Apple 2nd Quarter Financial Results Stream

[gekko513]

how about small marketshare and low profits? which is what will probably happen. i mean, they've done less work than me this semester.

Depends on how much work they put into that Apple Bluetooth mouse firmware upgrade 😉

 

[Some_Big_Spoon]

From your lips to Buddah's ears 🙂

if a business or a professional needs a G5 right now, they'll buy a G5.
I went to the Apple Store this weekend, and it was full of people - and not just on the iPods. (And you know what...? Some of them were even looking at the "glacially slow" iBook.)

 

[Some_Big_Spoon]

That one firmware update took 50K developers, 35 years to test, and made Apple 41 Billion dollars. Don't knock that BT update, it's the only thing we've had to go on this year! ;-)

Depends on how much work they put into that Apple Bluetooth mouse firmware upgrade 😉

 

[aftk2]

But that's kinda my point.

But if that's the case, then that means Linux won't eat into Mac market share. It'll eat into Windows. Why would someone seriously considering a Mac want to go with something with sketchy support and a lousy UI? (I'm being a bit melodramatic...I tried knoppix on my laptop and was actually impressed.) By "seriously considering" I mean "someone who has the money." Yeah, they might just decide..."you know...why pay all this money when I could pay a whole lot less?" But if that's the case...why wouldn't they go to Windows?

The problem, here, then, is that people are using marketshare in a huge, stupefying computer market to gauge the health of the Macintosh. This market includes not only personal and business desktop and laptop computers, but also cheap knockoffs going to China, pre-loaded with Linux to make way for pirated copies of XP. It includes the "adding machines" of the 21st century (apologies to Jon Gruber). The problem is that people are pitting Apple against the entire x86 industry, rather than against individual computer makers. The problem, then, comes down to whether you think Apple is a hardware company, or a software company.

I realize that, if Apple didn't care about marketshare, they'd become an insular and ultimately dead company (after all, if your marketshare gets too low, outside software vendors will stop making products for you.) But that hasn't happened yet.

 

[Some_Big_Spoon]

Oh, I'm fully aware, as I think we all are, that "marketshare" isn't the end all be all in the least.. My thing was that Apple's got to compete, or if not compete, at least deliver.. A Linux desktop can be had for $199 at walmart.. granted it's crap, but it works.. compare that to the money you'll spend on an Apple, and the average person makes their decision (and the clearly have since Apple's Hardware sales are going down, down, down) The actual sales numbers are a far better indicator that market share, and those numbers aren't so great, you've got to give me that much..

I'm saying that you can't charge double, triple for machines, then not get them to people when they order them (huge delays)..it's just not going to make you last, and your sales will suffer, as they clearly have..

Linux is taking up that enterprise/business market that Apple had, and wants back.. they're not getting in, Linux is.. precisely because it can run on everything (not just the latest, greatest from Apple, which you can't get on time), it's scalable, open, etc.

I'm not arguing that Apple's OS isn't the best, or that they make awful machines, I'm arguing that what they're doing business-wise is bad, and is going in an awful direction (see DHM's initial post)..

But if that's the case, then that means Linux won't eat into Mac market share. It'll eat into Windows. Why would someone seriously considering a Mac want to go with something with sketchy support and a lousy UI? (I'm being a bit melodramatic...I tried knoppix on my laptop and was actually impressed.) By "seriously considering" I mean "someone who has the money."

The problem, here, then, is that people are using marketshare in a huge, stupefying computer market to gauge the health of the Macintosh. This market includes not only personal and business desktop and laptop computers, but also cheap knockoffs going to China, pre-loaded with Linux to make way for pirated copies of XP. It includes the "adding machines" of the 21st century (apologies to Jon Gruber). The problem is that people are pitting Apple against the entire x86 industry, rather than against individual computer makers. The problem, then, comes down to whether you think Apple is a hardware company, or a software company.

I realize that, if Apple didn't care about marketshare, they'd become an insular and ultimately dead company (after all, if your marketshare gets too low, outside software vendors will stop making products for you.) But that hasn't happened yet.

 

[Some_Big_Spoon]

Many, many software vndors have stopped making software for the Mac, precisely because Apple's userbase is small and getting smaller..That's a problem that Steve and Apple haven't addressed, and have made far worse with the decisions they've made..

Again, I'm not picking a fight, I'm just looking for realism so that maybe a singular voice can be made to wake them up, if that's possible.

I don't want to have the userbase go down to 0.0005% with the remains saying that Apple can do no wrong and it's everyone else's fault. It's mostly their fault, and they need to do something about it.

I realize that, if Apple didn't care about marketshare, they'd become an insular and ultimately dead company (after all, if your marketshare gets too low, outside software vendors will stop making products for you.) But that hasn't happened yet.

 

[Nicky G]

Lotta trolls out today -- thought I was in Middle Earth for a moment.

Don't you kids have some Social Studies or Algebra homework to be be doing, or something? 🙄

 

[Wash!!]

The sky is falling!!!!!

😱 And Apple is going out of business all their inventory is to be put on ebay to se if they scrape a few bucks for them!!!! 😱

People please all this complaining about Apple's market share it just been done to death give it a rest.....

 

[aftk2]

Oh, I'm fully aware, as I think we all are, that "marketshare" isn't the end all be all in the least..

Yes, I know...but it's the first thing that comes up in debates like these. For example:

How are you going to spin we have now reached the 1% market share that all the bmw lovers say is Great for Apple.

Here's a tip, DHM. When you predict something in a previous post, and then you say it, like its fact, in a later post, that doesn't make you into Kreskin.

Anyway, back to your post...

Everything you mention after your quote above boils down to desiring Apple to release just one low-cost, reasonably high powered computer. Like the iMac (the original iMac, not the current one.) It was low cost, but powerful (for its time...266Mhz G3 processor and all that.) And you know what...? I agree! Apple's consumer end is much less appealing than its high end (for all the kvetching about benchmarks and Opterons and lack of updates, the G5s are sweet machines that every pro user should look at.). The consumer end is at the same point that the PowerMacs were at, right before last year's WWDC.

It'll probably happen, too. For example, with the iPod mini, Apple is sacrificing some profit to get into a market it hasn't been able to enter. Now, the fact that they're leveraging their very successful current mp3 player to do so might make such a move more feasible than doing the same thing with a computer. But we'll see.

(aah...n00b no more...)

 

[Beck446]

This is the slowest quarter in recent memory. I've almost stopped reading MacRumors. The horror!


Numbers can't be that good.

 

[nagromme]

More trolling?

Many, many software vndors have stopped making software for the Mac, precisely because Apple's userbase is small and getting smaller..

That's hard to take seriously. Where do you get that from? The only software apps I'm aware of being cancelled for Mac are those that couldn't make it because a BETTER alternative exists. Meanwhile developers are flocking TO OS X every day, many of them joining us from the land of UNIX. I see evidence of Mac development increasing--what makes you say otherwise? And to the extreme of "many, many" no less?

Obviously software companies for ANY OS go under all the time and new ones pop up. So I guess you could say "many, many vendors have stopped making software for Windows" too?

As for Apple's userbase getting smaller.... the only way that could happen is if MORE people were throwing away (or storing permanently) Macs than buying them. (Giving a Mac away doesn't change the user base.) So that's pretty absurd.

Mac's user base is growing rapidly--just not AS rapidly, right now, as Windows, especially if hardware sales is what you count. (But hardware sales doesn't take into account the Macs last longer.) The market Mac developers can sell to is growing.

Sadly, the market for Mac viruses continues to do poorly 😉

I'll stop feeding the troll now.

 

[TimDaddy]

Again, I'm not picking a fight, I'm just looking for realism so that maybe a singular voice can be made to wake them up, if that's possible.

I'm sorry, this is WAY off topic, but kind of funny. I had just paid my cell phone bill before getting online. I thought you had mis-spelled singular! It's supposed to be Cingular!!! 😛

 

[thatwendigo]

Ho hum... DHM and a17inch are out in force today, I see. Others have dealt with it appropriately, so that really only leaves me one thing to say.

Go take a look at the thread I started in Apple/Hardware, where the miscellaneous Apple related discussions take place. I brought over an article that analyzes installed base and market share, breaking them down so that people can understand the numbers a bit better.

An example, though:

Say that there are only two computers in the world, and the users go two different ways. One buys a mac, the other a PC. Two years later, the PC user updates to a new version of Windows. From the standpoint of market share, Windows now has a 75% lock, but in installed base, they're still 50%.

Market share is new sales, not anything else, and it doesn't take into account buying patterns that go for more than one or two years. Mac users tend to buy every 3-4.5 years, and so we don't show up very well on the market share figures, but the best numbers the guy who wrote the article came up with show that the mac is actually the number one single OEM installed base.

Also, based on OS X adoption, as of late 2002, we were at 6.1% of OS sales, not 2 or 3%. Microsoft had sold 46 million copies of XP, and only 3 million copies of OS X had been sold. We're now at, what, 8 or 10 million copies of OS X in two more years? That's sales that are steady year over year, even if they're not growing as fast as the market is.

 

[BornAgainMac]

Tuesday

Perhaps on April 13th (Tue), new Apple products will be announced or shipping. Then they will have something to talk about for the stockholder meeting that is forward looking. It will be a boring conference call without any new product announcements.

It's funny. Microsoft announced products years in advance. Like the next version SQL Server, Longhorn, Virtual PC for G5s and Office 2004. I can plan what products my future grandchildren will buy from Microsoft when they go to college.

That is why there isn't any www.microsoftrumors.com domain in use today.

 

[gekko513]

One buys a mac, the other a PC. Two years later, the PC user updates to a new version of Windows. From the standpoint of market share, Windows now has a 75% lock, but in installed base, they're still 50%.

Did the Windows user buy both Windows ME and Windows 2000 or did you mean 67%?? 😎

 

[fluidinclusion]

Sell & Buy

I might want to sell my stock tuesday... then buy thursday.... what da ya think?

Why would you do that? It depends upon when you purchased and at what price. Do you have a profit in AAPL? If you're one of the long-term shareholders who does NOT have a profit, then you SHOULD NOT sell and buy back two days later becuase you can't use the loss on your Schedule D form unless you wait at least 30 days.

Furthermore, you may want to look into the length of time you've held (and will hold) your AAPL shares to determine the tax rate (i.e. capital gains or not) if you sell for a profit.

If this isn't vaguely familiar to you, then you should get some advice on investing before trading your own stock. These are CRITICAL items that can cost you thousands of dollars!

 

[fluidinclusion]

??????

I'd sell it short if I had stock in Apple... but don't blame me if you loose your bankroll.

If you had AAPL, and then sold it, you wouldn't be selling short. Do you know what "short" means? I sincerely believe that guy doesn't even have a margin account anyway.

Shorting is BAD news. You will get burned eventually. There is only so far down a stock can go (0). When long, you know you're maximum possible loss. When short, the highest a stock can go is ------>>>>>>>? Your losses are NOT finite or known.

 

[Wonder Boy]

By "economic" I'm sure you mean Apple's own fiscal and operational effectiveness? There's a big difference.

you're right, i do mean apple's own fiscal and operational effectiveness.

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

Well look at it this way 😎 after this qtrs numbers it will be hard to go lower. 😱 How can you guys spin these new machines sold numbers? 1 out of 100? and you guys can spin this with a straight face? 😱

 

[Nicky G]

Well look at it this way 😎 after this qtrs numbers it will be hard to go lower. 😱 How can you guys spin these new machines sold numbers? 1 out of 100? and you guys can spin this with a straight face? 😱

What is this, The No Spin Zone with Bill O'Reilly? Who here really knows how many machines were sold this past quarter? Do you? Really? Have any idea at all? Or just a hunch? What is it?

What a bunch of armchair experts, sheesh! My bet -- 90% of the armchair analysts who could do it better than Apple are in their early 20's or less, and actually have no business experience at all. 🙄

 

[nightcap965]

Duopoly

Just where do you get the idea that there can only be two - Microsoft and some token minority? I will grant you that under the current interregnum here in the U.S., rapacious predatory monopolists seem to be able to operate with near-impunity, but you've missed Apple's greatest asset: They innovate. Linux (and don't get me wrong - I love Linux, been using it for over 10 years) has many advantages, but it is imitative, not innovative. Microsoft acquires, they don't innovate.

The truth is that Microsoft et alia need Apple. Apple is the computer industry's best R&D lab. Sometimes their innovations work, sometimes they go down in flames, but they always advance the state of the art.

You need to take a longer view.

There was an argument a while back, and it was a porr and incorrect one, that Apple would always be around in some form otherwise M$ would be a true 100% monopoly.. So, popular thought was that Gates, or some such entity, would keep Apple afloat to keep the justice department at bay.

Well, now 2 things have happened:

1. We've seen that the justice department doesn't care that M$ has a monopoly (only the EU seems to), so M$ can so whatever they please.

2. Linux. Linux has overtaken Apple for OS markethare, and will probably soon do so on install base. So, it can be said that Linux is the new Apple of sorts. Accept, that Linux is widely accepted, cheap, stable, open, and actually worries M$, unlike Apple who no one, save us here on these boards, thinks is viable anymore.

With Linux, Apple isn't needed from the market's perspective, and Steve hasn't woken up to that yet. So, he'll charge double, not supply, and it's spiraling. Unless he's planning on spinning off the music section of Apple and letting the computer harware biz die, then he's got to do something.

 

[Some_Big_Spoon]

We'll find out in 12 days, and I'll bet you $20 that DHM is pretty darn close in his estimate.

What is this, The No Spin Zone with Bill O'Reilly? Who here really knows how many machines were sold this past quarter? Do you? Really? Have any idea at all? Or just a hunch? What is it?

What a bunch of armchair experts, sheesh! My bet -- 90% of the armchair analysts who could do it better than Apple are in their early 20's or less, and actually have no business experience at all. 🙄

 

[rdowns]

I'll add my few thousand dollars here. I think it's time I sold enough of my Apple stock to lock in my profits. Since I bought most of it in the 15-17 range, I think I'll sell 400 shares and keep 250. I think their 2Q results will be dismal.

I do expect Apple to grow when they finally get off their a$$es and bring their line into the 21st century. I'm just not willing to bet all the money they've made me.

 

[MrSugar]

Well look at it this way 😎 after this qtrs numbers it will be hard to go lower. 😱 How can you guys spin these new machines sold numbers? 1 out of 100? and you guys can spin this with a straight face? 😱

Is anyone else sick of these posts from DHM? Every time I look I just see you talking trash about apple, you never offer any valid points except flaming about how Apple is under powered and overpriced. I seriously wish you would leave this site or start making legitimate posts, I am so sick of reading the current trash. I know what I am saying is mean, but I don't care anymore, I am so sick of this. Even when you do make good points you put such a negative spin on it that it's just complaining, blah.

Edit: typo

 

[Coca-Cola]

I am willing to bet that apple is getting purchases from new sources. I think government contracts are way up. Scientific purchasing is going to be up. A very strange source of new purchases will be switchers. People who would normaly consider HP's or gateways. I see them picking up the consumer line numbers. Retail stores are going to have great numbers.
The bad news 🙁 is that I can see graphic studio purchases going down. Waiting for new G5's or getting Wintels(yikes!) After getting burned by those slow g4 Powermacs. Newspaper publisher purchases will be down as well. It is going to be a very unusual quarter.