Apple Records Q4 2012 Earnings of $8.2B on $36B in Revenue, Tops $150B in Sales for Fiscal 2012 [Call Ended]

Yep. I'm considering selling once we see another rally. The iPad mini won't help sales and could actually canibslize iPad sales, and with the lower margins apple gets off iPad minis it won't help their shares.

Apple is still a great company, but investors, those who know about things like this, know this quarter and the guidance is not good news for the future. The innovation isn't there. All these products launching st once will eat into margins for a bit. I'm also afraid apple is now crowding their product lines, something Jobs did away with when he returned to apple.

And why are iPad 2's still on sale? Remember when previous generation products were cancelled when a new one came out?

This is why I'd be wary of AAPL as a stock going forward.

sammich said:

So Apple sold 21% more units in Europe but it generated 3% less revenue than the last quarter? ASP isn't looking good, at all.

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To me as a consumer its looking much better. I buy products because I will use them, not because it want to line someone's pocket. Better value is never bad.

AHDuke99 said:

Yep. I'm considering selling once we see another rally. The iPad mini won't help sales and could actually canibslize iPad sales, and with the lower margins apple gets off iPad minis it won't help their shares.

Apple is still a great company, but investors, those who know about things like this, know this quarter and the guidance is not good news for the future. The innovation isn't there. All these products launching st once will eat into margins for a bit. I'm also afraid apple is now crowding their product lines, something Jobs did away with when he returned to apple.

And why are iPad 2's still on sale? Remember when previous generation products were cancelled when a new one came out?

This is why I'd be wary of AAPL as a stock going forward.

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Couldn't agree more. This is the first time in 5 or 6 years I have felt this way about the stock. At any rate, I am out, and can always jump back in. I doubt we will see 700 before next quarter's earning come out, especially with the lower guidance. I am sure Cook et al would like to lower guidance and then see the stock beat all the way up to $15ps.

Too many things about this last conference call bothered me.Too much waffling on WHEN the supply would meet the demand. I am not a PC person, Windows person anymore, and while Samsun has a huge edge on the smartphone market, I still think Apple is a solid company, but, for the first time, wonder which direction price will go in the coming year.

terri

Thunderhawks said:

The people forget about ethics and morals when the amount of money and financial gain is big enough. This is done by the wealthy (and many criminals) every day!

Legally and with the government's blessing. (leveraged buyouts, government subsidies, tax incentives etc.)

Sadly, your idealistic wish is not reality.

Not just in the US

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You may be right most of the time, but that leads us to the conclusion that it's not the system that's wrong with the US, but the people. Not a topic that's discussed rationally often.

But I agree, it's not the way in the US, which is why we left.

tmgrl2 said:

Couldn't agree more. This is the first time in 5 or 6 years I have felt this way about the stock. At any rate, I am out, and can always jump back in. I doubt we will see 700 before next quarter's earning come out, especially with the lower guidance. I am sure Cook et al would like to lower guidance and then see the stock beat all the way up to $15ps.

Too many things about this last conference call bothered me.Too much waffling on WHEN the supply would meet the demand. I am not a PC person, Windows person anymore, and while Samsun has a huge edge on the smartphone market, I still think Apple is a solid company, but, for the first time, wonder which direction price will go in the coming year.

terri

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It sounds like you haven't been in the stock market very long.

Trying to guess a stock's direction over the short haul is a sure fire formula for getting stomped. Either you think the company's prospects for growing earnings are good, or you don't. Either you have a better option for investing your money, or you don't. Jumping in and out based on the market's emotions and how it affects your own emotions is not a rational investment plan. Every time over the last 15 years when I've asked myself "why am I in this stock?" I reality checked myself with this test. No matter how the markets were behaving at any given moment, if I didn't change my answers, then my strategy remained the same.

Investors will learn the hard way or some other way that they cannot outsmart the stock markets. The best they can hope to do is have an intelligent investment strategy, and stick by it. Guesswork is not your friend.

It's all about the Benjamin's.

Steve Jobs and Jonny Ive stated the product came first, and money second. Apple has done well by innovating, not placing profits first to drive innovation. It's been apparent Apple has done little innovating aside from "Retina"/"R.I." mobile devices and different sizes of the same products.

If Apple doesn't bring more to the table soon, I'll begin to worry about the creative/innovating aspect of the company ("Light Peak" was developed around 2008 w/ Intel and Sony, the current implementation is copper to lower costs which slows down its potential speeds, and that would be the last truly innovative idea from Apple which I hope takes hold in the industry).

Innovate first, profits will follow. That's what Apple has done, and should do, if they want to stay above the curve.

I haven't followed this thread much. Didn't realize it was really talking investment.

What do folks think the stock will do going forward?

What worries me most is the number of negative anti-Apple threads here on MacRumors. Its having the biggest effect on me thinking that the halo is failing. Folks are complaining about every sort of real or more likely imagined problem. After a while it doesn't matter if its true. If everyone is complaining about something, seems likely demand could actually drop off.

The rest of the Apple story at least for this coming quarter seems fairly solid. Product demand outstrips supply is a good problem to have.
They beat their estimates. Analysts got it wrong, not Apple.

I had assumed the iPhone 5 launch would be the biggest product launch. Hard to repeat in following quarters, years. Seems that all the phones these days are good enough and it will be extremely hard to encourage folks to upgrade again.

But the earnings surprised me. I didn't expect them to guide so low for calendar 4Q2012.

I'm disappointed but not surprised at the reaction to the iPad Mini. Given the iPod touch's price, I expected a high price.

I think their products still seem fine at the moment. But Tim is not doing well public relations wise vs. Steve Jobs. They need to find a different, more enthusiastic, more passionate technology loving consumer as their spokes person. Someone who can relate to how people use technology, not specs, not internals.

I still think the most serious mistake he's made is the dividend. What do I care about a measly $2/share dividend when the stock has plunged >$100. If Apple is still a growth company, keep the money. They have enough they can really shake up industries. They could buy major companies. They could own industries. Yet they do nothing.

They do see too timid. Out of ideas. They need to show evidence that they, that someone there has a vision.

I think Tim should have someone else provide the vision. Its a bad sign when he gives the keynote. Everyone else was groomed to be a minion to Steve. Not a Steve replacement.

Thunderhawks said:

Yeah right, happens every day.

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Unfortunately, there are people who will become the useful idiots that buy into that highly misguided idiotology.

P.T. Barnum said it best, "There's a sucker born every minute."

Thunderhawks said:

Dream on!

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For a better, non-dystopian, non-dog eat dog, and more progressive world, I most certainly will.

bedifferent said:

It's all about the Benjamin's.

Steve Jobs and Jonny Ive stated the product came first, and money second. Apple has done well by innovating, not placing profits first to drive innovation. It's been apparent Apple has done little innovating aside from "Retina"/"R.I." mobile devices and different sizes of the same products.

If Apple doesn't bring more to the table soon, I'll begin to worry about the creative/innovating aspect of the company ("Light Peak" was developed around 2008 w/ Intel and Sony, the current implementation is copper to lower costs which slows down its potential speeds, and that would be the last truly innovative idea from Apple which I hope takes hold in the industry).

Innovate first, profits will follow. That's what Apple has done, and should do, if they want to stay above the curve.

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I'm not here to play devil's advocate but seriously, how much more can any company innovate where the new feature(s) simply aren't gimmicks?

Look at desktop and notebook computers for example. In the 1980s, we went from a command line interface to a graphical user interface, all thanks to the innovation of a mouse and keyboard. Today, we are still using the mouse and keyboard to get around a desktop computer. Not much innovation in the last 30 years and this platform is very mature with little room left to go beyond. Yet people still use these devices today.

Mobile devices, iOS devices for example, are relatively new to the market and still have a long way to go but are stating to edge on maturity because of how fast technology moves in the modern day. Apple put out such great products out of the gate that coming up with features for the sake of coming out with features would get old very fast.

Does Apple put great products ahead of profit? Yes, I believe that Apple still does that, even with mature products. To anyone who says they do not, my question to you is, what ideas do you have that are innovative for such products and how can these ideas be realistically implemented?

I'm totally unhappy with the direction Apple is going.

Professional stability is going down the drain, all the computers I've bought recently have broke down within a few years. The new os are merely cosmetic changes in order to force the industry and institutions to re-update their softwares for no reason other than making money.

In short, Apple is becoming a Microsoft that sells phones and touch-toys for people who have noting better to do.

Just a hunch

I'm pretty confident Apple has seen it's best days. If there ever was a modern mega-corp so dependent on a single man as Apple, I haven't seen it. And Jobs would have been hard pressed to improve on Apple dominance circa 2011-12...it's just hard to get bigger and better than #1.

The question is then what becomes of Apple? If we were talking cars or oil or defense industry I'd feel more comfortable--those industries have more stability than tech. Tech companies--especially hardware--tend to come and go pretty quickly. Look at RIM, the market leader Apple unseated. People couldn't imagine them ever dropping as they have; look at the all those corporate sales people screamed. Hardware is just changing at such a rapid rate that it's hard to stay on top very long.

What's next? If I had to guess AR augmented reality. The question is really how long will it take. I would guess another five to ten years, but you never know.

Project Glass (although there are some indications Apple is working on it as well). Instead of interacting primarily through a handheld device, display and interaction will be through glasses or projection. Control (and here is where the tech appears still several years away) will probably be done virtually or--early on--through the assistance of capacitive touch devices.

Soon an OS will be more than what runs your smartphone, it will be what you use to run a good portion of your daily experience. Google certainly seems to be the company most ready to take advantage of this/

SpectatorHere said:

I'm pretty confident Apple has seen it's best days. If there ever was a modern mega-corp so dependent on a single man as Apple, I haven't seen it. And Jobs would have been hard pressed to improve on Apple dominance circa 2011-12...it's just hard to get bigger and better than #1.

The question is then what becomes of Apple? If we were talking cars or oil or defense industry I'd feel more comfortable--those industries have more stability than tech. Tech companies--especially hardware--tend to come and go pretty quickly. Look at RIM, the market leader Apple unseated. People couldn't imagine them ever dropping as they have; look at the all those corporate sales people screamed. Hardware is just changing at such a rapid rate that it's hard to stay on top very long.

What's next? If I had to guess AR augmented reality. The question is really how long will it take. I would guess another five to ten years, but you never know.

Project Glass (although there are some indications Apple is working on it as well). Instead of interacting primarily through a handheld device, display and interaction will be through glasses or projection. Control (and here is where the tech appears still several years away) will probably be done virtually or--early on--through the assistance of capacitive touch devices.

Soon an OS will be more than what runs your smartphone, it will be what you use to run a good portion of your daily experience. Google certainly seems to be the company most ready to take advantage of this/

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I agree with your statement 100% and your last paragraph 200%.
I think google are the company that will propel us forward a lot more than apple.
Apple have had their day.

dmelgar said:

What do folks think the stock will do going forward?

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the thing to worry about going forward is volume and gross margin for tablet and Iphon. Google Nexus device will drive the gross margin of the entire industry down substantially. Ipad mini margin is terrible mainly because the 199 pricing of Nexus 7. And the Nexus 4 LG phone Google announced today start at 299 and fairy comparable to Samsung S3. Google don't exactly care about profit margin on the hardware since their main business is in advertising. Google pricing is terrible for all Android makers (since they compete directly with Nexus tablet or Nexus 4 LG phone), but Apple pricing and sales will also be impacted at the margin. May be Iphone 6 need to start at 500 unlock instead of 650 for Iphone 5. Can you imagine what it will do to earning? And the higher relative price will also affect unit sales at the margin. I think by next year, it will be very clear that the gross margin of all thing mobile are heading way down and stock price of all hardware maker will be affected substantially (Apple Itune profit is no where comparable to the hardware profit.. So Apple will get hit substantially also).

should have baught the stock when it was $14. missed that train...

IJ Reilly said:

It sounds like you haven't been in the stock market very long.

Trying to guess a stock's direction over the short haul is a sure fire formula for getting stomped. Either you think the company's prospects for growing earnings are good, or you don't. Either you have a better option for investing your money, or you don't. Jumping in and out based on the market's emotions and how it affects your own emotions is not a rational investment plan. Every time over the last 15 years when I've asked myself "why am I in this stock?" I reality checked myself with this test. No matter how the markets were behaving at any given moment, if I didn't change my answers, then my strategy remained the same.

Investors will learn the hard way or some other way that they cannot outsmart the stock markets. The best they can hope to do is have an intelligent investment strategy, and stick by it. Guesswork is not your friend.

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I have been investing in stocks, trading options for over 30 years. I sold in the six hundreds...I bought them all back in the 500s...now I will hold through what look to be very strong earnings in next two quarters.

The years of BUY and HOLD have changed. I do hold, but not as long as I used to. I first bought AAPL in the 80s (price range) and have bought and sold it for years. Now I will hold again.....I use technical analysis in addition to fundamentals. IMHO, Apple, is really a stock to invest in, not trade, but I have done some trading and done well with Apple. Sell before the current Buy and Sell on Apple was also in 600s ($638) and then I bought back when it dipped and then gapped up.

Don't hear me complaining overall. I do listen to conference calls as part of my tracking, and still find some things worrisome. The products are awesome, as it the ecosystem, the overall company fundamentals as well.

My 4G LTE mini iPad is coming to me today...I have been tracking it since it was shipped on November 13th. as "business" partner in Apple, I was able to place my order on the phone when the rep from Apple got through to me during the hurricane.

So...even though I am 70, I am not stock-market-ignorant, but I do take profits at points and wait for dips to buy back.

tmgrl2 said:

I have been investing in stocks, trading options for over 30 years. I sold in the six hundreds...I bought them all back in the 500s...now I will hold through what look to be very strong earnings in next two quarters.

The years of BUY and HOLD have changed. I do hold, but not as long as I used to. I first bought AAPL in the 80s (price range) and have bought and sold it for years. Now I will hold again.....I use technical analysis in addition to fundamentals. IMHO, Apple, is really a stock to invest in, not trade, but I have done some trading and done well with Apple. Sell before the current Buy and Sell on Apple was also in 600s ($638) and then I bought back when it dipped and then gapped up.

Don't hear me complaining overall. I do listen to conference calls as part of my tracking, and still find some things worrisome. The products are awesome, as it the ecosystem, the overall company fundamentals as well.

My 4G LTE mini iPad is coming to me today...I have been tracking it since it was shipped on November 13th. as "business" partner in Apple, I was able to place my order on the phone when the rep from Apple got through to me during the hurricane.

So...even though I am 70, I am not stock-market-ignorant, but I do take profits at points and wait for dips to buy back.

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No matter, it remains the case that even the investment professionals cannot time stock movements well enough to even beat the S&P 500 most of the time, and they spend lifetimes studying stock and market fundamentals. If you ask most people whether they are better than average investors, most people will report that they are doing all the right things, so they must be. But do they really know? It's kind of like asking them if they are better than average drivers, which nearly every person in the world will tell you that they are (as mathematically impossible as that may be). So, I think if some regular folk like your or I believes they are smarter than the investment pros, then it's analogous to them believing that they are better drivers than Dale Earnhardt. Well maybe they are, but you have to ask yourself about the odds that it's really true.

Myself, I've come to realize that I'm neither Dale Earnhardt nor Warren Buffett, so I drive carefully and don't try to outguess the markets.