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Apple Sales Gain Slowest Since ’09 as Competition Climbs

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發表於 2013-1-24 10:02:48 | 顯示全部樓層 |閱讀模式
By Adam Satariano - Jan 23, 2013, Bloomberg


Apple Inc. (AAPL) had its slowest profit growth since 2003 and weakest sales increase in 14 quarters amid rising costs and accelerating competition with Samsung Electronics Co. (005930)

Profit was little changed at $13.1 billion, or $13.81 a share, in the period that ended Dec. 29, Apple said today in a statement. Sales rose 18 percent to $54.5 billion, falling short of $54.9 billion, the average analyst estimate compiled by Bloomberg. Analysts had predicted profit of $13.53 a share. Apple fell as much as 11 percent in late trading.

The results reinforce concern that Apple’s growth is being hurt by higher production costs and gains by Samsung, its main rival in smartphones, dragging down shares by a third since September. The results step up pressure on Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook to demonstrate that Apple has more blockbuster products in the pipeline to reignite sales.

“This confirms some of the worries that some of the investors had,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank. “It’s a gigantic company, so incremental growth is just that much more difficult.”

The lack of profit growth reflects higher manufacturing costs due to a product lineup overhaul ahead of the holiday shopping season. The company introduced the iPhone 5, iPad mini and a restyled Mac to draw customers in time for the first fiscal quarter, typically Apple’s most lucrative.

Sales Forecast

Apple’s share price decline has shaved about $175 billion from its market capitalization since the peak and means the company may lose its status as the world’s most valuable company to Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) Apple fell in extended trading to as low as $457.30. The shares rose 1.8 percent to $514.01 at the close in New York, leaving it with a market value of $482.7 billion, compared with Exxon’s $413.5 billion.

For the fiscal second quarter, now under way, Apple forecast sales of $41 billion to $43 billion. That compares with predictions by analysts for revenue of $45.5 billion. The company didn’t provide a profit forecast.

Gross margin will be 37.5 percent to 38.5 percent, Apple said. Operating costs for equipment, retail stores and data centers will be $3.8 billion to $3.9 billion.

Apple is also changing the way it provides financial outlooks to investors, after years of exceeding quarterly profit estimates by an average of 26 percent. Rather than providing “conservative” forecasts, Apple expects to report results within its predicted range, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said on a conference call.

Product Sales

While Apple revamped its Mac personal-computer lineup during the quarter, selling 4.1 million Macs, that wasn’t enough to beat analysts’ predictions for 5.1 million units. Apple sold 12.7 million iPods, more than the projection for 11.4 million units. Cook said Apple couldn’t manufacture enough Macs to keep up with demand, holding back sales.

With the cost of redesigning its products, Apple’s gross margin, the percentage of sales remaining after deducting costs of production, was 38.6 percent in the first quarter, above the 36 percent the company had predicted in October.

Sales of the iPhone, Apple’s biggest source of revenue and profit, reached 47.8 million units, matching the prediction by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The company also sold 22.9 million iPads, above the projected 22.4 million units.

“It’s not going to be enough to turn the stock around,” Keith Goddard, CEO of Capital Advisors Inc., said in an interview.

iPhone 5

Today’s results compare with the 2011 holiday quarter, which was a week longer than the 13-week period just reported.

Initial iPhone 5 sales were lower than some investors anticipated due to supply shortages, and consumers criticized new mapping software. That contributed to the stock slide since an intraday high on Sept. 21, said Brian White, an analyst at Topeka Capital Markets Inc.

Apple’s best bet to sustain high growth is in China, where 4 stores were opened during the latest quarter. IPhone sales more than doubled there, Cook said on the conference call. In terms of revenue, China grew 67 percent from a year earlier to $6.83 billion.
 樓主| 發表於 2013-1-24 10:10:26 | 顯示全部樓層
AAPL.2013.01.24.jpg
發表於 2013-1-25 06:20:24 | 顯示全部樓層
勃起完自然有進入衰退期, 睇下幾時再勃起過~~~~
 樓主| 發表於 2013-1-25 11:02:18 | 顯示全部樓層
Why Apple’s jaw-dropping stock plunge should be blamed on investors
James Saft, Reuters | Jan 24, 2013 4:01 PM ET | Last Updated: Jan 24, 2013 4:22 PM ET





The problem, investors, lies not in Apple but in ourselves.

Apple’s disappointing earnings report and its subsequent 10%-plus stock market fall on Thursday are a timely reminder that there are a lot of idiots out there.

Apple Inc.’s disappointing, yet nonetheless impressive results and guidance, have investors wondering if the technology giant’s best days of growth are behind it.


Apple is a great company making great products, and has an outstanding record of creating new markets. It enjoys margins closer to those of a software company than a consumer giant, has more than US$130-billion in cash and a historically unique franchise, one it has been able to expand time and again.

That’s a great company, but, word to investors, not one that can be counted on to grow and profit in the future at similar rates to the past.

Apple isn’t expensive on a price/earnings basis, it is phenomenal, and phenomena often don’t sustain themselves over time.

That’s clear from its gross margins, which fell to a still very high 38.6% compared to 44.7% in the year-ago quarter, and which are expected to range between 37.5 and 38.5% in Apple’s second quarter of fiscal 2013. Those are astounding numbers, but likely ones which, even in an innovative, well run and healthy business, will head downwards over time.

To justify the pricing on Apple at its peak, the company would have had to be able to create new categories of goods consumers were willing to pay up for, or open new markets. That’s possible, but you don’t pay for that in advance.

And this isn’t about the death of Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs, great as he was, was over-rated by investors, who projected on to him a superhuman ability to will reality to change. Jobs’ habit of refusing to accept reality did allow those around him to do great things – more than they would have imagined – but exceeding expectations is a lot harder when you are the biggest and most highly regarded.

RISK IS OTHER PEOPLE

Yet investors continued to drive Apple shares up, counting on it to bend reality to its will over and over. The saga of Apple is actually a great lesson in a fundamental truth of investing – most of your problems, and opportunities, come courtesy of other investors. Though we spend most of our time studying company fundamentals, or economics or even politics, we are likely to make our biggest mistakes when we play the ball and not the man.


“Much (perhaps most) of the risk in investing comes not from companies, institutions or securities involved,” famed hedge fund manager Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital Management wrote in his most recent client letter.“It comes from the behavior of other investors.”

Marks remembers the fad for the “Nifty Fifty,” a group of standout corporations whose performance was fantastic in the late 1960s and early 70s. They were well managed, but also overpriced. Investors, lemming like, piled in. Many of the Nifty Fifty fell by as much as 90% from their in-vogue peaks.

Investors, Marks understands, set the price at which you can get access to the stream of income a given security represents. They can set it too high, like Apple recently, or too low, like junk bonds in the 1970s.

The Apple phenomenon is as much about crowds and fund manager benchmarking as it is about expensive gadgets and the affinity of affluent older people for iPads. First Apple was an innovation phenomenon, but then it became a financial markets one. As it worked towards becoming the most valuable company on the planet, fund managers saw their own performance lag the benchmark if they sat the party out.

Performance against a benchmark drives fund flows, compensation and job security, so doubtless many professionals got on the bandwagon despite themselves.

So it is with Apple, so it was with subprime, so it will be in the future.
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