Notes of interest from Apple's Q208 quarterly conference call

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Apple on Wednesday announced its most profitable second quarter in company history, and held a financial conference call with analysts and members of the media. Several notes of interest from the now concluded call follow:



Apple said second-quarter profits rose over 36 percent to $1.05 billion, or $1.16 per diluted share, on sales of $7.51 billion for the three-month period ended March 29, 2008.



Apple regional business segments



Apple Americas accounted for 884,000 Mac shipments and $3.268B in revenues. These figures are up 46 percent and 32 percent year-over-year. Sequentially, shipments are up 5 percent with revenue down 24 percent.



Apple Europe accounted for 627,000 Mac shipments and $1.78B in revenues. Both these figures are up 45 percent and 43 percent year-over-year, but down 11 percent and 28 percent sequentially.



Apple Japan accounted for 118,000 Mac shipments and $424M in revenues. These figures have increased by 49 percent each year-over-year, as well as 30 and 6 percent sequentially.



Apple's Asia Pacific (and FileMaker Inc), billed as "Other Segments," accounted for 202,000 Mac shipments and $589M in revenues. These figures are up significantly, by 67 percent and 74 percent year-over-year. Sequentially, unit shipments rose 13 percent in the Asia Pacific regions with revenue decreasing 20 percent.



Apple's "Other Music Related Products and Services" segment accounted for $XXM in revenue. The figure represents a x percent year-over-year increase and a x percent sequential lift to Apple's results.



Apple's "Peripherals and Other Hardware" added $881M in revenue, representing a 35 percent growth year-over-year and 9 percent sequentially.



Apple's "Software, Service and Other Sales" segment accounted for $529M in revenue, an upward climb of 53 percent year-over-year but a 16 percent drop sequentially.



Apple's Mac business



Apple sold 856,000 desktops during the quarter and 1,433,000 notebooks. The figures signal Mac shipment increases of 37 and 61 percent for each category year-over-year. Notebook shipments climbed sequentially by 7 percent, while desktops decreased by 12 percent from quarter to quarter.



Macs accounted for 59 percent of total revenue. At an increase of 51 percent year-over-year, this growth was more than 3.5 times the market growth rate, according to IDC forecasts; this is even higher than the 2.66 times growth Apple has enjoyed in the recent past.



Revenue in the quarter was driven primarily by the Mac.



MacBooks and MacBook Pros both saw strong sales. There was equally strong demand for the iMac, plus an increase in sales of the Mac Pro.



The MacBook Air launched successfully, and customers have responded "very well" to the ultraportable design.



Educational Mac unit growth was 35 percent, the highest of any quarter in the last eight years. The company overtook Dell last year in portable sales.



Apple is worried a little bit about institutional budgets, but with 35 percent growth in the quarter hasn't seen anything to suggest a downward trend.



There are 3 to 4 weeks of Mac channel inventory.



Mac OS X Leopard revenues were just over $40 million. While a drop from the launch quarter's $170 million, this still represents the bestselling Mac OS X release in history, according to Apple.



iLife and iWork are entering their third quarter of sales and are so on the decline.



The MacBook Air was "constrained" most of the quarter, but by the end of March was in a near-ideal supply balance.



Apple repeated its first quarter observations on the demographics of MacBook Air purchasers, saying that it appealed to college professors, students, and frequent travelers.



Cannibalization of other MacBook lines by the Air is said to be low.



Apple's Apple TV and iPhone businesses



Apple sold 1,703,000 million iPhones during the quarter and earned about $378 million.



Total deferred revenue from Apple TV and iPhone was $1.93B.



Over a third of companies in the Fortune 500, and over 400 higher education institutions, have applied for iPhone developer status.



More than 200,000 people have downloaded the SDK.



Apple beat its own internal expectations for iPhone sales during the quarter, which resulted in the ongoing shortage. Inventories in US Apple stores was particularly spotty due to large numbers of iPhones being bought with an intention to unlock and resell. The company expects this to continue and sees it as a signal of strong global demand.



Apple is working very hard to roll out the iPhone to more places in Europe and Asia during the year.



Apple's 10 million-unit iPhone sales goal for 2008 includes unlocked devices.



The iPhone 2.0 software is coming in "late June." This is the first time Apple has offered a more specific timeframe for the update.



All iPhone customers will get the 2.0 software for free, whether they bought before or after the SDK announcement.



However, revenue for all iPhones sold after March 6th (the announcement date) will be deferred until after the software ships. The company reasons that every prospective buyer is aware of the upcoming software and may be influenced in their purchases.



Guidance for shipments has factored the iPhone's supply levels into the balance.



International carriers are free to price iPhones as low as they wish, Apple says. The company however won't give more detail on which companies in the relationship absorb the price drops instituted by European carriers.



American iPhone supply was low both at retail and in the channel. Apple disagrees with assertions that it mismanaged shipments by allowing overstocks in Europe while the US runs low.



Unsurprisingly, Apple won't comment on whether it will keep a 2G iPhone alongside any future 3G model. The company won't comment on "unreleased products."



Apple's Retail business



Apple's retail stores combined to sell 458,000 Mac units and generate $1.451B in revenues during Apple's fourth fiscal quarter, representing yearly growth of 67 percent in units and 74 percent in revenue. Sequentially, the retail segment produced a 9 percent decline in units and a 15 percent decline in revenue.



53 percent of retail computer buyers are new to the Mac.



Retail operating profits doubled to $334 million.



Over 580,000 hour-long personal training sessions were delivered during the quarter.



Australia, China, and Switzerland will be receiving new Apple stores.



Apple has a total of 208 stores open, and still plans to open a total of 45 in fiscal 2008. This is up slightly from earlier forecasts.



With an average 205 stores open over the period, an average store's revenue was $7.1 million, up 48 percent year over year.



There were 33.7 million visitors total to all of Apple's stores, up 57 percent year over year.



The Best Buy project ended with a little under 400 stores hosting Apple products, with a target of 600 by the summer.



Traffic in retail stores was up 12 million people year over year.



Apple's iPod and iTunes businesses



Over 10,644,000 million iPods were shipped this quarter.



iPod channel inventory remains on track at 4-6 weeks of inventory.



According to NPD, the iPod's share of digital media players gained in almost every market for which the researchers have data, resulting in 73 percent of the US market.



The iTunes Store has 50 million customers and over 85 percent marketshare in the US, according to Nielsen.



iPod shuffle sales were down until the price cut, which triggered a resurgence.



iTunes makes up a larger proportion of Apple's business this quarter versus the last.



The financial side of Q2



Operating margins were higher than expected at 17.5 percent, mainly due to higher than anticipated revenues and gross margins.



Apple held $19.4B in cash as of quarter's end, and generated $4B in cash during the last two quarters. The company has "no comment" on what it plans to do with the cash.



Much of the gross margin decline in the quarter was due to Leopard sales falling off from a historically strong first quarter on the market, as well as a drop-off in other software sales. This was also accounted for by the iPod shuffle's price cut, and international price cuts that reflect changes in currency value.



Apple's next (Q208) fiscal quarter



Apple is targeting $7.2B in revenue, gross margins of 33 percent, and earnings per share of exactly $1.



Commodity prices on flash and DRAM hit historical lows, and should remain that way for the current quarter. The LCD market is in a supply-and-demand balance, as are most other commodities such as hard drives. These should all follow historical pricing trends, and this is all factored into management's guidance.



Apple sees a sequential increase in Mac shipments for the June quarter as the educational buying season begins. The quarter typically skews towards K-12, which often buys at lower average sales prices, while the September quarter is weighted towards higher education and higher prices.



The company declines to comment on its plans for recently acquired PA Semiconductor.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 37
    cubertcubert Posts: 728member
    Is it just me or is the page not autorefreshing?
  • Reply 2 of 37
    rot'napplerot'napple Posts: 1,839member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Over a third of companies in the Fortune 500, and over 400 higher education institutions, have applied for iPhone developer status.]





    WOW!
  • Reply 3 of 37
    nasseraenasserae Posts: 3,167member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cubert View Post


    Is it just me or is the page not autorefreshing?



    Yep, it is not auto refresh. I am listening to the conference call live though on Apple.com
  • Reply 4 of 37
    kasperkasper Posts: 941member, administrator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by NasserAE View Post


    Yep, it is not auto refresh. I am listening to the conference call live though on Apple.com



    Fixing... Sorry, was set to 600 seconds instead of 90, my bad.



    K
  • Reply 5 of 37
    nasseraenasserae Posts: 3,167member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kasper View Post


    Fixing... Sorry, was set to 600 seconds instead of 90, my bad.



    K



    Thank you
  • Reply 6 of 37
    mbene12mbene12 Posts: 42member
    sigh... I hate day traders.



    Record quarter, beat all numbers across the board,conservative forward guidance (which they will obviously beat) HUGE products on the horizon...initial reaction:stock drops 3% in after hours trading. WTF do they have to do to get a boost outa quaterly results?!?!



    They again are reporting that they are gonna hit that 10M number. Does anyone really think that they arent planning on actually selling 12M?
  • Reply 7 of 37
    minderbinderminderbinder Posts: 1,703member
    And reiteration of the goal of ten million sold in 2008 (again misreported by some news sources as by the end of 2008).



    ""We are very pleased with iPhone momentum and we remain confident of achieving our goal of selling 10 million iPhones in calendar 2008"
  • Reply 8 of 37
    shanmugamshanmugam Posts: 1,200member
    Over 10,644,000 million iPods were shipped this quarter.



    how many billions of them?



    i though we are in recession? not bad best Quarter in the history ...
  • Reply 9 of 37
    dcj001dcj001 Posts: 301member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by shanmugam View Post


    Over 10,644,000 million iPods were shipped this quarter.



    how many billions of them?



    i though we are in recession? not bad best Quarter in the history ...



    Plus "Apple sold 1,703,000 million iPhones during the quarter."



    Does that mean that they've already exceeded the 10 million iPhone goal for the year... by a large margin?
  • Reply 10 of 37
    tchwojkotchwojko Posts: 139member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mbene12 View Post


    sigh... I hate day traders.



    Record quarter, beat all numbers across the board,conservative forward guidance (which they will obviously beat) HUGE products on the horizon...initial reaction:stock drops 3% in after hours trading. WTF do they have to do to get a boost outa quaterly results?!?!



    They again are reporting that they are gonna hit that 10M number. Does anyone really think that they arent planning on actually selling 12M?



    If you're not a day trader, why do you care what happens on any single day of trading? I'm happy they had great numbers, and they continue to have a great long term future. At $160, the stock is in the ballpark of being reasonably valued by some metrics (price to earnings growth ratio is about one).
  • Reply 11 of 37
    adjeiadjei Posts: 738member
    So Apple is happy with how the iphone is doing but yet we have some people setting their own expectations for Apple and calling the product a failure because it didn't meet their so called expecations.
  • Reply 12 of 37
    tbagginstbaggins Posts: 2,306member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DCJ001 View Post


    Plus "Apple sold 1,703,000 million iPhones during the quarter."



    Does that mean that they've already exceeded the 10 million iPhone goal for the year... by a large margin?





    How do you infer that out of that?



    In fact, Apple selling 1.7 million iPhones in Q1 isn't so great, since that'd be well below pace to meet Apple's own goal of 10 million sold in calendar 2008 (I'll let others argue over the 'calendar 2008' part... all I know is that it's definitely for a 12-month period of time).



    3G ASAP, a solid Asian launch, and launching in more large Euro countries (Italy, Spain) are all key to Apple making their 10 million goal, in any case.





    .
  • Reply 13 of 37
    minderbinderminderbinder Posts: 1,703member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TBaggins View Post


    How do you infer that out of that?



    In fact, Apple selling 1.7 million iPhones in Q1 isn't so great...



    But the article didn't say 1.7 million, it said 1,703,000 million. Or 1.7 trillion of them. That would be pretty good, but I suspect the article is wrong.



    I'm not too worried about hitting 10M in 2008, Q1 seems to be a slow quarter plus there will be new markets and new models that will cause a big boost in sales.
  • Reply 14 of 37
    tbagginstbaggins Posts: 2,306member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by minderbinder View Post


    But the article didn't say 1.7 million, it said 1,703,000 million. Or 1.7 trillion of them. That would be pretty good, but I suspect the article is wrong.



    I'm not too worried about hitting 10M in 2008, Q1 seems to be a slow quarter plus there will be new markets and new models that will cause a big boost in sales.





    Yahoo Business confirms the 1.7 million number (but not the "1,703,000 million" one... ):



    The company sold 10.6 million iPods during the quarter, one percent higher than last year, and 1.7 million iPhones.





    Far as whether Apple can make their goal... I dunno. As I already said, getting the 3G model out soon is important, as is launching well in the key markets of Japan, Korea, China, Italy, and Spain. The iPhone 2.0 software, and also how much Apple can expand the appeal of the iPhone to business, is also key.



    So, I dunno... I think the matter is still up in the air. Apple will have execute well down the line to make it. Realistically, the current odds I'd give them would be 50-50. Maybe slightly better.





    .
  • Reply 15 of 37
    abrooksabrooks Posts: 66member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    All iPhone customers will get the 2.0 software for free, whether they bought before or after the SDK announcement.



    Can anyone clarify this, I'll probably go back and listen again but I was certain they said that customers who bought after March 6th WOULD be charged.
  • Reply 16 of 37
    shanmugamshanmugam Posts: 1,200member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TBaggins View Post


    How do you infer that out of that?



    In fact, Apple selling 1.7 million iPhones in Q1 isn't so great, since that'd be well below pace to meet Apple's own goal of 10 million sold in calendar 2008 (I'll let others argue over the 'calendar 2008' part... all I know is that it's definitely for a 12-month period of time).



    3G ASAP, a solid Asian launch, and launching in more large Euro countries (Italy, Spain) are all key to Apple making their 10 million goal, in any case.





    .





    he/she referring to the typo it should be 1.73 million instead of 1,703,000 million



    really accountant article! too many billion and million and poster and thread starter all in TYPO mess ...
  • Reply 17 of 37
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Apple's "Other Music Related Products and Services" segment accounted for $XXM in revenue. The figure represents a x percent year-over-year increase and a x percent sequential lift to Apple's results.



    Gotta love that X-percent growth!



    And, does XXM mean 980? I can never remember my Roman subtractive notation.



  • Reply 18 of 37
    abrooksabrooks Posts: 66member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by abrooks View Post


    Can anyone clarify this, I'll probably go back and listen again but I was certain they said that customers who bought after March 6th WOULD be charged.



    Kind of found my own answer from Macworld.com's transcript.



    2:43 PT - DM: Piper Jaffray: And we?re back to the iPhone revenue recognition delay.



    2:43 PT - DM: Opp: Delay recognition of revenue and product cost of iPhone, but will continue to expense operating expenses on advertising, engineering, period costs, etc.



    2:43 PT - DM: PJ: Charging for iPhone 2.0 for those who bought before March 6th?



    2:44 PT - DM: Opp says it?s free.



    2:44 PT - DM: PJ: Why deferring after March 6th if everybody gets it for free?



    2:44 PT - DM: Opp: Customers presuming when they bought it that they?d get it for free. Proper accounting.




    Is it me or is that avoiding the question?
  • Reply 19 of 37
    mh71mh71 Posts: 44member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by abrooks View Post


    Can anyone clarify this, I'll probably go back and listen again but I was certain they said that customers who bought after March 6th WOULD be charged.



    All iPhone customers get the 2.0 software upgrade for free, as they do all other software upgrades. The issue arises with iPod Touch customers, who have to pay for upgrades. This is a result of Sarbox and the different ways in which the iPhone and ipods are accounted for internally.
  • Reply 20 of 37
    tbagginstbaggins Posts: 2,306member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by shanmugam View Post


    he/she referring to the typo it should be 1.73 million instead of 1,703,000 million



    really accountant article! too many billion and million and poster and thread starter all in TYPO mess ...



    Yeah, he was tryin' to make a funny, my bad. I had already read the Yahoo Business article and mentally auto-corrected it to 1.7 million.



    AI does seem to have its share of typos.





    .
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