“Apple Inc. announced its first-quarter fiscal year 2017 results Tuesday, and they were far better than what everyone had expected,” Mukta Samtani writes for Profit Confidential. “The company reported the highest revenue ever, at $78.4 billion, and also posted record iPhone sales. Mac sales are also back on track, together with the upbeat performance of the Apple Watch.”
“Apple CEO Tim Cook may be a relieved man for the time being, and what he said in the conference call with analysts tells us a lot about what the company plans to do next and where is Apple stock headed,” Samtani writes. “On being asked by Katy Huberty, analyst at Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, about the possibility of getting access to the $200.0-billion-plus of cash parked overseas, Apple’s chief executive said that the company would wait for further clarity on the tax relief, but is always open to acquisitions.”
“The company started the new Apple TV a year ago and management is happy with how that platform has developed, with Apple Inc. having bigger plans for it in the coming days. So far, the new launch has not been able to buoy AAPL stock,” Samtani writes. “Cook said that they were learning a lot about the original content business and thinking about ways they could play with that.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Repatriating a significant amount of Apple’s offshore cash mountain will free the company to do a lot of interesting things. Let’s hope Apple can do something to shake up the content providers, so that Apple TV can become much, much more than just a hobby.