“The long awaited, much hyped Apple earnings report came out last night and offered a little something for everyone, particularly investors who’ve been arguing that the company has much bigger problems than a slumping stock price,” Jeff Macke writes for Yahoo Finance.
“The company has spent $2.1b on R&D over the last 6 months, putting it on pace to spend around $4.2B for the year. To be generous, we’ll say Apple’s expected R&D expenditures are about 2.5% of revenues,” Macke writes. “To compare, the percentage of revenues used for R&D at Microsoft, and Samsung are about 11% and 6% respectively.”
MacDailyNews Take: And, yet, Apple makes markedly superior hardware, software, and services versus both companies. Granted, Samsung beats Apple handily in washing machines and backhoes. Congrats, Jeffie, you’ve just highlighted the vast inefficiencies in Microsoft’s and Samsung’s R&D efforts.
“Despite the questions raised by this underinvestment in new products, Apple stubbornly refuses to discuss timing on new product roll-outs. ‘Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware and services we can’t wait introduce this fall and throughout 2014,” CEO Tim Cook said vaguely on last night’s conference call,'” Macke writes. “Apple had dropped 5% by the end of the call, taking back all of its after hours gains. Careful listeners could actually hear analysts dropping estimates.”
MacDailyNews Take: You know, because sell-side “analysts” are always right and they have absolutely no ulterior motives such as, for example, inducing trades – buy or sell, either way; doesn’t matter – in order for their firms to rake in commissions and fees.
Macke writes, “Regardless of what Apple’s stock does in the near term, yesterday’s performance left little doubt that Cook is not only a pale imitation of Steve Jobs but a low-rent version of John Sculley. Apple is now just a depressing reminder that the circle of life applies to all living things, even Apple.”
Full article – Think Before You Click™ – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Jeff Macke, a low-rent version of John Dvorak, has been iCal’ed for copious future use.
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Apple opens bank vault to dole out $100 billion to shareholders; $60 billion in buybacks the largest in history – April 23, 2013
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