Apple 4th Quarter Conference Call

[MacRumors]

Apple's 4th Quarter Conference Call (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq403/) hilights (reverse chronological order):

http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/10/20031015174003.shtml

[Mudbug]

hehe - I happily added to the ipod volume yesterday :)

[MrMacMan]

Very cool, a profit a boost in sales...

Good good stuff everyone.

[tpjunkie]

Forget the music announcment tomorrow, this is music to my ears


er, nevermind, that whole "forget" part

[Macmaniac]

I'm recording it so if anyone wants to host it plz post so!

[dongmin]

•3rd generation iPod gaining momentum. New record for iPod sales this quarter 336,000 units.
That's 1,344,000 iPods a year. It'd cool if they can get to 500,000 ipod a quarter. Forget $500 budget PCs (with $0 profit margins). The iPod is Apple's entry gadget, and it probably has way better margins than those budget PCs.

[eric_n_dfw]

And, of course, they drop nearly a buck at the end of the day. Why is it that when AAPL reports profits they always have a stock dip?

[AmigoMac]

Proud of:

PB 12" rev A.
ipod 10 GB 2nd generation

waiting for the january ...th 2004
:)

for sure, my wife would like to hide my credit card...

[mustang_dvs]

Originally posted by eric_n_dfw
And, of course, they drop nearly a buck at the end of the day. Why is it that when AAPL reports profits they always have a stock dip?

It's the old stock market adage: "Buy on bad news, sell on good."

Or is that: "Buy on speculation, sell on news?"

Wait, maybe it's: "Buy on Thursday, sell on Tuesday."

Okay, I've got it now: "Buy Intel high, sell Apple low."

Awww, I give up on trying to figure out the stock market.

[Mr. G4]

Day traders taking profit :D

Originally posted by eric_n_dfw
And, of course, they drop nearly a buck at the end of the day. Why is it that when AAPL reports profits they always have a stock dip?

[Freg3000]

Deferred until tomorrow....mmmmmmm

Can't wait. :D

[SiliconAddict]

Is there any more proof that you need that Moto was a cancer on the core of Apple? Thank god for chemotherapy and a good dose of IBM.

[Vroem]

Originally posted by eric_n_dfw
And, of course, they drop nearly a buck at the end of the day. Why is it that when AAPL reports profits they always have a stock dip?
On what market? Nasdaq closed before the conference call.

[DeusOmnis]

Apple stock is up 27 cents today, I dont know what you're talking about. In any case, the NASDAQ closed before the conference.

[lmalave]

Originally posted by Vroem
On what market? Nasdaq closed before the conference call.

After hours trading.

[Gabriel]

I'm really impressed, I thought that Apple would be hurt badly by the PowerBook delay, however it seems like PowerBook sales (and most other things) were extremely good.

A few things I noticed:

Wow, the retail stores have posted their first profit. 4.3 million people visited the stores for $3.3 million in sales per store (average)

Education shipments is down 15% from last year, but higher education had its strongest quarter in 7 years. My own anecdotal evidence is that college students are adopting Macs in droves, Apple is becoming a "coolhunters" wet dream and I think thats a good thing.

[IJ Reilly]

Originally posted by Vroem
On what market? Nasdaq closed before the conference call.

In after-hours trading, the kind that turns us regular guy investor type into barrel-dwelling carp. Sometimes I think Apple investors would be better off if the company never announced a profit or a new product.

BTW, the old expression is, "buy on the rumor, sell on the news."

No, I never quite understood the logic of that one either.

[DeusOmnis]

Originally posted by IJ Reilly
In after-hours trading, the kind that turns us regular guy investor type into barrel-dwelling carp. Sometimes I think Apple investors would be better off if the company never announced a profit or a new product.

BTW, the old expression is, "buy on the rumor, sell on the news."

No, I never quite understood the logic of that one either.



Isnt the volume much lower during after hours trading, which would make it no-quite-so-important?

[foofan]

What about eMac and iMac sales? I wonder how well they are selling. If iMac sales are slow maybe that's why there are rumors of a design change.

[dswoodley]

Originally posted by eric_n_dfw
And, of course, they drop nearly a buck at the end of the day. Why is it that when AAPL reports profits they always have a stock dip?

In this case, its profit taking - pure and simple. Many analysts agree Apple (like many tech stocks) is still a bit overvalued.

[IJ Reilly]

Originally posted by DeusOmnis
Isnt the volume much lower during after hours trading, which would make it no-quite-so-important?

So they say, but stocks move up and down whether they are thinly or actively traded, and to me it looks the same in the portfolio either way. I'm not complaining too much -- AAPL has made some nice 52-week highs this week (and would have made another today...), but I'm just wondering out loud what the investors who are selling this evening were expecting from Apple's financial report that they didn't get, enough to drive the stock down 5% after-hours. I mean, if it was pure profit-taking, why did they wait until after the release of Apple's numbers to sell?

[billyboy]

From what I have seen, the AAPL price has been rising over recent days in anticipation of news that its going ok with Apple and will continue to go well in the forseeable future. Some shareholders ( short term speculators) decide to sell now just to cash in on that enthusiasm.

Maybe the price dropped because only a few shares changed hands overnight due to a lack of demand ie other speculators dont have real faith in Apple moving spectacularly to the next level over the next quarter compared to other tech firms in the process of declring their accounts.

Its not a bad idea to hang on for the long term and really cash in as AAPL gains in value as a result of its improved trading potential - thats the logic anyway.

[IJ Reilly]

I've been hanging on for the long term alright, the waaaay too long term. AAPL is easily the most frustrating stock I own -- the only one that regularly declines on good news.

[rodnarms]

Lets see:

new iMac
new 15 inch PowerBook

Looks like I have contributed my share to the good news!

My new Powerbook will ship on November 4th, think it will include Panther?

[Sayhey]

I was interested to note Anderson saying that the retail stores are now profitable. He also said somethings that reflect a change in their retail announcements. There will be 73 stores open by Thanksgiving instead of the 70 announced earlier, and the Tokyo store will open in December (instead of early next year) to bring the total to 74 at year's end. All of this is an acceleration of plans that show Apple's sales are better than expected.

[Macmaniac]

I'm glad to see Apple's retail stores making a profit, but us resellers have been selling quite a bit too, our little company has sold a lot of laptops lately, Apple must remeber not to forget its resellers which are vital to Apples service and sales!!

[Rocketman]

Originally posted by Macrumors
Apple's 4th Quarter Conference Call (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq403/) hilights (reverse chronological order):

http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/10/20031015174003.shtml

There are two reasons why I prefer MacRumors.com over other rumor sites. This sort of hard news with intimate details, not just headlines and commentary.

And,

summaries of many other rumour sites gathered here for analysis.

Rocketman

[Manimac]

I listened today and read the release and it sounded positive. I was a bit surprised they didn't talk about order backlog. They mentioned strong demand for G5's and PB's but didn't mention outstanding orders. Perhaps I am a bit biased since I have been waiting weeks for my PB order with no end in sight. I half expected some comment to the effect of "... demand is so strong that we have XX weeks of production backordered...". Maybe my situation isn't representative or perhaps they didn't want to put any damper on demand by the lack of availability. Still, a good report. I'll be interested in tomorrow's music-related announcements.

[mxpiazza]

you gotta love them leaving room for tomorrow :) i'll be watching at the apple store, credit card in hand...

[simply258]

Originally posted by foofan
What about eMac and iMac sales? I wonder how well they are selling.
Summary Data (http://a1584.g.akamai.net/7/1584/51/fc13c523227ba0/www.apple.com/pr/pdf/q403data_sum.pdf)

[ipiloot]

Originally posted by dongmin
That's 1,344,000 iPods a year. It'd cool if they can get to 500,000 ipod a quarter. Forget $500 budget PCs (with $0 profit margins). The iPod is Apple's entry gadget, and it probably has way better margins than those budget PCs.

Not quite the same. Margins can be lower in bargain-priced PC-s, but the iPod doesn't expand MacOS market-share in any way. This is why the $500 machine would be important for Apple. I don't see, why Apple doesn't make and sell headless versions of their iMac or eMac. Would be good, cheap pizza-box machine for the users who want an Internet-box, but already have a monitor.

[grouse]

Apple have to be very careful to make sure the problem that arose in the Professional Range, ie they became behind the market in performance, doesn't flip into the Comsumer Range.

The iBook and iMac and eMac sales are tailing off, and they need new form or chips in all three fairly soon, the life is being squeeezed out of the Moto chips.

The iBook sales can be explained partly by what Fred A said regarding the 12in powerbook cannibalising sales, but the education market is sluggish too and Apple needs a good-value small notebook for schools ready, that builds on the initial success of the new ibook.

iMac sales are more tricky. The world clearly didn't take to the wonderful design in the way they embraced the original, I know it was a better time for computers generally, but they have never really taken off in the way that we mac-heads and Jobs himself would have predicted. They haven't reached the new markets, in the way the orginal was beginning to.

And it's now a sluggish machine compared to other PC offerings.

I hope apple has a faster chip and a new form for the iMac soon, it can't rely on iPod sales for ever being strong as more pile into that market, same with the music store. Although it's good to see that apple's diversification strategy is beginning to work, peripherals, other hardware and software sales are looking stronger, and apple has a much larger suite of software than ever before.

Why don't they give a free (or half price) iBook away with the top range iPod! If all these windows users are buying ipod's, that way round is the way to convert them!

[VIREBEL661]

Good news - keep it up guys!

[billyboy]

Hard luck any one who bought Apple shares this week, down 8% right now. Good time to buy too for an easy 8% over the coming weeks maybe even days, before the price carries on rising steadily in the next year. Dont you just love speculators.:rolleyes:

[IJ Reilly]

Originally posted by billyboy
Hard luck any one who bought Apple shares this week, down 8% right now. Good time to buy too for an easy 8% over the coming weeks maybe even days, before the price carries on rising steadily in the next year. Dont you just love speculators.:rolleyes:

In the stock market, everybody is a "speculator." Anyone who considers themselves to be an "investor" these days doesn't really understand the forces they are up against.

The only rationale I've heard for AAPL getting trounced on good news is the slightly lower margins in the financial report -- about 1% lower -- and Fred Anderson's less than enthusiastic reading of the next quarter in the education market. None of which justifies a -8% hit, but there you go.

[billyboy]

Originally posted by IJ Reilly
In the stock market, everybody is a "speculator." Anyone who considers themselves to be an "investor" these days doesn't really understand the forces they are up against.



I reckon there is a scale of investing and some investing is more speculative than others.
Sure you speculate by buying shares and hoping the value rises - without actually having any control of the business performance yourself. But if you adopt the long view and buy into a business that also has a long term view, good business plan and a useful management team, and you stay for the long term, then Id argue that you are less the speculator, more the investor. The people forcing 8% off the value of a company the day after announcing their game plan is still on roughly the right track - they are pure speculators with their eyes set on a horizon between 1 minute and 3 months. They dont give a monkeys how Apple is doing in a year, and their opportunism does no one any favours.

I just hope there is a gambler (err speculator/investor) ready to buy all my shares when AAPL hits $50 whenever that happens in the next century.

[IJ Reilly]

When I saw AAPL halved in value in an hour or so of after-hours trading a couple of years ago, that's when I realized I was not really an investor, but just along for the ride. I doubt I'll see that money again even if I live to be 100. Unfortunately, patience is not always rewarded. In this case, it was punished, severely.