JamesBB

https://www.fiksu.com/resources/ios_trackers

Fiksu usage stats upto last week points to no slowdown in growth. The combined iphone 6/6p/6S/6Sp/5S (which is the portfolio being actively marketed now) is doing extremely well.

All the analysts are focusing on is the 6S vs 6, and yes, the cheaper 6 series is doing marginally better than 6S, but that is not unusual nor material for total shipments, which includes models that are both 1 and 2 years old.

Hell, they continued to sell the 4S until Jan 2015, almost 3 1/2 years after it was released... That was an incredible cash cow (and the 5e or 6c will replace that role as bottom entry in March - only much better than the current bottom entry which is the 5c/5s).

In 2 weeks, Tim Cook will once again defy all analyst pundits and prove their own guidance slightly conservative as usual...

Prof_Peabody said:

I hate these kinds of articles.  DED I presume?  AppleInsider doesn't do itself any favours by printing this kind of one-sided garbage.  A "year in review" type of article should contain the minuses as well as the plusses.  

A few that come to mind:

- the very, very late debut of the very, very expensive Apple Watch
- Apple TV being so delayed that it actually has last year's internals (for twice the price)
- the most talked about feature of the new Apple TV (skinny cable package) pulled at last second. 
- finally updating the iPad mini after three full years of languor. 
- the new $200 trackpad!  
- the new iPad that's more expensive than a laptop but half as capable.  
- Advertisements in the OS

I know others won't necessarily agree with me on all of these but the point is that there are many points of view and also pros and cons.  

These long, poorly written articles full of bitterness, that praise Apple to the heavens, while jousting against imaginary critics are tiresome, unfair, and uninteresting once you realize how biased they are.  Please stop. Someone knock that chip off Daniel's shoulder so he can write properly.  

Dear "Professor", you joined this forum in Dec 2015 and have since made 115 negatively biased comments about Apple... Is that your full-time occupation? Or perhaps part of the internet media army trying to portray problems that don't really exist because you have an agenda? 

Everyone talks about the iPhone (which will likely continue to grow by the way), but the number of meaningful (high growth/high margin) revenue streams is steadily expanding. Analyst predictions are almost entirely based on existing products. But why would the largest company on earth not expand their product portfolio and think about the future?

They may become a car company, media company or a produce other ingenious things that nobody thought about... Whatever it is, it will be high growth/high margin and will have a thick moat around it.

The real strength of a company is based on the ability to continuously evolve from status quo. Apple has in this respect the best foundation of any company. Their possibilities are endless. They have the financial strength, the intellectual capacity and an inherited zen-like capacity from Steve Jobs to focus on what is really important, and they are not playing defense, like everyone else.

None of that is modeled into any analyst forecast. The ingenious "predictions" of analysts are limited to something that resembles iPhone cycles of the past. 7/7S, 8/8S, 9/9S...

Not too long ago, Apple was an iPod maker... (and by the way only Apple figured out how to generate billions from a fancy USB stick with a headphone jack!)

This Wall Street play strategy is no different from previous cycles.

Plaster the media with negative bias in the exact period between earnings where TC can't correct them or state the facts and can't repurchase shares... (which takes a decent share of buy volume out of the equation).

Once we reach historically low forward PE's (which we are getting close to), then they start buying back during the days/week(s) up to the actual earnings where the inevitable happens...

Eventually the stock retraces and hits new highs, but few retail investors can stand the interim pain of 20-30% losses, so they sell at the worst possible time, whether they believe the choir of false prophets or not. 

Still waiting for a nice re-entry this or next week before rumors and fear mongering media eventually gives way to facts during the earnings call.

Analysts don't understand (or pretend not to understand) Apple's business model.

They are all concerned about sales "peaking", but seem to disregard the basic fact that Apple has a loyalty of 95%.

That means 95% of the installed user base will come back and replace their existing phones with a newer model. The big question is then, will we replace our phones every 2.5 or 3 years or what will that number be.

You can play around with those assumptions, but Apple will continue to grow their iPhone revenue the next 5 years (until other product categories take over the growth).