Editorial: Apple's Q319 earnings destroy a mountain of fake data and false reporting

13

Comments

  • Reply 41 of 66
    rundhvidrundhvid Posts: 122member
    "we continue to see phenomenal demand for AirPods, and when you tally up the last four quarters, our Wearables business is now bigger than 60% of the companies in the Fortune 500."


    Hats off to all employees at Dell, Samsung and the rest of the tech-industry for staying motivated and performing their duties all day long, year-after-year, when the companies they work for are being embarrassed to no end by Apple and their highly successful way of executing product-design and manufacturing. It’s not like Apple is extraterrestrial or something—they have iPhones,  Watch etc. and the corresponding Android products are not that different—it seems like a fair fight. Yet it isn’t, because there are real differences between the products which translates into distinctly different user-experiences. 
    I truly cannot comprehend how executives and managers involved with strategic decisions in Apple-rivaling companies (an oxymoron, perhaps...?), are able to fully commit to their new product with true belief in the claimed performance and predicted impact on the market—without feeling a little uneasy or outright thinking “why bother?“

    watto_cobra
  • Reply 42 of 66
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,621member
    rundhvid said:
    "we continue to see phenomenal demand for AirPods, and when you tally up the last four quarters, our Wearables business is now bigger than 60% of the companies in the Fortune 500."


    Hats off to all employees at Dell, Samsung and the rest of the tech-industry for staying motivated and performing their duties all day long, year-after-year, when the companies they work for are being embarrassed to no end by Apple and their highly successful way of executing product-design and manufacturing. It’s not like Apple is extraterrestrial or something—they have iPhones,  Watch etc. and the corresponding Android products are not that different—it seems like a fair fight. Yet it isn’t, because there are real differences between the products which translates into distinctly different user-experiences. 
    I truly cannot comprehend how executives and managers involved with strategic decisions in Apple-rivaling companies (an oxymoron, perhaps...?), are able to fully commit to their new product with true belief in the claimed performance and predicted impact on the market—without feeling a little uneasy or outright thinking “why bother?“

    I am not sure where you want to go with that comment. Tim was comparing the Apple wearable business in revenue terms to Fortune 500 companies.

    I don't see a connection to Samsung, Android etc.

    Android wearables sell in huge numbers and are growing thanks to the Chinese manufacturers.
    edited July 2019 n2itivguy
  • Reply 43 of 66
    robjnrobjn Posts: 280member
    Good editorial.

    It interesting to me that iPhone revenue is down 12% with a lineup that has the XR as the most popular device vs last year when the X was most popular.

    I think it’s safe to assume that the ASP has dropped a lot. If so, iPhone UNIT sales might not be down anywhere near 12%.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 44 of 66
    Apple’s quarterly report caused a shortage of eggs that were used by the business columnists who watched their fantasy reporting get buried by Apple’s numbers.
    Weekly I read Business Insider publish articles filled with total nonsense about Apple products.
    A great put down Dan.
    macpluspluscat52Dan_Dilgerwatto_cobra
  • Reply 45 of 66
    IreneWIreneW Posts: 303member
    avon b7 said:
    rundhvid said:
    "we continue to see phenomenal demand for AirPods, and when you tally up the last four quarters, our Wearables business is now bigger than 60% of the companies in the Fortune 500."


    Hats off to all employees at Dell, Samsung and the rest of the tech-industry for staying motivated and performing their duties all day long, year-after-year, when the companies they work for are being embarrassed to no end by Apple and their highly successful way of executing product-design and manufacturing. It’s not like Apple is extraterrestrial or something—they have iPhones,  Watch etc. and the corresponding Android products are not that different—it seems like a fair fight. Yet it isn’t, because there are real differences between the products which translates into distinctly different user-experiences. 
    I truly cannot comprehend how executives and managers involved with strategic decisions in Apple-rivaling companies (an oxymoron, perhaps...?), are able to fully commit to their new product with true belief in the claimed performance and predicted impact on the market—without feeling a little uneasy or outright thinking “why bother?“

    I am not sure where you want to go with that comment. Tim was comparing the Apple wearable business in revenue terms to Fortune 500 companies.

    I don't see a connection to Samsung, Android etc.

    Android wearables sell in huge numbers and are growing thanks to the Chinese manufacturers.
    Which Chinese manufacturers are making Android wearables "in huge numbers"? Serious question.
    We (the company I work for) have been looking into porting some of our products, but lately the wearables part of the Android market has seemed dead as a rock. And no news at all at the latest Google I/O, which is a bad sign.. 
    macpluspluscat52StrangeDaysBart Ywatto_cobra
  • Reply 46 of 66
    macplusplusmacplusplus Posts: 2,112member
    This article is pure hyperbole. It was a good quarter in spite of iPhone which is now less than 50% of Apple’s quarterly revenues. Sure Wall Street loves services revenue but would anybody here really call services a great product from Apple? Tim gave no color or numbers on Apple News+ which leads one to believe it’s not doing that great. I’m not surprised. The News app isn’t that great and bolting on magazines and a few newspapers for $10/mo didn’t make it better. Honestly I think the only place where people need to eat crow is with the Watch which has become a big hit. 75% of sales this quarter were to new Watch owners. That’s fantastic.

    if you want good analysis of the quarter https://sixcolors.com/ is a good resource
    Yawn... You can do better than that.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 47 of 66
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    gatorguy said:
    maestro64 said:
    gatorguy said:
    zoetmb said:
    gatorguy said:
    Kuyangkoh said:
    avon b7 said:
    Stopped reading after this:

    "Cook didn't even mention the millions of Huawei Androids that were diverted from Western markets to the domestic Chinese market in a desperate rash of discounting promotions this year. That's pretty clearly because Huawei's phones are not being sold to iPhone users, despite the constant insistence that Huawei is somehow pushing Apple out of business in China, when clearly that's not the case. "

    Please provide supporting links to back this claim up.

    As for the supposed claim by certain watchers that Apple wouldn't be able to shift X series phones, why did Apple pay a 'penalty' clause to Samsung for not reaching the contracted orders for displays?

    Clearly someone got their estimates very, very wrong.
    Yet another research published that Apple market shares dropped and Android are taking over....units shipped does mean unit sold.
    I agree with you, in general shipped does equal sold. 
    In Apple's case yes, because they don't flood their channels and in general, manufacture just in time.   But that's not necessarily true for other manufacturers who do lots of channel stuffing. 

     

    Most companies will not ship products until they are either already paid for or there's a contractual obligation to pay for them (ie 30 day terms). Apple is not special in that regard. So yes essentially shipped DOES mean sold. The products were paid for. 
    Not true, product get shipped to the store shelf all the time without any commitment to pay, it is call consigned inventory, only when the unit is sold does the manufacturer get paid. Also in consigned inventories agreement there is usually a clause which states if product does not move at specific rate and time frame the store shelf has the right to return product. 

    I suspect that Apple does not have these sort of agreement with most of the dealers, with that said, I also suspect they do since we have seen BOGO deals on Apple products and these come about due to consignment agreements to help move products.
    That is not how product is typically sold, for so many obvious reasons that you shouldn't even have to be told. 

    Yes unpaid consignment with no assurance of payment is a thing, but not something generally done by companies and particularly not with higher priced goods. In general shipped=sold just as I said. 

    Don't confuse not being purchased yet by an end user as the product not being sold. It's only sold by a company once (don't be anal about some silly edge-case exception to that), most often to a distributor/reseller/retailer who must then make their own sale of the product. Apple doesn't get paid again by the customer after getting paid by Target for iPhone's shipped to them, nor does the sale count twice. It was counted when Target paid for them. 
    I never understood this other than some wanting to believe Samsung and others ship all these phones to retailers and they just sit on the shelves. But if there’s all these phones people aren’t buying someone is taking a write down for that inventory. I have a hard time believing any phone manufacturer has all this unsold inventory constantly being written down.
    There's a landfill in New Mexico filled with the ET game and probably crappy android phones. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 48 of 66
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    Face it, the reason we get nothing but less than factual reporting these days is due to there is no down side or recourse for not being factual. No one gets fired for misleading information today. Even if they are confronted they simple say its what they believe or feel is correct. Or they will just say you are wrong and refuse to except the facts since they are not their own reality of the facts. If that fails to convince you then they will just call you names.
    FileMakerFellerDan_Dilgerwatto_cobra
  • Reply 49 of 66
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,834member
    gatorguy said:

    gatorguy said:

    flydog said:
    This article is pure hyperbole. It was a good quarter in spite of iPhone which is now less than 50% of Apple’s quarterly revenues. Sure Wall Street loves services revenue but would anybody here really call services a great product from Apple? Tim gave no color or numbers on Apple News+ which leads one to believe it’s not doing that great. I’m not surprised. The News app isn’t that great and bolting on magazines and a few newspapers for $10/mo didn’t make it better. Honestly I think the only place where people need to eat crow is with the Watch which has become a big hit. 75% of sales this quarter were to new Watch owners. That’s fantastic.

    if you want good analysis of the quarter https://sixcolors.com/ is a good resource.
    Whether a product is good is not always relevant to its success in the marketplace. Investors couldn't care less about the product so long as the company makes money.
    Right which is why investors love ‘services”. But as a consumer I wouldn’t say Apple’s services are great products. Maybe Arcade and TV+ will be.
    You're certainly entitled to your opinion. But my household loves iTunes rentals, loves Apple Music, loves Apple TV Channels, and loves our iCloud Drive. Inversely, Dropbox has been turning the screws on both customers and free-tier users so badly that we're ditching it completely. Once iCloud Drive has folder-sharing ability, there will be no reason to ever use even the free-tier Dropbox
    I don't think Dropbox will miss giving you free services. :) I would think the intent is to push those free users into paid accounts or off the service altogether. They're not a charity AFAIK
    So do we discount all the free-tier Spotify users?
    I thought that was exactly what commenters here do. Unless free accounts morph into paid ones why invest in them? Companies use different incentives to accomplish that. Barely useful or restrictive free tiers is one of those. Tiny cloud storage allowances (iCloud), compressed files rather than full-size originals (Google Photos), or "special" introductory offers that become full-paid if not cancelled (Hulu) are also methods of getting there.

    Unless "free" tiers are effective at attracting new paid users why would they do that, especially over a long term which Dropbox has done? The whole purpose is profit. 

    You think Dropbox feels desperate? They ARE desperate. 10 years in and an IPO does that. 
    Again, you’ve missed the point. Dropbox has alienated both the free-tier, and the lowest paying tier (read all the high profile users I linked to), while leaving pricing umbrellas. Neither of these is a good strategy. They’ve also added lame collaboration features no one wants. They’re lost.  

    Back to the original point, there is even less reason to use any tier of Dropbox and Apple’s similar service is even more attractive. Apple services are attractive, and healthy. Rogifan’s complaints are misguided. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 50 of 66
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    gatorguy said:

    gatorguy said:

    flydog said:
    This article is pure hyperbole. It was a good quarter in spite of iPhone which is now less than 50% of Apple’s quarterly revenues. Sure Wall Street loves services revenue but would anybody here really call services a great product from Apple? Tim gave no color or numbers on Apple News+ which leads one to believe it’s not doing that great. I’m not surprised. The News app isn’t that great and bolting on magazines and a few newspapers for $10/mo didn’t make it better. Honestly I think the only place where people need to eat crow is with the Watch which has become a big hit. 75% of sales this quarter were to new Watch owners. That’s fantastic.

    if you want good analysis of the quarter https://sixcolors.com/ is a good resource.
    Whether a product is good is not always relevant to its success in the marketplace. Investors couldn't care less about the product so long as the company makes money.
    Right which is why investors love ‘services”. But as a consumer I wouldn’t say Apple’s services are great products. Maybe Arcade and TV+ will be.
    You're certainly entitled to your opinion. But my household loves iTunes rentals, loves Apple Music, loves Apple TV Channels, and loves our iCloud Drive. Inversely, Dropbox has been turning the screws on both customers and free-tier users so badly that we're ditching it completely. Once iCloud Drive has folder-sharing ability, there will be no reason to ever use even the free-tier Dropbox
    I don't think Dropbox will miss giving you free services. :) I would think the intent is to push those free users into paid accounts or off the service altogether. They're not a charity AFAIK
    So do we discount all the free-tier Spotify users?
    I thought that was exactly what commenters here do. Unless free accounts morph into paid ones why invest in them? Companies use different incentives to accomplish that. Barely useful or restrictive free tiers is one of those. Tiny cloud storage allowances (iCloud), compressed files rather than full-size originals (Google Photos), or "special" introductory offers that become full-paid if not cancelled (Hulu) are also methods of getting there.

    Unless "free" tiers are effective at attracting new paid users why would they do that, especially over a long term which Dropbox has done? The whole purpose is profit. 

    You think Dropbox feels desperate? They ARE desperate. 10 years in and an IPO does that. 
    Again, you’ve missed the point. Dropbox has alienated both the free-tier, and the lowest paying tier (read all the high profile users I linked to), while leaving pricing umbrellas. Neither of these is a good strategy. They’ve also added lame collaboration features no one wants. They’re lost.  

    Back to the original point, there is even less reason to use any tier of Dropbox and Apple’s similar service is even more attractive. Apple services are attractive, and healthy. Rogifan’s complaints are misguided. 
    Agreed Apple is killing it on services at the moment. 
    Bart Y
  • Reply 51 of 66
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,621member
    IreneW said:
    avon b7 said:
    rundhvid said:
    "we continue to see phenomenal demand for AirPods, and when you tally up the last four quarters, our Wearables business is now bigger than 60% of the companies in the Fortune 500."


    Hats off to all employees at Dell, Samsung and the rest of the tech-industry for staying motivated and performing their duties all day long, year-after-year, when the companies they work for are being embarrassed to no end by Apple and their highly successful way of executing product-design and manufacturing. It’s not like Apple is extraterrestrial or something—they have iPhones,  Watch etc. and the corresponding Android products are not that different—it seems like a fair fight. Yet it isn’t, because there are real differences between the products which translates into distinctly different user-experiences. 
    I truly cannot comprehend how executives and managers involved with strategic decisions in Apple-rivaling companies (an oxymoron, perhaps...?), are able to fully commit to their new product with true belief in the claimed performance and predicted impact on the market—without feeling a little uneasy or outright thinking “why bother?“

    I am not sure where you want to go with that comment. Tim was comparing the Apple wearable business in revenue terms to Fortune 500 companies.

    I don't see a connection to Samsung, Android etc.

    Android wearables sell in huge numbers and are growing thanks to the Chinese manufacturers.
    Which Chinese manufacturers are making Android wearables "in huge numbers"? Serious question.
    We (the company I work for) have been looking into porting some of our products, but lately the wearables part of the Android market has seemed dead as a rock. And no news at all at the latest Google I/O, which is a bad sign.. 
    I was using 'Android wearables' as a catch all for all non-Apple wearables.

    The last global statistics I remember seeing were from the start of the year and they put Apple's share of wearables at 27.4% worldwide IIRC.

    Huawei is moving strongly into wearables where it has had a presence for a while but it is placing more focus on its own OS of late although it still has Wear OS devices.

    https://www.cnet.com/news/huawei-wearables-shipments-quadruple/

    According to that article Huawei and Xiaomi alone match Apple's share already but Huawei in particular is following the same strategy it used with handsets and looking to go premium with its devices and cascade down (through Honor). This year end I think Huawei planned to release another higher end watch (Watch 3) but with the trade restrictions it becomes hard to evaluate the situation going forward. Late last year it released an entire line of chipsets (Ascend) which included tailor made processors for wearables.

    The stars were aligning for a concerted push into wearables and home hub devices but projections are difficult make now. That said, Xiaomi and Huawei alone will still probably form the main pillars for Chinese Wearable growth for the near term. Huawei YoY growth has been off the charts even if absolute numbers (in watches specifically) isn't a dominating factor in its wearable business.

    In your particular case (porting products) you have a problem because you need a platform to develop for and there are wearables that use systems that are not open to third parties (at least yet). Huawei's LiteOS is an example. Huawei also uses Wear OS and if new phones continue using Wear OS I think they have more than enough traction to sell very well.

    The problem is that we know something is lurking in the shadows (Hongmeng) and it is probably going to go live next week (on a TV). It's clear that Hongmeng won't be limited to the TV, though and could end up anywhere, including a Huawei watch.

    Huawei has so much going on that it is literally impossible to know what their final goal is with regards to OS. I suppose your company would be considering Wear OS for wearables. Huawei has done a lot for Android (the Ark Compiler being just one example):

    https://www.xda-developers.com/huawei-ark-compiler-android-app-performance/

    It looks like they want to continue with Android and Google systems (even QC) but they could be forced out due to geopolitical issues. Basically, they used LiteOS simply because they wanted up to two week battery life on some devices and Wear OS wasn't the best option for that.

    All I know is that by the end of the year we will know a lot more about where Xiaomi and Huawei stand with regards to wearable OS. 

    Not long ago there were even rumours of Hongmeng being tested a million Chinese devices from Oppo, Xiaomi and Huawei. Supposedly 'Android' compatible.
  • Reply 52 of 66
    kantx said:
    zoetmb said:
    gatorguy said:
    Kuyangkoh said:
    avon b7 said:
    Stopped reading after this:

    "Cook didn't even mention the millions of Huawei Androids that were diverted from Western markets to the domestic Chinese market in a desperate rash of discounting promotions this year. That's pretty clearly because Huawei's phones are not being sold to iPhone users, despite the constant insistence that Huawei is somehow pushing Apple out of business in China, when clearly that's not the case. "

    Please provide supporting links to back this claim up.

    As for the supposed claim by certain watchers that Apple wouldn't be able to shift X series phones, why did Apple pay a 'penalty' clause to Samsung for not reaching the contracted orders for displays?

    Clearly someone got their estimates very, very wrong.
    Yet another research published that Apple market shares dropped and Android are taking over....units shipped does mean unit sold.
    I agree with you, in general shipped does equal sold. 
    In Apple's case yes, because they don't flood their channels and in general, manufacture just in time.   But that's not necessarily true for other manufacturers who do lots of channel stuffing.  Then they have giant sales or do deals with the carriers to get rid of the phones (or whatever).

    As far as Apple's overall success is concerned, fiscal 2018 was a record year.  Not every year can be a record year.  But one has to look at long term growth, and I continue to think it's absolutely incredible that Apple's net income is now larger than its revenue just 10 years ago.   In fact, its net income for the first three quarters of this fiscal is almost as large as its gross from all four quarters in 2009.   Has any other company as old as Apple ever accomplished that?  

    It's true that Apple hasn't recently released any "blow your mind" products.   But who has?   And I can't even think of what such a product might be unless it's time travel, holography, AI/robotics (which I still think is the long-term future for Apple) or an electric car that gets 500 miles per charge.    

    The question is how well will Apple's streaming video services do once all the new services from AT&T, Disney and others are launched and whether they can maintain growth in services in that world. 

    As far as the press is concerned, they've always gotten Apple wrong.   I have to laugh almost every quarter when the press says that Apple is going to fail, Apple beats their expectations, they either turn that into a negative (as the NY Times did today) or say, "OK, well they did okay this quarter but they won't the next".     I've posted this before, but here are some quotes from the past:

     

    John C. Dvorak, 1984

    “The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a "mouse". There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I don’t want one of these new fangled devices."

     

    former Apple VP Gaston Bastiaens, January 1996.

    “Within the next two months, Sony will acquire Apple. … Sony will be the white knight who will step into the picture."

     

    Michael Dell, October 1997

    "I'd shut [Apple] down and give the money back to the shareholders."

     

    Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe, 1998.
    "The iMac will only sell to some of the true believers. The iMac doesn’t include a floppy disk drive for doing file backups or sharing of data. ... The iMac will fail. 

    10/5/2000   Michael S. Malone

    Apple R.I.P.

    …“Nevertheless, the bloom is off the rose. The incredible run-up Apple stock has enjoyed since Steve's return is over, and the sheen of success that had enveloped the company has been tarnished. 


    A temporary setback? Don't be too sure. Unlike, say, Hewlett-Packard, Apple has always been a company that deals poorly with failure. When things go bad at Apple, they go very bad. “

    5/21/2001  Cliff Edwards  

    Commentary: Sorry, Steve: Here's Why Apple Stores Won't Work 

    “New retail outlets aren't going to fix Apple's sales “

     

    12/23/2006 Bill Ray (Mobile)

    “Why the Apple phone will fail, and fail badly”

    It's the Pippin all over again”

     

    1/14/2007 Matthew Lynn

    Apple iPhone Will Fail in a Late, Defensive Move

    “…Don't let that fool you into thinking that it matters. The big competitors in the mobile-phone industry such as Nokia Oyjand Motorola Inc.won't be whispering nervously into their clamshells over a new threat to their business…

    The iPhone is nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks. In terms of its impact on the industry, the iPhone is less relevant”

     

    3/28/2007 John Dvorak

    Apple should pull the plug in the iPhone

    Commentary:  Company risks its reputation in competitive business

    … Now compare that effort and overlay the mobile handset business. This is not an emerging business. In fact it's gone so far that it's in the process of consolidation with probably two players dominating everything, Nokia Corp…and Motorola Inc.” 

     

    You've made my day. Such a collection of dumbass. Tripp Mickle (Mick Tripple ? Trick Mipple ?) being the Crown Prince of the tribe. 
    You made my day too!

    Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently took a shot at foreseeing, stressing that Apple's iPhone had a short lifespan, while Nokia and Research in Motion would bow to the Windows makers, in terms of mobile software offerings.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 53 of 66
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    slurpy said:
    Kif Leswing of CNBC similarly stated that "Apple reiterated to me today that the vast majority of MacBook customers are happy and haven't had issues with the keyboard," but felt compelled to remark that "but to me, anecdotally, it feels like it's happening to everyone." "Everyone", meaning attention-whoring Youtubers and clickbait headlines. Anecdotally, not a single person I know has had KB issues with their 2016+ Macbooks.
    We've had two staffers with issues.
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 54 of 66
    stukestuke Posts: 122member
    Great article...one filled with real data rather than superficial hype and non-artifactual evidence.  Thank you AppleInsider.
    edited July 2019 Dan_Dilgerwatto_cobra
  • Reply 55 of 66
    gatorguy said:
    maestro64 said:
    gatorguy said:
    zoetmb said:
    gatorguy said:
    Kuyangkoh said:
    avon b7 said:
    Stopped reading after this:

    "Cook didn't even mention the millions of Huawei Androids that were diverted from Western markets to the domestic Chinese market in a desperate rash of discounting promotions this year. That's pretty clearly because Huawei's phones are not being sold to iPhone users, despite the constant insistence that Huawei is somehow pushing Apple out of business in China, when clearly that's not the case. "

    Please provide supporting links to back this claim up.

    As for the supposed claim by certain watchers that Apple wouldn't be able to shift X series phones, why did Apple pay a 'penalty' clause to Samsung for not reaching the contracted orders for displays?

    Clearly someone got their estimates very, very wrong.
    Yet another research published that Apple market shares dropped and Android are taking over....units shipped does mean unit sold.
    I agree with you, in general shipped does equal sold. 
    In Apple's case yes, because they don't flood their channels and in general, manufacture just in time.   But that's not necessarily true for other manufacturers who do lots of channel stuffing. 

     

    Most companies will not ship products until they are either already paid for or there's a contractual obligation to pay for them (ie 30 day terms). Apple is not special in that regard. So yes essentially shipped DOES mean sold. The products were paid for. 
    Not true, product get shipped to the store shelf all the time without any commitment to pay, it is call consigned inventory, only when the unit is sold does the manufacturer get paid. Also in consigned inventories agreement there is usually a clause which states if product does not move at specific rate and time frame the store shelf has the right to return product. 

    I suspect that Apple does not have these sort of agreement with most of the dealers, with that said, I also suspect they do since we have seen BOGO deals on Apple products and these come about due to consignment agreements to help move products.
    That is not how product is typically sold, for so many obvious reasons that you shouldn't even have to be told. 

    Yes unpaid consignment with no assurance of payment is a thing, but not something generally done by companies and particularly not with higher priced goods. In general shipped=sold just as I said. 

    Don't confuse not being purchased yet by an end user as the product not being sold. It's only sold by a company once (don't be anal about some silly edge-case exception to that), most often to a distributor/reseller/retailer who must then make their own sale of the product. Apple doesn't get paid again by the customer after getting paid by Target for iPhone's shipped to them, nor does the sale count twice. It was counted when Target paid for them. 
    I never understood this other than some wanting to believe Samsung and others ship all these phones to retailers and they just sit on the shelves. But if there’s all these phones people aren’t buying someone is taking a write down for that inventory. I have a hard time believing any phone manufacturer has all this unsold inventory constantly being written down.
    I think with slowing growth in the global smartphone market there's a good chance that write-downs will increase. Look at Apple in China - they had to adjust their pricing in order to increase sales.

    Forecasting is hard.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 56 of 66
    bellsbells Posts: 140member
    avon b7 said:
    Stopped reading after this:

    "Cook didn't even mention the millions of Huawei Androids that were diverted from Western markets to the domestic Chinese market in a desperate rash of discounting promotions this year. That's pretty clearly because Huawei's phones are not being sold to iPhone users, despite the constant insistence that Huawei is somehow pushing Apple out of business in China, when clearly that's not the case. "

    Please provide supporting links to back this claim up.

    As for the supposed claim by certain watchers that Apple wouldn't be able to shift X series phones, why did Apple pay a 'penalty' clause to Samsung for not reaching the contracted orders for displays?

    Clearly someone got their estimates very, very wrong.
    Talk about hypocrisy. Please provide something other than rumor that Apple paid Samsung a penalty clause. Where is a Samsung or Apple statement or Apple financial record that support that rumor? Don't give me an android central link. 

    Even if true, the rumor concerns OLED displays not LCD displays. It is quite possible that Apple over estimated the more expensive iPhone XS sales that have OLED displays, but under estimated the less expensive iPhone XS sales which don't use OLED displays. So if accurate, Apple could sell less XSs than thought thereby owing Samsung a penalty, but selling way more XRs then thought resulting in a net gain for Apple. 

    watto_cobra
  • Reply 57 of 66
    bellsbells Posts: 140member

    avon b7 said:
    slurpy said:
    Kif Leswing of CNBC similarly stated that "Apple reiterated to me today that the vast majority of MacBook customers are happy and haven't had issues with the keyboard," but felt compelled to remark that "but to me, anecdotally, it feels like it's happening to everyone." "Everyone", meaning attention-whoring Youtubers and clickbait headlines. Anecdotally, not a single person I know has had KB issues with their 2016+ Macbooks.
    I was checking out MBP/Air options on Amazon prime day. In the end we rejected all of them as we have no faith in the keyboard and what it represents (top case, keyboard and battery are interconnected.

    I don't know anybody that hasn't had problems with them (although no outright failures yet) and didn't want to find myself in that supposed small percentage of users who do have problems requiring a repair. So far, these people are using thin strip's of paper to dislodge particles.

    The repair extension program is a step in the right but repairing would mean downtime that I don't fancy.

    As I am in no rush to upgrade I decided to wait it until new designs appear.
    I have had one for about six months. In truth, I prefer a heavier key like the older Mac Books, but these keys have worked just fine. and probably allow me to type faster once I became accustomed to them.  

    The reality is if Apple truly was having a significant repair problem with the keyboards, they would have redesigned them a long time ago. Apple knows better than anyone when it has a problem with repairs.

    If anything Apple extended the warranty to appease people worried about the keyboards due to reporting. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 58 of 66
    bellsbells Posts: 140member


    Honestly I think the only place where people need to eat crow is with the Watch which has become a big hit. 75% of sales this quarter were to new Watch owners. That’s fantastic.
    I think the tech media has a plate piled high with crow when it comes to Mac laptop numbers. The endless negativity about Apple's design choices harming the product look like they're about as accurate as Bloomberg's spy chip hype.
    The Mac negativity isn’t really coming from the press...it’s coming from Mac enthusiasts and some tech writers.
    You obviously don't encounter the Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 59 of 66
    Bart YBart Y Posts: 64unconfirmed, member
    gatorguy said:

    That is not how product is typically sold, for so many obvious reasons that you shouldn't even have to be told. 

    Yes unpaid consignment with no assurance of payment is a thing, but not something generally done by companies and particularly not with higher priced goods. In general shipped=sold just as I said. 

    Don't confuse not being purchased yet by an end user as the product not being sold. It's only sold by a company once (don't be anal about some silly edge-case exception to that), most often to a distributor/reseller/retailer who must then make their own sale of the product. Apple doesn't get paid again by the customer after getting paid by Target for iPhone's shipped to them, nor does the sale count twice. It was counted when Target paid for them. 
    I never understood this other than some wanting to believe Samsung and others ship all these phones to retailers and they just sit on the shelves. But if there’s all these phones people aren’t buying someone is taking a write down for that inventory. I have a hard time believing any phone manufacturer has all this unsold inventory constantly being written down.
    Please review Samsung's current earning report and the language they use in describing their poor Mobile division results:(if you can get past some of the corporate-speak that indicates a, IMO, "wishing and hoping strategy".  I highlight some key issues:
    https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-electronics-announces-second-quarter-2019-results

    "The IT & Mobile Communications Division posted KRW 25.86 trillion in consolidated revenue and KRW 1.56 trillion in operating profit for the quarter."

    (For comparison, KRW 25.86T = $21.75B USD revenue, KRW 1.56T = $1.31B USD profits for Samsung Mobile
    Apple reported, per the above article chart and 8K and 10Q filings,
    iPhone revenue of $25.986B USD and using the product margin (of all products) of 30.4%, it can be roughly inferred that iPhone profits were about $7.9B conservatively)

    http://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000320193/c706f1cd-fe0c-48bd-8a2e-65f15ecdf02f.pdf
    https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000320193/81cb927c-8589-4aa7-a73a-3d5ed844cd17.rtf

    Considering that Apple only has 11% of market share, and Samsung roughly 22% per the report below, we can see that despite Samsung selling twice as many phones last quarter, they made $4.2B or 16% less revenue, and $6.6B or 83% less profit!!)


    "While the overall market saw demand for smartphones decline due to the negative macroeconomic environment and seasonal weakness, Samsung’s smartphone shipments increased QoQ led by strong sales of the new Galaxy A Series, including the Galaxy A50 and A70. However, sales of flagship models fell QoQ on weak sales momentum for the Galaxy S10 and stagnant demand for premium products. " 

    (sold a lot of less expensive but almost profitless mid-priced tier phones.  And the Flagship Galaxy S10 sales are weak, even weaker than the previous S9, which was weaker than the S8 and so on down to the S6.  And the high priced flagship phones are where the most profit is made)

     
    "Increased costs associated with growing competition in the mid- to low- end segment and inventory adjustments of older models resulted in a drop in profit for the Mobile Business. On the other hand, earnings for the Networks Business improved thanks to the expansion of commercial 5G service in South Korea and LTE networks in overseas markets."

    (Increased costs means marketing, promotions and discounts.  Inventory adjustments of older models means writedowns, writeoffs, or heavy discounts or BOGO's to move inventory - the answer to your statement of "
    I have a hard time believing any phone manufacturer has all this unsold inventory constantly being written down.")

    "In the second half, the overall mobile market demand is expected to remain weak due to growing uncertainties over the global economy and trade. Samsung will continue to strengthen its flagship lineup and increase sales of new mass market models. The Company will promptly respond to the changing business environment, and step up efforts to secure profitability by enhancing efficiency across development, manufacturing and marketing operations."

    (Right, Samsung will introduce the $2K fold which has virtually no profit after all the R&D and costs associated with it and IMO, a limited sales market.  If the S10 sold poorly so far, what's going to help it for the rest of the year until Feb.-Mar 2020 when the S11 is due?  Heavy promotional deals and "inventory adjustments" unless they just cut production way back to meet way decreased demand for their flagships.  And yes, the Note 9 didn't sell well (<10M units) either.  Increasing sales of mass market models means selling a lot but with razor thin profits (see above) a lot of a very little profit.  Therefore, guidance in this sector is poor for Samsung.)

    watto_cobra
  • Reply 60 of 66
    Bart YBart Y Posts: 64unconfirmed, member
    bells said:
    avon b7 said:
    Stopped reading after this:

    "Cook didn't even mention the millions of Huawei Androids that were diverted from Western markets to the domestic Chinese market in a desperate rash of discounting promotions this year. That's pretty clearly because Huawei's phones are not being sold to iPhone users, despite the constant insistence that Huawei is somehow pushing Apple out of business in China, when clearly that's not the case. "

    Please provide supporting links to back this claim up.

    As for the supposed claim by certain watchers that Apple wouldn't be able to shift X series phones, why did Apple pay a 'penalty' clause to Samsung for not reaching the contracted orders for displays?

    Clearly someone got their estimates very, very wrong.
    Talk about hypocrisy. Please provide something other than rumor that Apple paid Samsung a penalty clause. Where is a Samsung or Apple statement or Apple financial record that support that rumor? Don't give me an android central link. 

    Even if true, the rumor concerns OLED displays not LCD displays. It is quite possible that Apple over estimated the more expensive iPhone XS sales that have OLED displays, but under estimated the less expensive iPhone XS sales which don't use OLED displays. So if accurate, Apple could sell less XSs than thought thereby owing Samsung a penalty, but selling way more XRs then thought resulting in a net gain for Apple. 

    Korean IT source discussing the Samsung Display division issue with Apple OLED orders:
    http://english.etnews.com/20190621200001

    BGR article discussing the payment demands between Samsung and Apple:
    https://bgr.com/2019/07/05/iphone-xs-sales-performance-force-apple-to-reimburse-samsung/

    Samsung Q2 earnings report discusses the Display division issue:
    https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-electronics-announces-second-quarter-2019-results

    "The Display Panel Business reported improvement due to a one-off gain in mobile displays and stronger sales of rigid OLED panels, which offset losses from large displays."

    Apple does not call out this payment specifically in its current 10Q filing, but there are two areas of Manufacturing obligations / Contractual Obligations and Unconditional Purchase Obligations which specify $27B and $8B in current or future payments, so I suspect the modest $684M payment to Samsung is buried in there.
    watto_cobra
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