Notes of interest from Apple's Q307 quarterly conference call

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 75
    Wow, Apple is up over 7% ($10+) when the market (Dow) is down over 200 points.... (S&P down 1.75%).
  • Reply 42 of 75
    carniphagecarniphage Posts: 1,984member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ak1808 View Post


    Topic: 270.000 iPhones, only 5 Million$?

    Hey, thank you all for your interesting posts!!



    - calculated only 1/24, because of 24 months (but it still doesn't fit)



    The monthly model works pretty well - if the average revenue from each unit sale was $444.

    It's possible that AT&T make a profit on each phone sold in one of their shops.



    C.
  • Reply 43 of 75
    rtdunhamrtdunham Posts: 428member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ak1808 View Post


    What I don't get is this:



    270,000 iPhones this quarter at $499 each, makes a nice revenue:

    270,000x$499 = $134,730,000



    Deferred over 24 months (=8 quarters), for the current quarter the revenue is:

    $134,730,000/8 = $16,841,250



    However, Apple only posted $5,000,000.

    Where is the rest? Said payments from AT&T?

    Am I missing something?



    yes. as was stated in both the cc and in prior posts, apple took NO revenue for phones for those two days--they said they would begin booking the revenue for the current quarter. The 5M is for accessories (also stated). It's always helpful to read all the prior posts before responding as the answers may lie there. (just a pet peeve of mine)



    Nevertheless, yours is a good well thought out question, merely lacking sufficient research. do NOT be one of the people rushing in to buy options, where you really have to do your homework or get burned! floribus said it but it needs to be said again: you can lose everthing (as opposed to buying stock, where if the stock declines 5% the value of your investment declines 5%). if the stock had gone down instead of up today (and if you think you can REALLY know which way it's gonna go then you are either a) certified or b) woefully misguided) the value of the options would have plummeted. floribus has done his research, it sounds like; others need to do likewise.
  • Reply 44 of 75
    rtdunhamrtdunham Posts: 428member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by g5man View Post


    Thank you for the quick lesson. I am going to try to learn more about it.



    I have made as much as 1K in one day on day trading with aapl, but I am buying and selling 150K worth of stock. Too much risk, hence I want to look into options.



    I know aapl will continue to limb for the next 4 years.



    re: your point a: your risk is much lower, imho, with stock (IT goes down 10%, your investment goes down 10%; have the same amount invested in options, and a 10% drop could destroy you or reward you...and who really knows which way the market's gonna go.



    re: your point b: oh! YOU do! of course, you don't--and that's not to disparage you--none of us do. We can think it, suspect it, wish it, believe it based on good evidence. But aapl's history is full of episodes where apparently good news is met with a negative market response, and vice versa. I'm heavily invested in aapl like you, and i've occasionally traded options. i just don't want to see people get burned with unrealistic expectations. as floribus said, study, read, study, read, etc!



    peace
  • Reply 45 of 75
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Dammit, it took me five pages to figure out what "CC" is. I'm really slowing down.
  • Reply 46 of 75
    rpsxrpsx Posts: 46member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post


    I agree with mostly writing off Japan as a market for Apple, other than for future iPhone business.



    wow. i don't know the numbers, but i have to say... for ipods, this must be a major market. again, purely anecdotal: but i would have to make a fare wager on EVERYONE between the ages of 18 and 35 having some kind of ipod. seriously. i've never seen more ipods then i've seen here on the trains. 95% of my friends own one. the one guy that doesn't have one for some reason is still listening to minidisc. i doubt apple would or should ever 'write off' japan.
  • Reply 47 of 75
    g5mang5man Posts: 91member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by rtdunham View Post


    re: your point a: your risk is much lower, imho, with stock (IT goes down 10%, your investment goes down 10%; have the same amount invested in options, and a 10% drop could destroy you or reward you...and who really knows which way the market's gonna go.



    re: your point b: oh! YOU do! of course, you don't--and that's not to disparage you--none of us do. We can think it, suspect it, wish it, believe it based on good evidence. But aapl's history is full of episodes where apparently good news is met with a negative market response, and vice versa. I'm heavily invested in aapl like you, and i've occasionally traded options. i just don't want to see people get burned with unrealistic expectations. as floribus said, study, read, study, read, etc!



    peace



    thank you for the insightful advice and observations. options does sound like real gambling. I never would have predicted that aapl could reach 149 two months ago or even yesterday. I was hoping but predicting it and buying options is a different matter. I found that I can make more money buying and holding for 3 years.



    But I have some money to play with so I thought I could give it a shot. Still thinking about it, but we will see.
  • Reply 48 of 75
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mjteix View Post


    We know/suppose that the iMac is being redesigned and that it should be available next month, but what about the 2nd product? Could it be the Mac mini? the iPod (video)? or the Mac Pro? They surely were not talking about displays or keyboards! IMO, transition means something more important than just a speedbump/storagebump. What do you think?



    I think one of the product transitions will be moving to blu-ray. It is time to put an end to the format war so HD can move forward and Apple would be in a great position to push that.



    I know Apple's model is to eventually move all content electronically, but for now, it's not feasible so better to move machines with the ability to play current HD discs. The cost of the players would definitely bring down margins on machines.



    The other product transition could be a further transition to LED displays.



    Just my thoughts,

    Cam
  • Reply 49 of 75
    quinneyquinney Posts: 2,528member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by g5man View Post


    thank you for the insightful advice and observations. options does sound like real gambling. I never would have predicted that aapl could reach 149 two months ago or even yesterday. I was hoping but predicting it and buying options is a different matter. I found that I can make more money buying and holding for 3 years.



    But I have some money to play with so I thought I could give it a shot. Still thinking about it, but we will see.



    Buying calls is just one of a multitude of options strategies. There are ways to use

    options to actually make the risk of your portfolio LOWER than just owning stocks.

    It is a large and fascinating topic and anyone interested in trading options should

    definitely take the time to educate themselves before trying it.
  • Reply 50 of 75
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samurai1999 View Post


    You're right - it does seem like a very obscure way to try to account for a product

    - I think they want to hide how much of a kick-back AT&T are giving them



    Remember the $1.99 charge for the 802.11n enabler? Besides what you mention, I think this new accounting method will keep the tax hounds at bay when Apple releases new software features (not just upgrades) to the iPhone.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by g5man View Post


    Thank you for the quick lesson. I am going to try to learn more about it.



    I too am going to read up on Options. The web-based tutorials just don't have enough info for me to be comfortable with such trades.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    Dammit, it took me five pages to figure out what "CC" is. I'm really slowing down.



    I still don't know what CC is.
  • Reply 51 of 75
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    I still don't know what CC is.



    I think it is "conference call". It's in the headline.
  • Reply 52 of 75
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    I think it is "conference call". It's in the headline.



    Thanks, but now I really feel stupid.
  • Reply 53 of 75
    lfe2211lfe2211 Posts: 507member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Remember the $1.99 charge for the 802.11n enabler? Besides what you mention, I think this new accounting method will keep the tax hounds at bay when Apple releases new software features (not just upgrades) to the iPhone.







    I too am going to read up on Options. The web-based tutorials just don't have enough info for me to be comfortable with such trades.







    I still don't know what CC is.



    You should not consider options trading until you have taken a formal course and practiced with fake money first. You can lose your shirt, your house, your dog and god forbid your Mac (especially on a day like today), if you don't know what you're doing. Having said that, learning how to read options trading in a given stock can help predict impending big up or down movements in a stock. There will be a lot of option traders drinking heavily tonight.
  • Reply 54 of 75
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lfe2211 View Post


    You should not consider options trading until you have taken a formal course and practiced with fake money first. You can lose your shirt, your house, your dog and god forbid your Mac (especially on a day like today), if you don't know what you're doing. Having said that, learning how to read options trading in a given stock can help predict impending big up or down movements in a stock. There will be a lot of option traders drinking heavily tonight.



    Thanks for the advice, I wasn't going to do any Options trading until I have a absolutely solid hold how it works. I won't be doing a formal course though, I'm more of a self-study kind of person.



    Do you know any web-based faux-money trading sites that also allow you to do Options?
  • Reply 55 of 75
    lfe2211lfe2211 Posts: 507member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Thanks for the advice, I wasn't going to do any Options trading until I have a absolutely solid hold how it works. I won't be doing a formal course though, I'm more of a self-study kind of person.



    Do you know any web-based faux-money trading sites that also allow you to do Options?



    Try Optionsmonster.com, a very good site with a self paced course. I learned a lot from it when I started following the Options market.. The guys who run it (the Najerian brothers) have black-belts in options trading.



    FYI, the last 2 trades of the day in AAPL were sales of ~1,000,000 shares at about $146 and change. What a wild ride on Wall Street today. Fortuneately, AAPL was impervious to some extent in the monster sell off as well as CMI, another of my favorite companies.
  • Reply 56 of 75
    ouraganouragan Posts: 437member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TenoBell View Post


    By what measurement is Apple hardware over priced, outdated, and defective. Especially compared to any other technology.





    I'll give you 3 examples:



    1) The May 2007 MacBook doesn't use the new Intel Santa Rosa platform, but slower, cheaper previous generation components. And yet, MacBooks are easily $100 to $150 more expensive than the Wintel competition using faster Santa Rosa components.



    Apple was never competitive, going back to the 1986 to 1990 period when it insisted on a 50% profit margin on the sale of MacPlus computers. Apple had a good 35% of the market and felt that they were making a better computer than DOS powered IBM compatible clones.



    We all know how that story played out. A few years ago, Dell reduced its profit margin from 22% to 19% to become the leader in education sales. Guess what? They left Apple in the dust, and Apple is now struggling for a 5,6% US market share (and 2% worldwide market share).



    Apple was never competitive.



    The number of recalls for defective parts, over the last 20 years, is too long to enumerate. For the current recalls and warranty extension programs, just go to the Apple website.



    While no company is exempt from defective products, Apple seems to be hit harder than its competitors. Why is that?



    For 2006, Apple paid a $750 million compensation for 5 individuals, the Apple CEO and 4 of his hand picked Vice Presidents. Had they been paid a combined maximum of $20 millions, as with any other company, Apple could have sold its computers $100 cheaper. Had Apple also reduced its profit margin to 19%, I'm sure Apple computers could be sold $150 cheaper. For the June 2007 quarter, Apple increased its gross margin to 36.9%, up from 30.3% in the year-ago quarter.



    2) The iPod and the iPhone don't have a user replaceable battery because their design is defective.



    3) The iMac uses a less powerful laptop CPU because the iMac has a defective design being too thin to allow the ventilation required by a desktop class processor.





    Apple is a severely mismanaged company ruled by an abusive CEO with only a high school education. The only thing genuinely exceptional about Steve Jobs is the size of his ego and his greed. Sadly.



  • Reply 57 of 75
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Senor FUDster


    A few years ago, Dell reduced its profit margin from 22% to 19% to become the leader in education sales. Guess what? They left Apple in the dust, and Apple is now struggling for a 5,6% US market share (and 2% worldwide market share).



    There is so much FUD in your post, and I shouldn't be responding to this crap at all but I'm going to point out one fact: Dell had to lower margins in a vain attempt=to boost sales yet they are still falling faster than your trousers at a massage parlor in a Singapore harbour.



    Apple is doing what it's always done and yet is still exceeding the PC market's growth rate. I guess they are doing something right so may there is no need for them to come out with bottom-basement machine that is poorly designed with aging components just to save a buck. Maybe they could put WIndows on there too. Screw all this R&D into OS X!
  • Reply 58 of 75
    ouraganouragan Posts: 437member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    There is so much FUD in your post, and I shouldn't be responding to this crap at all but I'm going to point out one fact: Dell had to lower margins in a vain attempt to boost sales yet they are still falling faster than your trousers at a massage parlor in a Singapore harbour.



    Apple is doing what it's always done and yet is still exceeding the PC market's growth rate. I guess they are doing something right so may there is no need for them to come out with bottom-basement machine that is poorly designed with aging components just to save a buck. Maybe they could put Windows on there too. Screw all this R&D into OS X!





    Macs are enjoyable, but too expensive. They are expensive because a fat cat CEO demands the highest compensation on the planet, more than $650 millions for 2006, or else ...



    Apple is a company with a 5.6% market share in the USA and 2.6% worldwide. Yes, that's not much, and definitely no reason to pay its CEO more than $650 millions for 2006, using backdated and illegal stock options.



    There is an inconvenient truth about Apple, and it's about the character of its abusive CEO and the ineffectiveness of a wasteful board of directors. Apple would do better with any other CEO and directors.



    By the way, the SEC and US federal prosecutors went after Conrad Black and Martha Stewart for far less than $650 millions. Do you really believe that they will fail to prosecute Steve Jobs just because he has an inflated opinion of himself?



    Concerning the growth rate and market share of Apple, let me say that about 58.8 million PCs were shipped worldwide in the June 2007 quarter, a tiny portion of which were Apple computers (see http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32980/113/).



    Also, Microsoft believes that there will be 1 billion computers running Windows by the end of the current fiscal year (see http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33107/118/).



    Macs are enjoyable, but Apple is severely mismanaged. Let me predict that things will change, sooner than later. The SEC will prosecute Steve Jobs (and should go after some directors who approved the illegal stock options).



    After that purge, the company will be reborn.
  • Reply 59 of 75
    lfe2211lfe2211 Posts: 507member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ouragan View Post


    Macs are enjoyable, but too expensive. They are expensive because a fat cat CEO demands the highest compensation on the planet, more than $650 millions for 2006, or else ...



    Apple is a company with a 5.6% market share in the USA and 2.6% worldwide. Yes, that's not much, and definitely no reason to pay its CEO more than $650 millions for 2006, using backdated and illegal stock options.



    There is an inconvenient truth about Apple, and it's about the character of its abusive CEO and the ineffectiveness of a wasteful board of directors. Apple would do better with any other CEO and directors.



    By the way, the SEC and US federal prosecutors went after Conrad Black and Martha Stewart for far less than $650 millions. Do you really believe that they will fail to prosecute Steve Jobs just because he has an inflated opinion of himself?



    Concerning the growth rate and market share of Apple, let me say that about 58.8 million PCs were shipped worldwide in the June 2007 quarter, a tiny portion of which were Apple computers (see http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32980/113/).



    Also, Microsoft believes that there will be 1 billion computers running Windows by the end of the current fiscal year (see http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33107/118/).



    Macs are enjoyable, but Apple is severely mismanaged. Let me predict that things will change, sooner than later. The SEC will prosecute Steve Jobs (and should go after some directors who approved the illegal stock options).



    After that purge, the company will be reborn.



    Wow, ouragan, you sure have an axe to grind. Have you and your physchiatrist discussed these feelings of rage? Are you on anti-anger manangement medication yet?



    I don't have the time right now, on this beautiful saturday morning, to address all of your FUD and non-statistically supported claims but here's one you didn't mention. As a dual platform user every day (That'a everyday, not some time but everyday), there is no price I would put on the superiority of OS X over XP/SP2.(When Vista finally works, we'll address it). WIth my Sony XP unit, much of my day is spent checking for viri, spyware and other other assorted malware. Then there is the time wasted while the never ending security downloads and Office update downloads co-opting the time I can actually use my computer for something productive or entertaining. Did I mention that I have to periodically defrag my disc also? With the "overpriced" Mac, I just turn it on and compute--ahhhhhhhhh! On those occasions that I need to download an update, I can do so immediately, or not. I also don't have to always reboot ---cringe--I spend half my wintel life rebooting. This word makes my palms sweat and gives me the shakes--"NO, not another reboot--anything but that, please! AS to Mac required reboots, they are far fewer, quicker and less frequent than on my Sony XP unit. I can not put a price on this operational difference but whatever it is, I'd pay twice the price for a Mac if I had to, just to be able to use OS X and be free of the never-ending mandatory security maintenance required in XP land. With a Mac, I compute; with a Wintel unit, I work and much of the time I -cringe-reboot.



    It's too nice a day to address all of your deep seated and pathologic hatred for Mac and SJ. Suffice it to say, others will hurl stones your way so make sure to wear your cyber armor and for God sakes, keep your Lance pointer in an upward position as you tilt at variuos Mac windmills.



    P.S. All companies should be so mismanaged as AAPL. The financial numbers speak for themselves. Anecdotally, I have had to replace the screen, keyboard and fan on the Sony in 3 years of use whereas on each of my 3 Macs, in 2+ years, I have done nothing,nada, zip, Blutarsky's grade point average. As with all anecdotal data, it is meaningless on a large scale but means everything on a personal level.
  • Reply 60 of 75
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    When I said by what measurement I meant an unbiased and balanced assessment of how Apple operates. A personal grudge and dubious examples do not qualify.



    Its fine for Windows to be on a billion computers by the end of the year. Apple does not need to compete with those number to be a healthy company. For most of those computers Windows is the most expensive feature. Apple's value is greater than every other computer hardware maker.



    So there are no sales numbers at this point you can throw out to diminish Apple's accomplishments.
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