It’s difficult to sympathize with Apple and how fickle the stock market can be. After all, everything Apple has done in recent years has turned to gold. Apple’s latest 4th quarter results:
The Company posted quarterly revenue of $28.27 billion and quarterly net profit of $6.62 billion, or $7.05 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $20.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $4.31 billion, or $4.64 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.3 percent compared to 36.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 63 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
What’s not to like? Over $80-billion in the bank. Mac, iPad, and iPhone sales are on fire. Gross margins are up.
The Company sold 17.07 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 21 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 11.12 million iPads during the quarter, a 166 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4.89 million Macs during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter.
Name a tech company that would not kill off their CEO to have those numbers. No, I mean it. They would actually kill the CEO to have Apple’s numbers and balance sheet.
So, what’s up with The Daily Beast’s headline, Wall Street’s Apple Panic? Dan Lyons, who will hate Steve Jobs as much after death as before death, manages to piss on his grave:
So if he’s out there somewhere, still watching, you have to imagine that he’s not in a particularly good mood today. Either that, or he’s just glad he got out right before the you-know-what hit the fan.
You’d think that Apple actually missed their expectations with the latest quarterly results. They did not. They missed Wall Street’s expectations. Record results in a piss poor world economy and Dan Lyons (among others) cannot wait to lift the toilet seat up before taking a leak. So, Dan, how about adding some balance to your urine?
For one thing, Apple just broke all kinds of sales records with the opening weekend of the iPhone 4S, moving 4 million units in just three days. And Apple’s guidance for the current quarter was very strong. They are projecting $37 billion in sales, which would be a big jump from $26.8 billion in last year’s holiday quarter.
That’s my boy. Are you getting back on Apple’s gravy train? Or, are you simply afraid that Steve Jobs will find a way to think different and innovate a way to scare the bejesus out of you from the hereafter?
For another, despite what Wall Street thinks, the results Apple announced on Tuesday were pretty damn good. The September quarter marks the end of Apple’s fiscal year. For the full year, Apple’s annual sales were $108 billion, up 65 percent from last year when Apple did $65.2 billion in sales.
Translation: Damn, those are good numbers.
Of course they are. But that didn’t stop you from riding the coat tails of the Wall Street Panic Mongers™, now did it?
Come on. Let’s do a quick one-eighty and hope Steve Jobs’ spirit doesn’t visit you tonight.
That kind of growth rate is unheard of for a company this size. It means that last year Apple grew by $45 billion. That’s about what Amazon does in a year. It’s one-and-a-half times what Google does. Think about that. Apple grew by a Google-and-a-half.
In fact, name another company that grew $45-billion in a year. Come on, name one.
Quibble all you want about iPhone sales falling short by a little bit in one quarter—you’re still looking at a $70 billion business that did not even exist four years ago.
Translation: Please, Steve, don’t haunt me. I’m just trying to make an honest living by repeating facts. Hey, occasional distortions happen.
Alright. Enough of the 180-degree stuff. Let’s come full circle, jerk. Here it comes. Wait for it… wait…
Ten years ago today, when Steve Jobs was about to introduce the first iPod, Apple’s stock traded at $18 per share. Now those shares change hands for about $400. Nobody expected the next 10 years to be so great. And nobody ever expected Apple to be the same without Steve Jobs. But nobody figured that problems would bubble up so soon, either.
That’s our boy, Dan Lyons. Feel better, honey?
Here’s the reality of big numbers. You can’t keep growing a company that already has revenue of over $100-billion by 40-percent per year. Deal with it. Get expectations in line with reality.
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