction and negative effects on earnings because of the extremely high cost of iPhones, the real customers are third-party resellers, and Apple is not treating them right,” Kee writes. “As long as margins and earnings are negatively affected by sales of Apple’s products, those resellers will look for alternatives and eventually they will find them. Nothing could be clearer.”
“We all know that Apple’s products were revolutionary, but they are not nearly as elite as they were… Now, nothing in Apple’s arsenal is compelling enough to command multiples as high as recent growth rates. To any doubters, look at the past growth rates versus current market multiples; Wall Street already sees this coming,” Kee writes. “It [sic] you own AAPL and you are expecting the company to grow like it has in the past, you are sorely mistaken. Apple is not what it was… Apple is not respecting customer needs, and until this changes Apple is a sell.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Kee offers zero evidence that Verizon and Sprint feel that “Apple is not treating them right.”
The tale will be told when Apple reports Q112 earnings on January 24th. And, at every significant milestone that AAPL hits, our iCal icons will bounce in our Docks and Kee will be fed and re-fed his crow with relish. We’re nothing if not experts at tenaciously doling out recurring ignominy.
Welcome to hell, our newest Laura Goldman, welcome to hell.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Brian Allen” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Laura Goldman: Owning Apple stock is a spiritual experience devoid of logic – February 06, 2008
Investment advisor Laura Goldman puts ‘sell’ on Apple – May 21, 2007
The end user is the only one who matters.
Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile can buy as many phone as they want, but if no one wants one, then the venders are not going to sell them. And if one vender pulls pout of the deal with Apple because they don’t think their being treated well, then the end users will find the vender that still sells iPhone and go with them. That’s why Verizon was hemorrhaging costumers to AT&T before they got the iPhone.
There is not a single telecom worth half of their stock price that will ever let go of the iPhone, they can’t afford to, and Apple knows it.
Time was, a consumer walked into a store, or a worker to a help desk, and asked about Apple. They got the horse laugh and the cold shoulder. Nowadays, the shoe is on the other foot and everyone knows it.
As wrong-headed, or deceptive, as can be. I don’t know whether to credit it to Anal Extraction or pontificating under the (heavy) influence of hallucinagenics or both.
Stock price manipulation? Perhaps. But many customers feel screwed by things Apple has done lately. Lion, iCloud, and FCPX have all pissed off a lot of people who feel Apple is totally out of touch with them.
Verizon and AT&T are the REAL customers?!?!?
I don’t even know how to respond to someone who is that ignorant and moronic! It’s like he’s trying to be so outrageous, just to get attention . . . oh, never mind.
Stock price manipulation? Perhaps. But Lion, iCloud, and FCPX have caused a lot of long term customers to be dissatisfied so there may be some truth here.
Analysts≠intelligence.
Apple is probably going to announce its biggest quarter ever and this idiot is saying Apple has lost it? Makes no sense at all, and with future products like a new version of the iPad and iPhone and maybe an Apple TV. Again it doesn’t make any sense at all. Apple hasn’t lost it, there just getting started! Apple products aren’t as elite as they were because every manufacturer is trying to make bad copies of Apple products. Apple is going to grow Kee, you are sorely mistaken! Apple has a roadmap unlike other companies which only follow Apple with no future plans except to make the next copy of whatever Apple makes. Steve jobs said it best, let the copy machines begin, and they certainly have from the likes of Samsung, Amazon, Auzus, Microsoft, you name the company and they are all trying or have already tried, most have failed. Those that haven’t will fail in court eventually.
Verizon and, subsequently, Sprint jumped on the Apple/iPhone bandwagon with open eyes. They had several years of experience watching AT&T enjoy the benefits and deal with the data throughput pains of hosting the iPhone on its network.
It is reasonable to conjecture that Apple may eventually have to accept reduced margins/carrier subsidies on the iPhone as the product matures and competitors find a way to siphon off some of the iPhone steam. However, the doomsaying of Thomas H. Kee Jr. is ridiculous. He is either pushing puts on AAPL, or he failed to intelligently invest his own money during the past decade and is looking to generate a downward dip for an entry point. Regardless, this article is fully non-Scottish, and if it’s not Scottish…well, you know.
Sheez. Obvious anti-Apple plant.
MarketWatch also employs John (“they should pull the plug on the iPhone, nobody will use a mouse”) Dvorak.
enough said.
Thomas H. Kee Jr., president and CEO of Stock Traders Daily has to be on drugs. I haven’t read anything so indicative of grain ergot disorder in over a week! 😉
OMFG the TechTardiness of these ‘analysts’ boggles the mind. And watch the DayTraderTardSheep respond. Mahhh! Mahhh!
Why is stock price manipulation so dead simple these days? Is this a bad side effect of our instant Internet world? Or is grain ergot disorder more widespread than my little mind can imagine? I sure am happy I don’t have it! 😎