Apple 4Q 2007 Results, Conference Call: $6.22 billion revenue, $904 million profit

[dogtanian]

2 (2) would be the most correct definition in this context I believe.

 

[macridah]

Nice. I making an nice profit on just todays gain ... enough to buy a macbook. I will help out my stock further the xmas season, for sure.

 

[imacdaddy]

Mac Pro + ACD is where my money is going. Will it be Q407 or Q108? C'mon Apple, bring out the new Mac Pros already!!!

 

[Small White Car]

Some students may have been saving a portion for Leopard and now cannot afford it at the new virtually full price.

$69 is "virtually full price?" What more do you want? Would $49 be cheap enough? $29?

And if a particular school isn't making that price available to their students, well they should complain to the school, not Apple.

 

[dogtanian]

Ah no I was referring to the amended Education price for OS X being £75 or $116. From the reports it would seem that it's not always being reduced at the Uni/College bookstores due to the prices offered by Apple to the campus via the Apple reps.
I think it should be consistent whatever Apple do with their pricing.

 

[freddiecable]

I second that! A 2.5" widescreen iPhone nano - as slim as iPod Touch = drool

I agree, Apple needs a bare bones $200 or less cheap iPhone. Call nano if you want. That would be a huge hit. I would buy the regular iPhone for me and the nano to my wife since she's not so much into gadgets. but seriously Apple need to address these folks that do not want to, for example get a family plan and have to buy 4 iPhones at $400 each, That's crazy. Bring a cheap version for the kids and wife or husband, etc.

 

[ikir]

33% margins... and yet the Leopard Edu pricing is almost doubled.

WAY TO GO $TEVE!

So? Buy a PC then-. Apple still makes best computers with the best OS, and you pay the right price. If the right price is 33% of margin... good for them and also for use. If Apple is ok, we are ok as a comunity. I come from Amiga world i know what does it mean having the main company without money.


I really hates these sort of comments. Check the margin of a crap Sony Vaio. They sells crap and have higher margin.

Way to go goodcow.

 

[gwangung]

So? Buy a PC then-. Apple still makes best computers with the best OS, and you pay the right price. If the right price is 33% of margin... good for them and also for use. If Apple is ok, we are ok as a comunity. I come from Amiga world i know what does it mean having the main company without money.


I really hates these sort of comments. Check the margin of a crap Sony Vaio. They sells crap and have higher margin.

Way to go goodcow.

No kidding.

Check out other manufacturers, other industries. 33% IS ON THE LOW END. (And no brownie points for people who mix up margins with profit).

One reason why a lot of PC makers died or got out of the market was that they tried to survive on razor thin margins. Well, they found out that they couldn't.

Since that's the case, blathering on about "fat" margins, or cutting margins for marketshare doesn't make a whole lot of economic sense since it proved disastrous for other companies. There has to be another tactic to go along with that, if you want Apple to prosper.

 

[Diatribe]

God, how I hate Apple for having locked the iPhone. For everyone living in any other than the featured countries this means no iPhone.

I sure hope the French iPhone won't be that hard to get or expensive.

 

[jlbrown23]

Passing IBM

With the surge in stock price today, Apple has a larger Market Cap than IBM. That's right, BIGGER than IBM! And they passed Intel today too. Quite a ride Apple has been on lately, and their newfound willingness to let the Touch/iPhone realize their potential(a pocket Mac - it is to Blackberrys what OS7 was to Win 3.1)) in addition to the surging Mac sales make it look like the best is still around the corner.

At the end of the day I don't care all that much who is worth more, I'm just glad to see a healthy Apple guarantee that I still get to use Mac OS for years in to the future(who knows, maybe they'll even bring back Macs where I work...). But for the part of me that has been a Mac fan since I first laid eyes on one in 1984, it does seem like it has been a long time coming.

A collective toast for Mac fans everywhere!

 

[Evangelion]

I'm sorry but people are allowed to be irritated by Apple's sales practices. People are angry that Apple supported education for so long but has been bumping up prices recently. When they hear of Apples profits going through the roof, they rightly think this is unfair.

"unfair"? How exactly? Is it "unfair" that students get a smaller discount than before? Why exactly? Why would $69 be OK, but $109 or $119 would NOT be OK? the price-difference is about 50 bucks, hardly earth-shattering. That should be doable to even students. And hell, since they already bought a computer that cost over $1000 bucks, suddenly asking for 50 bucks more for totally optional OS-upgrade is "unfair"?

Don't be so blindly defensive of Apple's actions. Students want to enjoy Leopard too

Are they not allowed to buy Leopard?

Some students may have been saving a portion for Leopard and now cannot afford it at the new virtually full price.

So seventy bucks would be 100% doable and perfectly OK, but paying 50 bucks more is totally undoable? Besides, I HAVE seen reports that Leopard is available for under $100 in some schools.

 

[rog]

Apple didn't sell as many iPods as expected. I expect them to cease operations any day now. Look for stock prices to drop below $1 by the end of the month.

 

[Analog Kid]

I might add:

Any smart business owner, whether large, mid-sized, or even small, with cash on hand available for reinvestment (other than a hard asset such as real estate or office purchases) would probably do the same thing on a much smaller scale.

Timed investments such as Certificate of Deposits (at the small business level) are great ways to keep grubby hands from out of the pot and kept away for safe-keeping and interest earning.

say you've made around $20K by the time you've squared off all your debts

you hit up your bank and buy 10 CDs at 1K each, with varying maturities...

2 that are 6-9 month, 2 that are 1-2 year, 2 that are 2-3, and 4 that are 3-5.

you've got a nicely staggered cash investment. 10K locked away, 10K on hand.

Your investments might just help you out when you're in dire straits or a pleasant surprise when things are going well and just in time for other investment opportunities.

most small business owners completely skip this notion (or simply don't know of it), instead wanting to pocket the cash and hit up vegas or get that rolex (or do both?).

time value of money might do the trick though.

watch your cents...

Are you going to make your money work for you while you're evaluating how to invest it in your own business? Sure.

My point was that having $15billion on hand is not a long term strategy. Apple is not an investment bank. If they think they can make a better return on that $15billion by investing it or sticking it in a CD, then they're doing a disservice to their shareholders by wasting their money making products.

Too much cash and short term investment on the balance sheet is not a good sign to investors. It's an indication that the company doesn't know how to grow their business. Apple is forgiven this, because the growth has been so rapid recently that they haven't had time to plan and because they do leverage it towards reducing supply costs. At some point, Apple needs to spend it though-- either on acquisitions or internal infrastructure growth.