“Quarter after quarter, Apple Inc. reports record sales. More iPhones are being sold than ever before, and Mac sales are rising while most PC makers are confronting lower sales,” Gene Steinberg writes for The tech Night Owl. “The PC industry may be on its last legs, but Apple has managed to carve out a growing share of the market segment that matters. That’s the higher profit segment. They are leaving the low-end, where profits are difficult to achieve, to the bottom feeders.”
“Now it’s true there are trouble spots for Apple, such as lagging iPad sales. While Apple CEO Tim Cook puts a positive spin on the situation, it’s fair to wonder whether it’s just a spin, and what Apple hopes to accomplish,” Steinberg writes. “Obviously improving iPad multitasking in iOS 9 will make the device more useful for productivity, and that, along with the IBM deal, may indeed improve sales. And don’t forget the delayed upgrade cycle. Maybe this year will be the charm.”
MacDailyNews Take: This year, and into the next, will be the charm for iPad.
“Apple is doing so much more these days, and getting far more attention, that any possible slip up, even if it’s nothing unusual, gets extra coverage,” Steinberg writes. “But what about the first release of Windows 10, which is reportedly in fairly shaky condition? The excuse is that Microsoft promised rolling updates, so things would get fixed. But is that an excuse for a release that wasn’t ready for anyone beyond power users and early adopters? There was also the initial rollout, such as it was, for Android 5 Lollipop, which was quickly replaced with a working update to fix some serious bugs. And I haven’t even gotten to the well-known and very serious security lapses with Android that, for the most part, will never be fixed on most handsets running Google’s OS. The most recent problems have gotten some publicity, but tech coverage is still heavily dominated by the latest scuttlebutt about Apple. As usual.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Because Apple is the tech industry. Without Apple, there would be no Microsoft. There would be no Android as we know it today(it’d instead be the BlackBerry knockoff it was originally designed to be). For the most part, also-rans like Microsoft and Google get a pass in the press. It’s the frontrunner who gets spotlighted for good and bad.
Sometimes, as with recent record results, even when it’s very good, it’s made to seem bad.
The facts: Apple sold 47.5 million iPhones in the third quarter, up 35 percent year-over-year. But analysts had expected around 49 million units. Analysts also expected growth of more than the mere 35% that Apple posted (in the June quarter, no less) and wanted guidance of more than $51.13 billion – $51.13 BILLION! – in the 90-some-odd-day quarter prior to holiday shopping season in which Apple’s all-time record for the September quarter, so far, stands at $42.1 billion, but Apple only gave guidance with a top end of $51 billion, not $51.13 billion for which some analysts had hoped.
This is the truth. Apple’s scale of operation is HUGE, for just about anything it does. One percent of 100 million is ONE MILLION. Media reports often point to things like “hundreds of posts” on Apple support forum as proof of a major crisis for Apple, but if it’s actually “hundreds” (or even “thousands”), that’s a GOOD stat when the customer base is in the tens of millions (or even hundreds of millions).
Those with problems make all the noise. The VAST majority are mostly silently happy; they are not logging in to Apple’s support forum just to say everything is great.
Replay the MDN factoid on the last quarter——-
The facts: Apple sold 47.5 million iPhones in the third quarter, up 35 percent year-over-year. But analysts had expected around 49 million units. Analysts also expected growth of more than the mere 35% that Apple posted (in the June quarter, no less) and wanted guidance of more than $51.13 billion – $51.13 BILLION! – in the 90-some-odd-day quarter prior to holiday shopping season in which Apple’s all-time record for the September quarter, so far, stands at $42.1 billion, but Apple only gave guidance with a top end of $51 billion, not $51.13 billion for which some analysts had hoped.
YES, Apple is clearly dooooooomed…………../s
The ANALists simply want the hits on the web…….!!
Apple is still selling things that were created under Steve’s supervision! Too many fiascos under Tim Cook… just too many. From iPhone 5C (remember that thing?) to John Browett and Scott Forstall (remember those guys?) to horrible product roll outs (iMacs, Mac Pros, Apple Watch) iOS 8.0.1, Maps, the whole thing with Apple Music that it erased your music, how iTunes just flat out sucks, how retail is not evolving (the only evolution was hiring an expensive fashion exec that has yet to show ANY improvements for Apple), Tim mixing political views into the company’s public discourse, acquiring Beats for $3.2 billion while having drunk rappers publicly humiliate the company (the only thing we’ve seen from Beats that Apple never did is a recall program for their products RECALL?! FROM APPLE?!)… Tim Cook can’t even build the company’s new HQ without some faux pas… the latest keynotes have been the industry’s laughingstock instead of the polite deathblows to competitors Steve used to administer with gusto… Apple best days are over if a leader doesn’t step up to the plate and changes things dramatically.
Nonsensical hyperbole. Maps is great, has always worked well for me. Apple Music is ground-breaking, works fine.
It comes down to a willingness to learn new things. Difficult for most, impossible for some.
Apple Music is groundbreaking? Who’s using hyperbole now?
WTF?!! It is indeed an exciting and groundbreaking service in many ways. Unfortunately, when coupled with iTunes it doesn’t work just fine.
Apple Music is a fscking catastrophe fan boy. Get real. I’ve been using Macs since my first Mac SE and am fully into Apple’s Ecosystem. But I’m on day 5 of trying to fix MY music library that APPLE fscked up, all because I had the nerve to use their Apple Music.
Apple Music wasnt tested even 1 fscking day.
MDN’s would be excoriating (I’ll pause while you look this up) Microsoft had they produced a turd like Apple Music, and rightly so.
God fan boys suck hard.
“God fan boys suck hard.”
You’re HOW old?
And the alternative is what…. Microsoft? The point is Apple is the only company really making money the Analyst are just pissed that Apple doesn’t play by their rules..
Really?! Certainly can’t tell from the market… they’re selling & making more & more… product & money, it’s just Wall Street that’s blind. The 5C is a wonderful product, more sold than BBs, windows phones, nokias and probably Sonys. Macs are the only desktops not in decline, Pro Laptops top every review! Apple Watch, of which I’m a very happy and proud owner … own the market! iOS 8 … quickly adopted by iOS users! Maps… very, very good use it every day without error… ever! Apple Music… looks good, soon to be #1 there too! iTunes… let’s not talk about that turd, this is a family rag. Beats many experts herald its influence on Apple Music, Radio specifically… worries there… I get it, for whatever reason you don’t like TimC, but don’t forget that Stevie Boy hand picked him, so your argument & disapproval is with Stevie.. not Timmy. But Apple’s doing just fine, I’d rather be them than any other tech company, so stop your whining and suck it up
Also, the fact that Apple is selling product that debuted under Mr Jobs is indicative of Apple’s quality and far sightedness. That hasn’t changed… its just that YOU can’t see it.
the iPhone 5C was one of the bestselling phones of all time. It even outsold the Galaxy s in that year.
Business Insider 2014:
“Apple’s iPhone 5c beat out many Android flagships, and also bested Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10 devices. On AT&T in September and October, the device even beat out Samsung’s Galaxy S4.”
—–
it’s telling how FUD becomes urban legend ‘fact’.
Apparently you don’t recall the G3 iBook recall or the PowerBook titanium replacements or the PowerBook 5300 buy back or abysmal “Cube” sales. Oh, and how about the iPod nano v2: too easily cracks screen and case.
There were plenty of past mistakes they had the guts to clean up… And they did, moved onward and upward.
Wow! A breath of fresh air on this site! Someone not wearing rose-colored glasses. Nice to see an honest appraisal of Apple. Boy, they’ll be coming after you with pitchforks and torches.
It doesn’t really matter how well Apple is doing as a company, the stock is simply horrible. YTD, Apple is nearly doing as poorly as Microsoft in share gains. Forget about Amazon, Google and Netflix. Apple isn’t even in the same league as those stocks. Those companies are making Apple shareholders look like fools. I’m only telling it like it is. If you took someone who knew nothing about stocks and showed them comparison charts for share gains for this year, they’d probably swear Apple is going out of business. It’s that bad. Anyway, the year isn’t over and Apple can still make gains, but I’m not counting on anything from the company except dividends. I don’t need to sell any Apple shares, so they’ll just stay where they are. I think when I bought Apple in 2004, fundamentals meant more than they do today. Today, they count for absolutely nothing when it comes to determining share value. Apple has some of the best fundamentals around and yet the stock collapses like a wet noodle. Seriously F’d up.
Gee, some people get so worked up over anything. Apple’s future rests solely on Apple’s shoulders and not on any hype someone can dredge up.
The facts are clear, go on any airplane in the country and almost everyone has an iPad. Go to concerts and people are taking pictures with iPads. I just went to the Grand Canyon and people were taking pictures with iPads. iPads are huge. They are also COMPUTERS and not PHONES and thus the upgrade cycle is that of a COMPUTER. A phone is upgraded every two years because $600 or more of it is paid for by subsidies. People wouldn’t buy a new phone every two years if they were $800 a pop. The iPad will be upgraded when the OS has something the current iPads can’t do and that’s iOS 9.
As for the watch, if you use it for a day, you are sold. It’s wonderful. And Watch OS 2 will make it 1000 times better than it currently is.
Everyone with a 5s can now upgrade to the 6s and most will get the larger screen Plus which has a higher profit margin.
All that wrapped up in a nutshell – People are stupid for selling. Thanks for the discounted shares.
No one is listening. The stock is down 15% since the ATH. The selling has been fierce these last few days. It has been a full-on assault. Every time the stock tried to go past $115.50 today it got smacked down. I have never seen the traders this bearish, except at the low in 2013. At least during that time there was a semi-reason: Apple missed several earnings estimates and posted negative EPS growth. Today, this is obviously not the case. I know Tim doesn’t like to concentrate on the daily gyrations of the stock, but there is serious carnage out there and the wolves are prouncing for more. Something very positive needs to happen, ASAP.
About all of those reports that Apple is in dire straits:
Artificially induced. AKA manipulation. So old. So illegal. So boring. If you’re a day trader, you’re the sucker target the manipulators want to fool. Don’t be.