Wouldn’t this be an argument for Apple to keep reporting quarterly unit sales? I’m glad they’re not but analysts will turn just go off bogus estimates from firms like IDC.
No, it wouldn't.
See above.
Wall Street is obsessed with iPhone unit sales figures. They’re not going to stop just because Apple decided not to disclose that information. Eventually they will but in the meantime they’ll go off of bogus data from IDC and stupid supply chain rumors printed in the WSJ.
entropys said: Its a misdiect because it excludes important things (eg Apple notebooks aren’t there), and it creates a false impression of the actual, real life market.
So it's a misdirect that makes Apple's numbers look worse than they are because they didn't include millions of notebook sales?
Here in the UK I see people with Surface tablets more often than iPads, but both are much less common than laptops. How about comparing iPads to the rest of the tablet market, Timmy? Once upon a time Apple was miles out ahead in terms of tablet sales. I do think they have missed the boat a bit with the iPad: iPad is still essentially a giant iPhone, whereas the Surface tablet is a full blown Windows PC.
To be clear, you don't think that the graph showing MS is referring to the Surface? Maybe they really do mean just notebooks, and not notebooks that double as laptops or laptops that are designed to look-like tablets but whose functionality is really only viable as an unpleasant notebook, but I'm not aware that MS has any standard notebooks for sale.
Apple has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to provide transparency. Like it or not, unit sales is a key metric of a company that sells hardware. Apple’s services business can be seen as a shift away from this but they can and should share this unit sales information going forward. If I owned Apple’s stock or was the manager of a fund that owns it, I would press for unit sales to continue to be openly shared.
I can see Apple’s strategy here as they choose to be less transparent as unit sales decline and price increases make up for the difference. After all, winning on market share can still be a very unprofitable venture that is not sustainable.
By still showing unit sales figures and adding this visibility such things as Apple Watch sales, Apple shows an honest reality to shareholders. It helps them understand how Apple is going up market and the success of various business lines. It also allows them to hold the board and management team accountable. By choosing to not be opaque, Apple has an opportunity to lead here - doing so by example. I hope they they reconsider their stance. Shareholders can and should bring this as a requirement. As consumers of their product, we should also expect nothing less.
What nonsense. Name all the tech firms that are Apple competitors that report unit sales. With links, if you please.
It really is about time Apple pulled the plug on announcing unit sales each quarter.
Apple has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to provide transparency. Like it or not, unit sales is a key metric of a company that sells hardware. Apple’s services business can be seen as a shift away from this but they can and should share this unit sales information going forward. If I owned Apple’s stock or was the manager of a fund that owns it, I would press for unit sales to continue to be openly shared.
I can see Apple’s strategy here as they choose to be less transparent as unit sales decline and price increases make up for the difference. After all, winning on market share can still be a very unprofitable venture that is not sustainable.
By still showing unit sales figures and adding this visibility such things as Apple Watch sales, Apple shows an honest reality to shareholders. It helps them understand how Apple is going up market and the success of various business lines. It also allows them to hold the board and management team accountable. By choosing to not be opaque, Apple has an opportunity to lead here - doing so by example. I hope they they reconsider their stance. Shareholders can and should bring this as a requirement. As consumers of their product, we should also expect nothing less.
You don’t really invest, do you? No other major hardware company is reporting per product unit sales, so your claim is bunk.
Your second claim is also ludicrous, as customers of the units have no bearing in this conversation between corporation and investor. I suspect you are only a consumer and this comment is the tip-off.
Actually, I do invest. I used to work at a publicly traded company and we included unit sales data in our quarterly conference call, broken out by market segment. If you read the transcript of Dell’s recent earnings call you will note that they specifically call out their market share in several different segments they participate in, telling investors more than just the revenues by various segments. (This is just one example; don’t get hung up on Apple vs Dell)
I agree with you that the 10k (for example) is important, especially items such as gross margin, operating income, inventory levels and the balance sheet.
I also agree that privately held companies have an advantage over publicly held ones in keeping certain financial items outside of public scrutiny.
Yet leading indicators in terms of share of market are important too. Tim likes to brag that Apple sells more watches than anyone. That figure becomes harder to believe if he doesn’t release the number that they sell.
As a shareholder, it doesn't bother me if Apple refuses to break out ANY specific unit sales figures. Their competitive advantage is also my advantage.
and this shareholder agrees too...it is like expecting Chick-fillet to tell us how many chickens they killed a fiscal quarter...does it matter?
I really appreciate all the great comments, links and DED’s article. It was a great read for me tonight. Thank you everybody...even those of you I don’t agree with.
That keynote slide of Cook’s is an absolute classic piece of misdirection. We need to keep a copy for his retirement speech, you know, for a laugh.
First, a product is turned into a category ‘ipads’*, while a seperate category “notebooks” (which appeared in the slide’s title) is broken into brands to misdirect. Also, I feel like there was a notebook brand missing. I can’t quite put my finger on it.....
*it does show that Apple is selling a lot of iPads, but if all those columns to the right of them were stacked it wouldn’t fit the narrative Cook was attempting to shape. He doesn’t own an RDF.
No. Quite the opposite. iOS is regularly stacked against Android even though there is exactly one iOS vendor and multitudes of Android vendors. That’s misdirection. Since when is BMW compared against ‘the entire rest of the auto industry?’ Repeat for any brand; nowhere does anyone compare one company to its entire industry, except when comparing against Apple.
There was one issue in the text, it should have read “sells more iPads than any PC maker...”, where DED incorrectly used the word “every.”
Wouldn’t this be an argument for Apple to keep reporting quarterly unit sales? I’m glad they’re not but analysts will turn just go off bogus estimates from firms like IDC.
No, it wouldn't.
See above.
Wall Street is obsessed with iPhone unit sales figures. They’re not going to stop just because Apple decided not to disclose that information. Eventually they will but in the meantime they’ll go off of bogus data from IDC and stupid supply chain rumors printed in the WSJ.
Wouldn’t this be an argument for Apple to keep reporting quarterly unit sales? I’m glad they’re not but analysts will turn just go off bogus estimates from firms like IDC.
No, it wouldn't.
See above.
Wall Street is obsessed with iPhone unit sales figures. They’re not going to stop just because Apple decided not to disclose that information. Eventually they will but in the meantime they’ll go off of bogus data from IDC and stupid supply chain rumors printed in the WSJ.
Here in the UK I see people with Surface tablets more often than iPads, but both are much less common than laptops. How about comparing iPads to the rest of the tablet market, Timmy? Once upon a time Apple was miles out ahead in terms of tablet sales. I do think they have missed the boat a bit with the iPad: iPad is still essentially a giant iPhone, whereas the Surface tablet is a full blown Windows PC.
To be clear, you don't think that the graph showing MS is referring to the Surface? Maybe they really do mean just notebooks, and not notebooks that double as laptops or laptops that are designed to look-like tablets but whose functionality is really only viable as an unpleasant notebook...
Since you think that the Surface is an unpleasant notebook, do you think the same of the iPad Pro? Which one do you think will work better as a laptop?
...,but I'm not aware that MS has any standard notebooks for sale.
I think the Surface Laptop is considered a standard notebook.
That keynote slide of Cook’s is an absolute classic piece of misdirection. We need to keep a copy for his retirement speech, you know, for a laugh.
First, a product is turned into a category ‘ipads’*, while a seperate category “notebooks” (which appeared in the slide’s title) is broken into brands to misdirect. Also, I feel like there was a notebook brand missing. I can’t quite put my finger on it.....
*it does show that Apple is selling a lot of iPads, but if all those columns to the right of them were stacked it wouldn’t fit the narrative Cook was attempting to shape. He doesn’t own an RDF.
No. Quite the opposite. iOS is regularly stacked against Android even though there is exactly one iOS vendor and multitudes of Android vendors. That’s misdirection. Since when is BNW compared against ‘the entire rest of the auto industry?’ Repeat for any brand; nowhere does anyone compare one company to its entire industry, except when comparing against Apple.
There was one issue in the text, it should have read “sells more iPads than any PC maker...”, where DED incorrectly used the word “every.”
I think the point he try to makes is the comparison of the iPad (tablet) vs notebooks. Android is mostly used in smartphones and tablets, so it makes sense compared to iOS. At the same time, if we follow your line and compare iOS tablets to all the Windows laptops Tim Cook showed in the graphic in the keynote, we'll see that the iPad still behind. Personally I find impressive how dominant are Lenovo and HP compared to the iPad, considering that you have no other option for iOS, while you have a long list of option for Windows notebooks. Don't you think that if there were other vendors with iOS or macOS, sales of Apple devices would be impacted, specially when you considering the cost of their latest devices?
Apple has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to provide transparency. Like it or not, unit sales is a key metric of a company that sells hardware. Apple’s services business can be seen as a shift away from this but they can and should share this unit sales information going forward. If I owned Apple’s stock or was the manager of a fund that owns it, I would press for unit sales to continue to be openly shared.
I can see Apple’s strategy here as they choose to be less transparent as unit sales decline and price increases make up for the difference. After all, winning on market share can still be a very unprofitable venture that is not sustainable.
By still showing unit sales figures and adding this visibility such things as Apple Watch sales, Apple shows an honest reality to shareholders. It helps them understand how Apple is going up market and the success of various business lines. It also allows them to hold the board and management team accountable. By choosing to not be opaque, Apple has an opportunity to lead here - doing so by example. I hope they they reconsider their stance. Shareholders can and should bring this as a requirement. As consumers of their product, we should also expect nothing less.
What nonsense. Name all the tech firms that are Apple competitors that report unit sales. With links, if you please.
It really is about time Apple pulled the plug on announcing unit sales each quarter.
Indeed. Next up, Apple should do what 70% of S&P500 firms do: stop providing quarterly guidance. The stupid analysts will throw another hissy fit, but who cares.
In fact, I think Apple lost a major opportunity to not get both out of the way in one shot.
Apple has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to provide transparency. Like it or not, unit sales is a key metric of a company that sells hardware. Apple’s services business can be seen as a shift away from this but they can and should share this unit sales information going forward. If I owned Apple’s stock or was the manager of a fund that owns it, I would press for unit sales to continue to be openly shared.
I can see Apple’s strategy here as they choose to be less transparent as unit sales decline and price increases make up for the difference. After all, winning on market share can still be a very unprofitable venture that is not sustainable.
By still showing unit sales figures and adding this visibility such things as Apple Watch sales, Apple shows an honest reality to shareholders. It helps them understand how Apple is going up market and the success of various business lines. It also allows them to hold the board and management team accountable. By choosing to not be opaque, Apple has an opportunity to lead here - doing so by example. I hope they they reconsider their stance. Shareholders can and should bring this as a requirement. As consumers of their product, we should also expect nothing less.
You don’t really invest, do you? No other major hardware company is reporting per product unit sales, so your claim is bunk.
Your second claim is also ludicrous, as customers of the units have no bearing in this conversation between corporation and investor. I suspect you are only a consumer and this comment is the tip-off.
Actually, I do invest. I used to work at a publicly traded company and we included unit sales data in our quarterly conference call, broken out by market segment. If you read the transcript of Dell’s recent earnings call you will note that they specifically call out their market share in several different segments they participate in, telling investors more than just the revenues by various segments. (This is just one example; don’t get hung up on Apple vs Dell)
I agree with you that the 10k (for example) is important, especially items such as gross margin, operating income, inventory levels and the balance sheet.
I also agree that privately held companies have an advantage over publicly held ones in keeping certain financial items outside of public scrutiny.
Yet leading indicators in terms of share of market are important too. Tim likes to brag that Apple sells more watches than anyone. That figure becomes harder to believe if he doesn’t release the number that they sell.
Market share VS units shipped. You do know the difference? The market share numbers, are as indicated in the article, nothing but magic wand waving and wishful thinking.
Yes, and the iPhone user base is growing along with it, as evidenced by the strong grey market in iPhones (used iPhones that find new to iPhone owners in many markets where few can afford new). This expands the installed base to keep up with population growth, while Apple continues to push up market to leave its competition is the dust at the high end of the market, which allows them to dial the price such that the units sold stay steady or climb slowly but revenues and profits climb. It’s a deliberate strategy, not a reaction.
I guess this could be spun as Apple wanting to emphasise the growing importance of services as a revenue stream, making hardware less important as revenue. The thing is though, much, much more than any other company providing services, ultimately Apple will have to rely on sales of that hardware to grow services revenue.
As a general rule, all Apple services require an Apple device. If you don’t own an Apple device you are unlikely to use Apple services. Apple Music on android is about the only one I can think of off hand, and I bet that isn’t that popular.
Moving hardware prices up into the Burberry market, and the limits that places on hardware growth, ultimately threatens services revenue growth. You can only extract additional revenue from existing hardware owners to a point. Ultimately in Apple’s business model, hardware purchases have to expand to also grow services revenue.
No. Installed base has to grow. That’s a different requirement versus hardware purchases. Apple grows it’s installed base due to the longevity of its hardware. Go read Above Avalon’s article on the iPhone grey market; it’s incredibly relevant to this discussion. It’s under weekly Articles on his site.
Apple has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to provide transparency. Like it or not, unit sales is a key metric of a company that sells hardware. Apple’s services business can be seen as a shift away from this but they can and should share this unit sales information going forward. If I owned Apple’s stock or was the manager of a fund that owns it, I would press for unit sales to continue to be openly shared.
I can see Apple’s strategy here as they choose to be less transparent as unit sales decline and price increases make up for the difference. After all, winning on market share can still be a very unprofitable venture that is not sustainable.
By still showing unit sales figures and adding this visibility such things as Apple Watch sales, Apple shows an honest reality to shareholders. It helps them understand how Apple is going up market and the success of various business lines. It also allows them to hold the board and management team accountable. By choosing to not be opaque, Apple has an opportunity to lead here - doing so by example. I hope they they reconsider their stance. Shareholders can and should bring this as a requirement. As consumers of their product, we should also expect nothing less.
You don’t really invest, do you? No other major hardware company is reporting per product unit sales, so your claim is bunk.
Your second claim is also ludicrous, as customers of the units have no bearing in this conversation between corporation and investor. I suspect you are only a consumer and this comment is the tip-off.
Actually, I do invest. I used to work at a publicly traded company and we included unit sales data in our quarterly conference call, broken out by market segment. If you read the transcript of Dell’s recent earnings call you will note that they specifically call out their market share in several different segments they participate in, telling investors more than just the revenues by various segments. (This is just one example; don’t get hung up on Apple vs Dell)
I agree with you that the 10k (for example) is important, especially items such as gross margin, operating income, inventory levels and the balance sheet.
I also agree that privately held companies have an advantage over publicly held ones in keeping certain financial items outside of public scrutiny.
Yet leading indicators in terms of share of market are important too. Tim likes to brag that Apple sells more watches than anyone. That figure becomes harder to believe if he doesn’t release the number that they sell.
Seems silly. Should Pfizer report the exact number of pills they sold for each drug? How would that be relevant?
Why do you always block "politically charged" articles? Like, shutting people down, writing articles and not giving people the chance to discuss them...how does that help society? Sure some people might say things that other people don't like. Isn't that what debate is all about? When did political correctness begin to outweigh honest discussion about real topics that matter?
If you want to talk about giving the "silenced voices" a chance to be heard, then give people who oppose issues that have become socially pushed as being normal to voice their opinions too. When the minority's voice is allowed to speak louder than the majority, then how does this equate to a healthy way for societies to develop?
Alright, first of all, that you do not understand the meaning of the word "estimate" is not on IDC or Gartner. That other "present this as fact" isn't on either 2 companies either and the fact that you blame them for making wrong estimates means you too take these numbers as fact (because otherwise there wouldn't be a problem here) and thus you are blaming other blogs for something you're doing yourself.
The final image in this post is, by the way, rich. And for 2 reasons:
1. This post says companies do not disclose exact information about their sales and you blame IDC and Gartner for making estimates to compensate for that, but if these companies don't release such information, how did Apple get these numbers? How did Apple now Microsoft sold .3 million Surface Laptops? Allow me to tell you where they got those numbers: by estimating them.
2. You also blame IDC and Gartner for splitting up tablet and PC sales. Not only is that a ridiculous thing to blame them for (PC and phone sales don't get combined either, that would be nonsense and phones and tablets are closer related to each other than are PCs and tablets) but that final image from Apple themselves shows that not only do they not consider tablets to be PCs, they decided that they had to go with a submarket of "notebooks" which excludes desktops, 2-in-1s, etc. Apple doesn't even consider something everybody else sees as 1 market as just 1 market, they have to split it up so they can show that iPad is larger than the others. If they did, they would have a column that combines both Macs and iPads together but of course then they would no longer be the largest.
If you want to talk about someone writing up a false narrative, how about starting with Apple?
Hypocrisy much.
Apple has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to provide transparency. Like it or not, unit sales is a key metric of a company that sells hardware. Apple’s services business can be seen as a shift away from this but they can and should share this unit sales information going forward. If I owned Apple’s stock or was the manager of a fund that owns it, I would press for unit sales to continue to be openly shared.
I can see Apple’s strategy here as they choose to be less transparent as unit sales decline and price increases make up for the difference. After all, winning on market share can still be a very unprofitable venture that is not sustainable.
By still showing unit sales figures and adding this visibility such things as Apple Watch sales, Apple shows an honest reality to shareholders. It helps them understand how Apple is going up market and the success of various business lines. It also allows them to hold the board and management team accountable. By choosing to not be opaque, Apple has an opportunity to lead here - doing so by example. I hope they they reconsider their stance. Shareholders can and should bring this as a requirement. As consumers of their product, we should also expect nothing less.
What nonsense. Name all the tech firms that are Apple competitors that report unit sales. With links, if you please.
It really is about time Apple pulled the plug on announcing unit sales each quarter.
Indeed. Next up, Apple should do what 70% of S&P500 firms do: stop providing quarterly guidance. The stupid analysts will throw another hissy fit, but who cares.
In fact, I think Apple lost a major opportunity to not get both out of the way in one shot.
I agree. I remember well Steve always got criticized for soft guidance only for records to be broken almost every time. You [edit] Apple can't win with Wall Street. That said, Wall Street fell for it every time and all Apple had to do was beat the guidance and Wall Steet was thrilled.
Alright, first of all, that you do not understand the meaning of the word "estimate" is not on IDC or Gartner. That other "present this as fact" isn't on either 2 companies either and the fact that you blame them for making wrong estimates means you too take these numbers as fact (because otherwise there wouldn't be a problem here) and thus you are blaming other blogs for something you're doing yourself.
The final image in this post is, by the way, rich. And for 2 reasons:
1. This post says companies do not disclose exact information about their sales and you blame IDC and Gartner for making estimates to compensate for that, but if these companies don't release such information, how did Apple get these numbers? How did Apple now Microsoft sold .3 million Surface Laptops? Allow me to tell you where they got those numbers: by estimating them.
2. You also blame IDC and Gartner for splitting up tablet and PC sales. Not only is that a ridiculous thing to blame them for (PC and phone sales don't get combined either, that would be nonsense and phones and tablets are closer related to each other than are PCs and tablets) but that final image from Apple themselves shows that not only do they not consider tablets to be PCs, they decided that they had to go with a submarket of "notebooks" which excludes desktops, 2-in-1s, etc. Apple doesn't even consider something everybody else sees as 1 market as just 1 market, they have to split it up so they can show that iPad is larger than the others. If they did, they would have a column that combines both Macs and iPads together but of course then they would no longer be the largest.
If you want to talk about someone writing up a false narrative, how about starting with Apple?
Hypocrisy much.
The issue isn’t with the fact that estimates are wrong, rather with the consistency with with it happens and what appears to be significant bias in interpreting the data. Given the fact that markets do look at these reports, one does have to be suspicious of market manipulation.
Apple’s decision to stop releasing sales data is understandable given the practives of other competitors, but if it ultimately means someone else controls the data. Personally, I don’t give a rat’s patootie about the price of Apple’s stock, and it’s never been clear to me what the stock price has to do with anything besides the executives’ bonuses. I honestly think tying compensation to stock price is an incentive for poor, short term decision making more than long term health of the company. Either way, I care more about the health of the company, the quality of the products and the health of the ecosystem than how many units are shipped.
So the post I quoted was the first post by the person/account and not positive towards Apple. Anyone want to take bets on how long it takes someone to call him/her a troll?
Comments
To be clear, you don't think that the graph showing MS is referring to the Surface? Maybe they really do mean just notebooks, and not notebooks that double as laptops or laptops that are designed to look-like tablets but whose functionality is really only viable as an unpleasant notebook, but I'm not aware that MS has any standard notebooks for sale.
I really appreciate all the great comments, links and DED’s article. It was a great read for me tonight. Thank you everybody...even those of you I don’t agree with.
There was one issue in the text, it should have read “sells more iPads than any PC maker...”, where DED incorrectly used the word “every.”
In fact, I think Apple lost a major opportunity to not get both out of the way in one shot.
iPhones (used iPhones that find new to iPhone owners in many markets where few can afford new). This expands the installed base to keep up with population growth, while Apple continues to push up market to leave its competition is the dust at the high end of the market, which allows them to dial the price such that the units sold stay steady or climb slowly but revenues and profits climb. It’s a deliberate strategy, not a reaction.
No. Installed base has to grow. That’s a different requirement versus hardware purchases. Apple grows it’s installed base due to the longevity of its hardware. Go read Above Avalon’s article on the iPhone grey market; it’s incredibly relevant to this discussion. It’s under weekly Articles on his site.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/11/02/apple-other-tech-giants-sign-letter-opposing-trump-administrations-attempt-to-define-gender
Why do you always block "politically charged" articles? Like, shutting people down, writing articles and not giving people the chance to discuss them...how does that help society? Sure some people might say things that other people don't like. Isn't that what debate is all about? When did political correctness begin to outweigh honest discussion about real topics that matter?
If you want to talk about giving the "silenced voices" a chance to be heard, then give people who oppose issues that have become socially pushed as being normal to voice their opinions too. When the minority's voice is allowed to speak louder than the majority, then how does this equate to a healthy way for societies to develop?
Apple’s decision to stop releasing sales data is understandable given the practives of other competitors, but if it ultimately means someone else controls the data. Personally, I don’t give a rat’s patootie about the price of Apple’s stock, and it’s never been clear to me what the stock price has to do with anything besides the executives’ bonuses. I honestly think tying compensation to stock price is an incentive for poor, short term decision making more than long term health of the company. Either way, I care more about the health of the company, the quality of the products and the health of the ecosystem than how many units are shipped.
So the post I quoted was the first post by the person/account and not positive towards Apple. Anyone want to take bets on how long it takes someone to call him/her a troll?