Apple tops estimates with earnings leap of 118 per cent Apple blew past even the most optimistic Wall Street earnings estimates for the first quarter of its fiscal 2012, posting revenues of $46.33bn, resulting in a quarterly net profit of $13.06bn, or $13.87 per share. "We're thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs," said CEO Tim …
> Guess I shouldn't have paid attention at school.
There are a couple of old sayings that are important here.
Time is Money
Knowledge is Power
Now we know that Power = Work / Time
Substituting the above equalities, we get:
Knowledge = Work / Money
Rearrange that to get :
Money = Work / Knowledge
IOW, the less you know, the more you earn...
Vic.
Personally I'm happier with the huge capital gain on Apple shares which can be sheltered from tax in an ISA (up to the annual allowance). In addition to an ISA we all get a capital allowance each year which might otherwise go to waste & can soak up some gains tax free. All in all it beats a dividend hands down for most of us. I'd suggest Cosmo the enlightened isn't as enlightened as he thinks...
You don't make anything from capital gains until you sell the shares.
If you guess the wrong time to sell then you make less of a gain.
Or perhaps even a loss, depending on what prices were at the time you guessed to buy in.
In fact in twelve months time apples figures might be less impressive, their shares tank and your illusory "capital gains" will disappear in a puff of a Wall Street analysts' cigar smoke.
No, give me a dividend any day thanks.
Also, receiving a dividend in no way precludes also having a capital gain.
The money Apple makes stays with Apple. The stockholders are making money from each other, speculating on Apple's future performance. The only way this works, unless a dividend is declared, is if Apple's growth is ultimately limitless. That sounds awfully like the housing market - how could prices not continue to go up?
Admittedly Apple is generating tons of money, but its book value is around $82 per share while its traded share price is around $420 - that's an awful lot of anticipated return per share to be delivered through future earnings especially if it has to be returned to the stockholder through capital gains.
82 versus 420 is a lot as an absolute value. As a ratio it's not too bad.
Why would Apple start to issue a dividend before they run out of steam growth-wise and their stock price flatlines or goes into a stage 4 decline?
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL+Key+Statistics
I don't think yesterday's figures are incorporated.Still
P/E is still about 15, which is considered by many to be fairly priced.
PEG is 0.64 is pretty low.
Price/Book 5.10
Benjamin Graham thought that if the ratio of (P/E) / (P/B) < 22.5, then the company represents reasonable value.
For AAPL that is 15 / 5.1 = 3
People keep saying these things about UX and so on, but where is it??
I think it is just a dumbed down interface.
Have you used iOS 5 on an iPad? Safari crashes every other minute? Guaranteed crash at http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/ on an iOS5. They may change the website by the time you read this, but it is all over the Apple forums. (Until they censor that too.)
Or iTunes? Truncated course names in iTunes U, with no option to see the whole name except to click it. Is that USER EXPERIENCE???
Dumbed down interface - yes. Users who don't know what their devices can really do - yes.
Now if they kept it simple AND had options to make it usable, then kudos to them.
But they most certainly aren't there.
Yay, wahoo! This is truly great news! I'm sure with all that money, Apple are now going to invest in R&D, and help out their fellow American's by creating thousands of new jobs! (no pun intended)...
Ohh, wait, no they wont. Apple are a cancer on an economy, and shouldn't be encouraged. They have enough money sitting around to literally give every American $200, but they just sit on it. The only money they spend in America is setting up new infrastructure for taking more money.
Actually they already are. Have you not seen Apple's job openings?
http://www.apple.com/jobs/us/startsearch.html
1037 corporate jobs listed for the US (at least some with multiple vacancies). This is excluding retail.
Plus they are producing the A5 processor in factory in Texas:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/16/us-apple-samsung-idUSTRE7BF0D420111216
Are you on some kind of smack?
Do you honestly think Lenovo would do better? Oh, wait - forgot - Lenovo is a chinese company. What about Dell or Acer? Where are all these jobs created? Oh they are not - the money is going back to the investors. If anything blame the way the current economy is setup. This is not Apples fault for making money.
It could also be the consumers fault for not wanting to pay the extra 20% cost for having the product created in the great US of A......
Apple are not perfect , but the money is still going back to the US in some way...
about a billion companies around the world making- and selling- Android phones.
And those Android phones are now outselling the iPhone, suggesting that the total profit they're bringing in is going to be pretty much on a par with Apple.
And standing in a line isn't good User Experience. It's a sign of stock shortages, poor staffing levels and/or the need to drum up publicity for a product to make it sell. Again, WITHOUT needing people to wait in queues Android is outselling Apple.
Only Apple could have 'standing in a queue for 16 hours' as a plus point!
Example- I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy Note. Took me- from getting to the store to walking out, new contract and phone in-hand- under 45 minutes. THAT is an excellent user experience.
I went onto the Internet and was able to use it's web browser to browse regular web pages without daft 'missing plugin' icons. THAT is excellent user experience.
It took about 30 seconds to download my Google account data- without having to connect the device to anything. Again, an Excellent user experience.
Most sensible people know that there is no need to. You don't desperately have to have the latest gadget that very day or I'm gonna die !!!ZOMG!!!11!!. You casually go to the shop and buy one. If they don't have any in stock then just go back when they do. It really isn''t going to impact your life that much. Of course, not being tied to one company also means that if they don't have what you went for in stock then there is probably an alternative that you would be just as happy with that will do the same job.
"Well done apple! You probably have enough cash swilling around to (almost) but Samsung if you wanted it?..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung
"Samsung produces around a fifth of South Korea's total exports[11] and its revenues are larger than many countries' GDP; in 2006, it would have been the world's 35th-largest economy."
I think Apple have some way to go before they can buy Samsung. Probably not going to happen until the revenue streams from the iOilTanker, the iLargeCapitalInfrastructureConstructionProject, the iLifeInsurance, the iJetEngine, theiPharmaceuticals, and the iThemePark products start to ramp up. In the meantime with around twice the revenue and three time the assets I don't think they have too much to worry about.
Incidentally we have both Apple (a Macbook Pro, an iPad 2 and an iPod Touch) and Samsung branded Android (2 x Galaxy 'phones and a Galaxy Tab) in regular use around the housem, we're very happy with both. The Apple kit was bought to meet the requirement to run specific applications (Logic and Garageband on the Macbook and iPad) or for compatibility (we have a number of older iPods in use, have iPod specific docking kit both in the cars and in the home as well as quite a large shared music library) rather than for any obvious functional superiority though...
I think you'll find it's the fandroids in desperate need of correction. Some commentards actually know what they're talking about. Though it's usually restricted to an encyleopedic knowledge of post-beer cuisine...
Fandroids = new fanbois. Complete with rabit mouth frothing, fingers-in-the-ears, and 'gymnastic' approach to data analysis.
"You probably have enough cash swilling around to (almost) buy Samsung if you wanted it?"
Yeah, but why would they? Samsung aren't making anywhere near as much money selling phones as Apple are anyway. They'd be much better off using the money to invest internally.
As for
"Wall Street moneymen looking a wee bit silly"
Well, honestly? I think pretty much every day of there last three years has been doing that hasn't it?
Final thought - I haven't checked, but I bet there's a fair chance Apple's share price fell at this news.
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This post has been deleted by its author
We shouldn't encourage them. Now Apple has beaten their estimates, the sum total of their analysis next year will be "Apple will earn EVEN MOAR NEXT YEAR!" which may or may not be true.
As for those saying this is some kind of blow to, er, "fandroids" - I can't imagine why. Just because Apple sold a tonne of phones didn't mean Samsung, HTC, Motorola et al didn't too. There's a lot of room in this (blatantly still) growing market.
They over-estimated Google's earnings, and then when it posted a nice healthy increase the shares went DOWN because it wasn't as good as the analysts guessed it might be.
Then Microsoft posted a decrease, but because they thought it might have been a worse increase, the shares went UP.
How that makes sense is beyond me, but then I'm not an analyst.
Next year the analysts will make up some more numbers that will be a lot higher and when Apple don't match their made up guessed numbers they will probably see a falling share price, because earning $1bn profit per week won't be good enough.
The irony is, if this was Microsoft making this level of profits, there would be Anti-competition lawsuits, European and US Federal judgements and Microsoft having to apologise for dominating a market with a single product.
Becuase its Apple though, they make nice shiny things which look pretty, awwwww they're fine. We dont want to sue them!
I wonder how long this attitude will last before Apple are seen as the mighty oppressive overlord.
Apple does not have a monopoly in any market, except their own (which is like saying McDonald's has a monopoly on McDonald's fries). Microsoft, OTOH, has a monopoly and traditionally tries to leverage that monopoly to take over other markets. It didn't work with music, try as they might, and in game consoles they've dumped a TON of money to be competitive. I don't think they'll succeed with smartphones, either, because consumers and businesses are smarter now, competitors are smarter now, and when a business has a lot of momentum, it's harder for them to turn direction.
It's amusing that Apple fanbois are rejoicing at this news when it's effectively an official confirmation that they have paid a HUGE amount more for their stuff than it costs Apple to make. :)
Their profits are massive because people believe they're getting more for their money, so are happy to hand it over.
Love them or hate them, Apple have given the world a marketing masterclass over the past ten years.
Ian16, it would cost far more than 20% per unit to bring the entire production chain to the US. This article touches on some of the issues involved (although its focus is ostensibly on the iPhone):
http://www10.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?pagewanted=all
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