“It’s that time of year again. Apple has released its results for the fiscal quarter ended 24 September 2016 and we are immediately plunged into ‘Has Apple peaked?’ speculation,” John Naughton writes for The Guardian. “How come? Well, the company posted quarterly revenue of $46.9bn and net income of $9bn. Not bad, eh? Ah, yes, but not if you’re a Wall Street analyst, because these numbers compare to revenue of $51.5bn and net income of $11.1bn in the same quarter the year before. And – shock, horror! – the company’s gross margin was only 38% compared to 39.9% a year ago. The numbers are down, in other words.”
“Pause for a reality check: Apple has cash reserves of $237.6bn, up $32bn from last year. At $622bn (at 26 October 2016), it is the most valuable company in the world,” Naughton writes. “For comparison, Exxon Mobil is worth a mere $361bn (at 26 October 2016). In the quarter under discussion, Apple sold 45.5m iPhones, 9.3m iPads and 4.9m Mac (desktop and laptop) computers. By any reasonable standard, this is the record of a truly formidable corporation. But because 2016 marks the first full-year revenue decline for Apple since 2001, the Wall Street guys are in a lather.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple has more money on hand than AT&T is worth – with $12 billion left over.
Again, the tough compare created by Apple being years late to market with a properly-sized iPhone is now blessedly OVER.
Apple has now forecast a return to growth.
Some further perspective: Apple’s fiscal 2016 revenue from Services alone ($24.348 billion) would stand at #155 on the Fortune 500 list of the largest U.S. corporations by total revenue, ahead of the likes of Duke Energy, Time Warner Cable, and Halliburton.
SEE ALSO:
MacDailyNews presents live notes from Apple’s Q416 conference call – October 25, 2016
Apple beats Street, services revenue grows 24% to all-time quarterly record of $6.3 billion – October 25, 2016