“Apple’s fall from Wall Street darling to Wall Street whipping boy has been largely documented,” Romano Bastianpillai writes for Seeking Alpha. “Pundits have decried that Apple lacks an innovative edge and that growth has plateaued. Do the public denouncements lack substance? The following points dispel common misconceptions of the technology behemoth.”
“Profit share is more important than market share,” Bastianpillai writes. “Many analysts have raised concerns that Apple’s market share is declining, citing competition from Samsung and Chinese brands including Lenovo. The primary objective of any public company is to maximize profitability and Apple has achieved this goal. Despite enduring a smartphone Market Share decline from 20.9% to 17.9%, Apple’s Profit Share increased from 77.8% to 87.4%.”
“Emphasizing percentage change can be misleading,” Bastianpillai writes. “The latest earnings cited quarterly revenue as $57.6B, translating to 5.7% year over year growth for the period… Analysts denounced the 5.7% revenue growth as flat, without fairly giving credence to the $3.2B increase. Here are a few facts to place the $3.2B into perspective: $3.2B equates to 19% of total Google revenue based on the most recent quarterly earnings. $3.2B equates to 41% of Facebook revenue for the entire 2013 Calendar Year.”
“The market needs to exercise more patience for new products,” Bastianpillai writes. “Some analysts have been complaining for years that Apple has lost its knack for innovation, due to the lack of recent new product categories. To be fair, Apple hasn’t deviated from its historical release schedule. The market should have realistic expectations and temper its patience.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “AAPLcore” for the heads up.]
Seeking Alpha writers are normally among the lead trash writers when it comes to Apple. This one must have slipped by the editors.
The market is speaking with a singular voice with unequaled clarity: FIRE Tim Cook!
Who would you recommend as a replacement, hmmm?
I can’t imagine anyone worthy of the position at the moment but you can bet there’s a short list of people being groomed for the position.
The joker is the joke.
Why is it you respond to it’s constant blathering?
Let’s just start with the short list with CEO experience:
Jeff Weiner
Al Mulally
Paul Jacobs
Fred Smith
Joe Robles
Jeff Imelt
Pierre Nanterme
Paul Maritz
……
They’re all good people and have done well for themselves and their respective companies but unfortunately none of those companies have had relationships with Apple other than maybe Jeff Weiner who was at Yahoo.
Tim Cook already has a short list and it doesn’t look anything like yours.
I’m thinking Apple’s next CEO will be under 50-years old and will be an obvious choice, someone like Elon Musk, who is bright enough to whizz through Apple’s questionnaire:
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-brain-busting-interview-questions-answers-2012-6?op=1
Another waste of ink and paper. The endless analyses positive and negative and other blabber are all nothing more than a way for the writers to turn in their work product and get paid. It’s ALL senseless and useless. Until there is someone in the CEO’s office who can lead the once great company out of the darkness that now surrounds it, NOTHING is going to change. We’ll get some over hyped tweaks, a larger screen (not because we need a larger screen but because that’s the only thing the company can think to do) some return to sanity with the next iOS upgrade, and more disappointment in the TV box’s ability to match the offerings of countless competitive TV boxes. That’s it, folks. It’s what we get in the Tim Cook era. Get over yourselves – your constant replies of “troll” to constant postings like this one does absolutely nothing more than to reveal the absolute truth that you have nothing more.
The title of the article is, Dispelling Market Misconceptions of Apple, which in your eyes is a complete waste of time. You said so, in your opening remark.
Why wouldn’t it be? You’re on the outside, looking in and you AREN’T getting paid, that’s what’s so laughable. You’re just running your jibs for free.
You aren’t worth a single star.
Seems that the cries of troll are hurting you, but fact is truth does hurt. One particular laughable statement is the blathering ‘Get over it’ when if that is what you believe it is you who needs to get over it. Rather weird to instruct others to get over something they don’t actually believe in don’t you think you certainly never offer anything of substance to support your inane rants. Suggests you are both desperate to be loved and desperate to convince those who find your ramblings amusing at best laughable at worst. I guess your paycheck relies upon it so the irrational murmurings of a madman become more pronounced in the process.
These people need to stop crying “wolf”. I am so sick of Apple is doomed because it does not have the major market share. Never had…never will.
The idea that you can make that kind of profit with a small piece of the market…reminds them of how pitifully inept they are regarding today’s business strategies. They are all still living in the 20th Century.
What separates Apple from everyone else is they operate in a vertical market. In other words, their slice of the market is enough to sustain their business model.
Always has, always will.
It’s certainly safer than having a large market share that will inevitably be overturned by the next ten a penny candidate. There’s a balance to be had and I don’t always agree with Apple’s position on it but going for market share would be a sure way to self destruction. The future for the most part for western companies is powerful niche positions I testing the flow not low return mass market which have no chance of survival longer term. Amazing these arrogant living in the past analysts still don’t get it, the good old days are coming yo an end.
Sorry! When I said they in my previous pits I was referring to the analysts.
If you read “The Outsiders”, an excellent business book (and great, fast read), one thing is clear: highly successful CEOs and companies can be measured by one important factor: cash flow growth. In that regard, Apple is doing just fine, thanks.
If you step back from all the noise and hysteria, you will find that Apple is quietly doing better than you may understand. This article points out that it takes many years for a company like Apple to come up with a game-changing new category. But if you get sucked in by the hysterical noise of the pundits and analysts, Apple and Tim Cook are failures. Theirs is a moment-by-moment viewpoint, and their intent is to make you trade stocks too much, driven by the fear they generate. But the great investors, and CEOs are patient. They are like crocodiles, happy to lay quietly for long periods of time, waiting for a wildebeest to cross the river. Great CEOs as outlined in The Outsiders are happy to be patient, and make their move at opportune times. Why is Warren Buffett such a great investor, despite articles being written about him each year by pundits claiming that the old man has “lost it”? Because he is blessed with patience, and the willingness to still out irrational times, to wait for exactly the right time to strike at opportunity.
Those who castigate Tim Cook are caught up in the short-term hysteria whipped up by the punditocracy.
Tim Cook is guilty as charged for not being Steve Jobs. But who could be a
Steve Jobs? Nobody. The point is to be patient. Don’t get sucked in by the media whipped frenzy. In a year’s time, I have a feeling that sentiment about a Apple will change dramatically, in part because it is in Wall Street’s interest to push a highly profitable company down, buy its shares on the cheap, manipulate public sentiment, and generate irrational exuberance to drive the stock price up again. Rinse and repeat.
Don’t fall into their game or their impatience. As an investor, you must be very patient, and think in terms of years, not days, weeks or quarters. If you ever wondered how Warren Buffett got to be so successful, that is why. Read “The Outsiders” and you will understand. Follow the cash flow growth, not earnings, which can be easily manipulated. And turn off CNBC, ignore The Street and CBS Marketwatch. They only exist to prey on your fears.