To understand scale: Apple has given $43 Billion to investors since July 2012. Twitter's market cap is $32 Billion. Apple's net profit of $13b over the last 3 months was more than the company made from its founding in 1977 'til the iPhone launched in 2007.<p>Last night my wife and I were organizing our room, and ended up putting our computers together, and we found three MacBooks (one is really old), two iPads and two iPhones - about $3500 worth of product. The phones are heavily subsidized by our phone bill, the computers are simply "must-haves," and the iPads are our most expensive ($350 ea.) toys. We're one year out of school and make $40,000/year.
Phones and tablets are very close to the point that desktop/laptops got to a few years back where unless there is some major disruptive technology introduced (eg. batteries with 100%+ efficiency over current ones) on top of them the one you bought this year is pretty much good enough to keep for the next many years, until it breaks somehow.<p>There will still be a market of ultra-fashion-conscious buyers who really need this years model, just like there are people who lease brand new cars every year, but that market isn't big enough, IMO, to sustain the growth that Apple, Samsung, etc have enjoyed thus far.
The magic paragraph:<p><i>The Company sold 51 million iPhones, an all-time quarterly record, compared to 47.8 million in the year-ago quarter. Apple also sold 26 million iPads during the quarter, also an all-time quarterly record, compared to 22.9 million in the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4.8 million Macs, compared to 4.1 million in the year-ago quarter.</i><p>If I were to play armchair quarterback, I'd say that iPhones are reaching saturation (which, given the 5C, is relatively surprising) and the iPad is where the majority of Apple's growth lies in the coming quarters.<p>EDIT: Apple's trailing twelve-month revenue (credit to Benedict Evans): <a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfBIdoYCEAAzNqI.jpg:large" rel="nofollow">https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfBIdoYCEAAzNqI.jpg:large</a>
As with Microsoft earnings, we will get two reactions:<p>1) Some people will say the sheer amount of money they are making shows they are not doomed anytime soon<p>2) Some people will say that making a ton of money now does not mean they will continue to do so in the future, and could still be doomed (if not to bankruptcy than at least irrelevance) in the future.<p>Both are right. Both will argue the other is wrong.
Very limited growth. Profits are flat. No wonder the stock is down 6%. Apple needs to find more competitive means in both phones and tablets - their market share will continue to erode. They are priced as a growth stock, but they are not growing.
Tim Cook can sandbag the iPhone business all he wants. While they can still bring in a ton of cash from profits, it won't trick wall street into driving their stock price up to a $1000. Maybe that's not his intention.
Wow, investors aren't liking these numbers.<p>The reason I recently purchased Apple stock is that I foresee a large number of users coming on board once Apple launches a larger screen size for their iPhone line up. That's the main reason I can't use an iPhone.
I'm bearish on Apple. I just don't see the leadership or focus I once saw when Jobs was still at the helm. I think they still might have a few tricks up their sleeve, but I think we're going to see less innovation as the years go on.
Live financial result earning conference call here: <a href="http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/14pijnaefvpijbnfdbvpijnbaefgvpjbnaef01/event/" rel="nofollow">http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/14pijnaefvpijbnfdbvpij...</a><p>Starts at 22:00 UTC
Another great quarter for Apple. Growth in gross margins as well as growth in units in every product line but the iPod. China Mobile sales will end up in next quarter.