<p>Samsung is a good company. Aapl has a battle going. Maybe aapl or both companies will win.</p>
<p>Maybe, some day amzn will make money, but it better make a lot. :)</p>
<p>Aaplmis still valued higher than exxon. Getting close though.</p>
<p>I am absolutely astounded at the low price of Apple. The numbers were good and if they can further expand in China, the volume will take care of a lot of problems.</p>
<p>[Apple</a> shares tumble on results, forecast - MarketWatch](<a href=“http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-earnings-flat-despite-sales-gain-2013-01-23]Apple”>Apple shares tumble on results, forecast - MarketWatch)</p>
<p>The company gave a revenue forecast for the March quarter that was below Wall Street’s expectations, and didn’t give an earnings forecast for the period, breaking with past practice.</p>
<p>For the March quarter, Apple projected a revenue range of $41 billion to $43. Analysts had been looking for revenue of $45.6 billion. The company predicted a gross margin range of 37.5%-38.5% for the March quarter."</p>
<p>That might be less than 10 percent revenue growth.</p>
<p>Lergnom, you are not alone.</p>
<p><a href=“http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/01/23/apple-earnings-smackdown-q1-2013-analysts/[/url]”>http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/01/23/apple-earnings-smackdown-q1-2013-analysts/</a></p>
<p>[Sorry</a>, Apple-haters, but Cupertinian doom not on the horizon ? The Register](<a href=“http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/24/apple_still_in_good_shape/]Sorry”>Sorry, Apple-haters, but Cupertinian doom not on the horizon • The Register)</p>
<p>[Apple’s</a> Earnings Fall Is Completely Unjustified - Seeking Alpha](<a href=“Apple's Earnings Fall Is Completely Unjustified (NASDAQ:AAPL) | Seeking Alpha”>Apple's Earnings Fall Is Completely Unjustified (NASDAQ:AAPL) | Seeking Alpha)</p>
<p>The best I can come up with is that Apple is being moved up and down - down now - based on stories that are largely disconnected from reality. It can be moved because it is so valuable and the moves mean people make money. </p>
<p>I read the stuff about the next quarter and it looks worse than before only because they didn’t include profit targets - but they haven’t always done that. If you look at what they’re actually projecting as results, they again are far better than last year’s same quarter.</p>
<p>I just read a piece about how Apple doesn’t innovate. Then I saw the timeline: iPod came out in 2001; iPhone came out in 2007; iPad came out in 2010. It’s the first month of 2013 so all I can say is huh? But then I thought about it and wondered: what exactly do other companies do for “innovation”? They make variations of what they’ve done. If the expectation is that every few years Apple will invent a brand new multi-billion business, that’s absurd. If Apple keeps making what they are making, what’s wrong with that? We don’t expect Coke to stop making Coke in favor of something else and we don’t expect ExxonMobil to make a new product that replaces oil. </p>
<p>And I also just read again about how Samsung is now the largest chip buyer - and of course they make chips - but if the idea is how Apple is doing in phones, they increased their market share to over 50%, gaining something like 7% in the quarter.</p>
<p>We will see if aapls stock rises starting tomorrow even though you don’t care about the stock. The stock price sets the mood.</p>
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<p>Maybe, you shouldn’t compare AAPL to COKE. AAPL might tumble further down to $390 if we’re looking at AAPL as a mere branded consumer company like COKE instead of a technology leader.</p>
<p>I think that half of Coke’s sales are from bottled water these days. I guess that Coke is still popular but they are have been buying up a variety of brands over the years.</p>
<p>I couldn’t resist and bought a little aapl today.</p>
<p>In going over the notes, I saw these points:</p>
<ol>
<li>Growth in China was triple digits. That’s huge.</li>
<li>Growth outside the US was 70%, which is also huge.</li>
<li>They were supply constrained for both the 5 and 4. I didn’t expect the 4 and 4S to be supply constrained. Cook in essence said they had trouble keeping up with demand. He also said in careful words - because of rules - that stories about order cuts are wrong.</li>
<li>They think their Mac sales would have been higher if they’d been able to build them faster. Cook carefully said they only had the new models on sale for limited times, like mid-December for the bigger iMac. He noted they sell 370k Macs a week and the 13 week versus 14 week quarter, so that plus the supply constraints is what they are saying is the drop in Mac sales. That is interesting because people expect Mac sales to go down as iPad sales go up.</li>
<li>As for the iPad, they couldn’t make the mini fast enough and could have sold many more. They are only now catching up. Cook says they should catch up with demand this quarter. (Same btw with the 4 but not the 5, more on that below.)</li>
<li>In one of the few Cook funny lines, he said about the iPad “we have the mother of all opportunities here” because the Windows PC market is so large.</li>
<li>He hinted at more to come with Apple TV. </li>
<li>I think the guidance issue is buried in the iPhone 5 numbers: he specifically did not say they would catch up with demand this quarter and noted they’re continuing to add distribution around the world, with 36 new carriers just next week. With growth so high - odd to say given people seem to think growth is slowing - they can’t predict what they will make and sell at what cost. The cost issue depends in part on something Cook noted: that they weren’t able to create channel inventory last quarter like they could a year ago. Not having channel inventory increases your cost; it’s not the optimal way to run your supply chain. This could take a few points off the net margin.</li>
</ol>
<p>Easy money on Wall Street…negative news build-up to Apples earnings report, position themselves to short the heck out of stock and it helps drop it like a stone, after the dust settles and news starts to swell that the earnings report was not really that bad compared to the industry, position themselves to buy like heck and the stock recovers. It is called market manipulation…in vogue…crazy…and legal…$$$$</p>
<p>One last point: I saw that pending a report of some profit last quarter, Amazon has reported a total of $5B in its existence. (I think that may be gross, not net, but I’m not sure.)</p>
<p>Less than Apple makes in a quarter. Amazon lost money quarter before this last but the quarter before it worked out they made as much profit that quarter as Apple did in an hour. </p>
<p>I think something interesting is going on besides the endless faith of Wall Street. I think Amazon, which trades btw at a P/E of 505, has locked itself into a model in which profit is bad but the promise of future profit is good. The longer they can go without reporting a meaningful profit trend the longer they can avoid having to report meaningful profits. I think they manage that; they make money this quarter and then lose money next so they can keep saying “we’re continuing to invest in our business”. Thing is every business is expected to invest in itself but only Amazon is able to do that with other people’s money and not out of earnings. As I said, I think that’s intentional now. It may not have started that way. They may have started by saying we’ll lose money and then rake it in but I think Bezos et al realized it was bad in the market’s eye to become locked in as a company with expectations about profits.</p>
<p>This worked for Chipoltle until it didn’t.</p>
<p>To almost complete the story, Microsoft announced earnings today after hours. </p>
<p>Revenue up 3% to $21.46B compared to year ago quarter. Profit $6.38B, down from $6.62B. </p>
<p>Windows revenue was $5.88B. </p>
<p>I have no comment. The earnings are fine and show the irrationality of Apple stock price moves. But it’s weird, just plain weird to note that Apple’s iPad business is now nearly twice as large as all the Windows revenue.</p>
<p>Investors are people. The stock market takes on the personalities of people. The stock market has manias and it can get depressed. It isan emotional place. Emotions affect how people look at aapl.</p>
<p>I don’t think the aapl numbers were that great.</p>
<p>The law of large numbers is not repealed ether. It is vwry hard for large companies to grow. If aapl doubled in size, its market cap would equal to the gdp of Austrailia. If aapl doubled one more time after that, its market cap would be larger than the gdp of California.</p>
<p>I don’t see aapl as a similar company to Coke or Exxon.</p>
<p>Aapl makes something close to 56 percent of its profits on the iphone. If something happened to that product aapl wouldn’t look too good.</p>
<p>Right now, there is some emotion moving aapl stock, but its growth is slowing. Its profit margins are dropping. It has more competition. Samsung just had a great quarter. Growth investors bailed because there
are smaller companies to invest in with higher growth prospects. The stock was over owned. Almost everybody who wanted to own aapl, already owned appl. Aapl wasn’t a secret. I don’t know if value investors like aapl yet, but Aapl is a value trap anyway. Aapl isn’t like coke. It has to keep developing new products or its toast.</p>
<p>You keep arguing using logic. Well, there is logic on both sides and emotion on both sides. You can’t separate emotion from stock prices, and don’t tell me you don’t care about the stock price because if the stock was 700 you wouldn’t be writing your posts.</p>
<p>I don’t know what aapl is working on and maybe new stuff is coming. That would be a positive.</p>
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</p>
<p>Soda sales have been declining in the US, but Coke still derives 60 percent of its revenues from carbonate soft drinks. At Dr Pepper Snapple it is 70 percent. However, the number is much lower at the more diversified Pepsi. </p>
<p>You also have to look at the bottlers of Coke to get the full picture. Some of the largest Coke bottlers in the world are highly diversified. For instance, in Mexico one such bottlers owns about 10,000 retail stores that are comparable to a 7-11. The sales of Coke are still mind-boggling in Mexico, although adverse actions by the government to curb obesity are slowly making a dent in the cash machines operated by the KOF Femsa and Arca groups.</p>
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<p>A few years ago, the analyst Scott Devitt --google the guy-- was ridiculed for predicting a target price for Amazon at 35 dollars. At that time, Bezos’ company had revenues of about 2B per quarter. In half a decade, the stock has jumped to close to $280. Add another hal f a decade and Amazon might very well capture 25 percent of an online market of 1 … trillion and book sales of 250B, with plenty of 3P sales. </p>
<p>Net income is nice, but there are few companies that are developing the infrastructure of global business as fast and efficiently as Amazon. And in terms of global business, they have yet the scratch the surface in the fastest growing markets. </p>
<p>The product mix will change, but Amazon will be there selling the world’s wares and a sprinkle of its own.</p>
<p>As far as Apple being slaughtered, it could not happen to nicer guys! By the way, if anyone knows how to solve the “waiting for activation” for iMessages on an iPhone, I am all ears!</p>
<p>It’s ironic which of these iconic companies are loved and which are vilified</p>
<p>Profit as a % of Revenue (2012)
Apple 23.9%
Coke 18.4%
Exxon 9.1%</p>
<p>Consider which one of these companies produces the product most essential to maintaining our high standard of living</p>
<p>I’m somewhat amazed that so many people drink Coke and other soft drink given the health hazards associated with the products. We have free Coke in our office (regular, diet and a bunch of associated products). The younger employees drink the soft drinks, the older people either drink the ones with no calories, water, coffee or tea.</p>
<p>Coke does an outstanding job at marketing.</p>
<p>iphone shares of market grew squeezing samsung out a little.</p>
<p>[Apple’s</a> iPhone grew to 25.1% global market share in 2012](<a href=“http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/01/25/apples-iphone-grew-to-251-global-market-share-in-2012]Apple’s”>Apple's iPhone grew to 25.1% global market share in 2012 | AppleInsider)</p>
<p>Its share price doesn’t make sense.</p>