Mensajepor bullbear » Mié Ene 23, 2013 8:26 pm
By Matthew Lynley
Another mixed bag for Apple today: solid revenue and a beat on earnings, but the stock is still tanking and is down more than 10% after hours.
Apple hit Wall Street estimates for iPhone sales, which were expected to fall between 47 million and 48 million following Verizon's report. But Apple's profit in the holiday quarter was essentially flat compared with the same quarter a year ago.
Despite refreshing nearly its entire line-up (the number mentioned on the earnings call was "80% of revenue,") Apple wasn't able to deliver the kind of blowout that investors were hoping for. Apple is still the world's most valuable company, but its upward trajectory no longer seems limitless.
Here are a few takeaways from the earnings report and the following conference call:
-- Suddenly, the iPhone 4 is a major point of interest. CEO Tim Cook said
the iPhone 4 was under constant constraint. This device is free on
contract in the U.S. and is currently Apple's cheapest smartphone. When
asked about lower price points, Cook dodged the question.
-- Apple is returning a lot of money to shareholders. The company expects to
return about $45 billion over three years to shareholders, Cook said on
the call.
-- Is the competition catching up? Apple's profit was flat because it
released a huge array of new devices, like the iPhone 5 and the iPad
Mini. But with increasing competition for smaller tablets from Google and
other companies, and Android smartphones, Apple has had to step up its
game. It could easily be the first bit of evidence of an exposed bit in
Apple's shell.
-- Apple isn't sand-bagging estimates any more. Apple traditionally delivers
very conservative guidance, but not so any more. From CFO Peter
Oppenheimer on the call: "Going forward, we plan to provide a range of
guidance that reflects our belief of what we are likely to achieve. We
cannot forecast with complete accuracy, we believe we are likely to
report within the range of guidance we provide."
-- China is huge . Apple reorganized its China sales into a new category,
and it amounted to $7.3 billion in revenue for the quarter. Apple's
growth for iPhones in greater China was in the triple digits, and even
though it was shipping the iPad in December, the company still saw "very
nice growth," Cook said.
-For continuously updated news from The Wall Street Journal , see WSJ.com at