Apple, along with Amazon, are both expected to report revenue above $100 billion in 2020’s holiday quarter, putting them into rarefied air and underlining their market dominance.
Ryan Vlastelica for Bloomberg:
Amazon forecast revenue of $112 billion to $121 billion for the period ending in December. Wall Street is looking for revenue of almost $119 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. While Apple didn’t give a forecast in its most recent report, the average analyst sales estimate is for $101.6 billion.
Amazon is expected to continue seeing a tailwind from the pandemic-driven shift to online shopping, as well as from its Prime Day shopping event, while the release of the iPhone 12 is expected to be a catalyst for Apple sales. Amazon came close to $100 billion in sales for its most recent quarter, when revenue topped $96 billion, while Apple broke above $90 billion in the holiday quarter of 2019.
Hitting this level of revenue is infrequent but not unprecedented. Among U.S. companies, Exxon Mobil Corp. surpassed that mark several times, although not since 2013. In its most recent quarter, Exxon revenue was below $50 billion as fuel demand wallows amid pandemic lockdowns. Walmart Inc., on the other hand, has hit it consistently for about a decade, and that streak is expected to continue, with analysts looking for more than $130 billion in sales in the current quarter.
MacDailyNews Take: Just a note about margins: For their quarter ended September 30, 2020, Amazon reported net sales of $96.1 billion with net income (profit) of $6.3 billion. Apple, for their quarter ended September 26, 2020, reported revenue of $64.7 billion with net income of $12.673 billion. Two-thirds the revenue to generate double the profit.
Starting to look like witchcraft.
What a joke. Goldman Sachs has downgraded Apple’s price target to $75 a share. Rod Hall thinks Apple is a crappy investment. I’ve long noticed analysts and big investors don’t think profit is as important as growth. It’s something I really don’t quite understand but I’m probably just stupid. A bird in hand is worth less than two in a bush stupid. Amazon is certainly valued much higher than Apple, so Jeff Bezos seems to know what he’s doing and he certainly knows how to please investors.
I have always thought Apple was basically leaving money on the table by simply holding cash in a bank, and during this pandemic Apple doesn’t seem to be less volatile than any of the other major tech companies that have less cash. I’m not criticizing Apple as I have done very well owning Apple stock. Sometimes I just don’t understand Apple’s strategy as it doesn’t operate the same as other tech companies. Apple being a nearly $2T company obviously must be doing a lot of things right.