Apple 4th Quarter 2005 Conference Call

[tmornini]

HOLY CRAP! Dangit, I knew I should've sold it all.. Oh my gosh, that's ridiculously bad.. It'll take a little time for it to get back up to the level that it was at. 10.49% is very very bad..

Unless Apple releases something amazing tomorrow, I don't know what'll happen.

Typical ass-backward investment mentality.

Could you have shorted it? Sure.

But...if you believe in the company (and the results say you should!) then
the stock going down is a GOOD thing, as it let's you buy some more at
a lower price!

Buy on bad news, sell on good news, not the reverse.

Look at what happened: Apple had a great quarter, broke a bunch of records, increased their market share, BEAT THEIR OWN GUIDANCE, BLEW AWAY PROFIT ESTIMATES, and missing analyst earning estimates by less than 2%. Who cares?

Buy. Dollar cost average. In fact, buy Apple on every dip and hold it for several years.

 

[nagromme]

It seems especially silly to sell without waiting for the benefit of whatever tomorrow brings.

Anyway, AI has a detailed summary list from the conference call:
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1312

 

[TMay]

uncharted territory

I'm trying hard to think of a previous example (maybe Sony), but, Apple seems to be innovating its way into uncharted territory. We all know that the rate of ipod growth isn't sustainable, and so does Apple, but, speculate all we want, none of us has a clue where Apple will be after the Intel transition, let alone where they will be tomorrow.

What's a bit worrisome to me, is that the competition to this point has been absolutely pathetic, but that won't last forever. Further, the more Apple dominates the media, the more vociferous will the enemies become (i.e., Apple has a stranglehold on the online music market). This is a dangerous time for Apple in that they must not appear to be abusing their fairly gained position.

 

[Peace]

On the contrary..
Although Apple stock went down that presents for a great time to buy stock.
Tomorrows "announcements" will make stock go way up..

 

[Superdrive]

Apple conducted their Q4 2005 Financial Results Conference call at today. Apple had already announced earnings as well as Mac and iPod shipments this quarter.

MacCentral provides a running update of the conference call.

Hilights include:
- Intel Based Macs still expected by June 2006. Some "very cool" PowerPCs in the pipeline.

That must mean temperature wise. Powerbook G5!!!!! j/k

Glad to see the nano doing better than people originally expected. I'm still waiting for my intel book.

 

[bankshot]

Let's hope Apple can survive!

Yes, let's hope. Unfortunately, this turn of events seems to be the final nail in the coffin of a beleaguered company.

 

[bankshot]

Tomorrows "announcements" will make stock go way up..

Doubtful. Almost every major keynote or announcement by Apple in recent years, no matter how awesome the product was, no matter how intense the consumer demand was, was accompanied by a corresponding drop in stock price. I recall Steve Jobs even joked about it at a recent Macworld keynote. Wall Street is extremely fickle, and there's simply no rhyme or reason to it. At least, no rational rhyme or reason.

Mark my words. Wait until the dust settles after the announcement, then buy.

(I am not a financial advisor, nor do I play one on TV. I've never owned Apple stock, but kick myself daily for not buying when it was $14 before the split.)

 

[diamond3]

Hopefully someone comes out with a record of everything that was spoken during the conversation. It would be really interesting to go over. I want to go through the part on the intel switch. It seemed weird.

 

[technocoy]

dude (bankshot)... you might need sarcasm disclaimers in there.... i thought you might be serious for a moment...

 

[musichris777]

NO G5 POWERBOOKS PEOPLE...GET OVER IT OMG!!!!

Look I don't mean to be blunt but YOU'LL NEVER SEE A G5 POWERBOOK! Take a look at this picture: http://images.apple.com/powermac/images/indextop20050427.jpg Okay now you see the two things in that box that say G5? Yea, those would be the G5 processors-a whole lot bigger than a powerbook! IBM couldn't shrink that down to a laptop form-factor let alone keep it cool enough. Yeah they shrunk it a little bit with the iMac (picture http://images.apple.com/imac/images/designopenanim20040831.gif ) but look how they have to cool this thing: picture http://images.apple.com/imac/images/designcoolingb08312004.jpg It's just not practical or even logical to even fantisize about a G5 powerbook.....completely out of the question.

 

[oldMac]

Buyon rumor, sell on news

It's an old wall street adage and seems to hold up pretty well where Apple stock is concerned.

 

[GroundLoop]

dude (bankshot)... you might need sarcasm disclaimers in there.... i thought you might be serious for a moment...

There is no sarcasm there. That is the general rule...Buy on rumor, sell on the news. Bankshot is right on when you look at the historical data.

Hickman

 

[digitalbiker]

Look I don't mean to be blunt but YOU'LL NEVER SEE A G5 POWERBOOK! Take a look at this picture: http://images.apple.com/powermac/images/indextop20050427.jpg Okay now you see the two things in that box that say G5? Yea, those would be the G5 processors-a whole lot bigger than a powerbook! IBM couldn't shrink that down to a laptop form-factor let alone keep it cool enough. Yeah they shrunk it a little bit with the iMac (picture http://images.apple.com/imac/images/designopenanim20040831.gif ) but look how they have to cool this thing: picture http://images.apple.com/imac/images/designcoolingb08312004.jpg It's just not practical or even logical to even fantisize about a G5 powerbook.....completely out of the question.

Do you live under a rock? IBM has already announced the portable low power G5. Of course the G5 PB was impossible with the desktop G5 chip but now there is a portable chip available.

Whether or not Apple uses it is up to them. But there are already some rumors of G5 linux laptops coming soon from other vendors.

 

[Harry322]

Hello - This is my first post here!

Not sure if this was mentioned or even worth mentioning, but on the conference call, someone asked about the Nanos and how they are prone to scratches. I found the response interesting:

(paraphrased): "The nanos are made from the same material as the 4th Generation iPod was."

Is the past tense mentioning of the 4G iPod anything or am i reading too deeply into it?

(by the way - I am hoping to buy my first powerbook tomorrow! )

 

[riversky]

Interesting....

I read that profits exceeded all expectations but that revenue was a little less than expected. This to me says that A LOT of those desktops are the lower margin Mini's or iMacs and that the PowerMac lines sales really suck hard. They would have greater revenue if that was the case. At the local Apple store the sales guy told me that the only thing that sells is the highest end model and that those sales are slow.

 

[macam]

Look I don't mean to be blunt but YOU'LL NEVER SEE A G5 POWERBOOK! Take a look at this picture: http://images.apple.com/powermac/images/indextop20050427.jpg Okay now you see the two things in that box that say G5? Yea, those would be the G5 processors-a whole lot bigger than a powerbook! IBM couldn't shrink that down to a laptop form-factor let alone keep it cool enough. Yeah they shrunk it a little bit with the iMac (picture http://images.apple.com/imac/images/designopenanim20040831.gif ) but look how they have to cool this thing: picture http://images.apple.com/imac/images/designcoolingb08312004.jpg It's just not practical or even logical to even fantisize about a G5 powerbook.....completely out of the question.

Dude, I don't mean to be harsh... but isn't this a rumour site... and therefore a forum where we can put down our reactions to rumours!? Therefore if people want to believe that there could be a small possibility of a Powerbook G5 then let them... I for one am one of those... I have even dreamt about it a couple of times! I just think that it would be an awesome piece of kit! And I would love to own one and would buy one in a flash if they were to come out! And also didn't IBM or Freescale (Whoever I don't know it's late, I'm tired!) release a low power G5 chip capable of delivering upto 1.8Mhz? If so a low power chip of this ilk would be able to sit in a much smaller enclosure and therefore quite a feasible thing for Apple to put it into their Powerbook range considering they have been putting almost 2 years plus into R&D into the powerbook G5. (Think about it before you flame me - they so have!). Also - I think a lot of us realise that there isn't a lot of hope of getting this type of machine due to the fact that we're switching *twitch* over to intel, and it's a little tongue in cheek... but hey... there are dreamers and there are people who think different.

But on a lighter note....







POWERBOOK G5s TOMORROW! BRING IT ON APPLE!

macam

 

[ajwitte]

Look I don't mean to be blunt but YOU'LL NEVER SEE A G5 POWERBOOK! Take a look at this picture: http://images.apple.com/powermac/images/indextop20050427.jpg Okay now you see the two things in that box that say G5? Yea, those would be the G5 processors-a whole lot bigger than a powerbook! IBM couldn't shrink that down to a laptop form-factor let alone keep it cool enough. Yeah they shrunk it a little bit with the iMac (picture http://images.apple.com/imac/images/designopenanim20040831.gif ) but look how they have to cool this thing: picture http://images.apple.com/imac/images/designcoolingb08312004.jpg It's just not practical or even logical to even fantisize about a G5 powerbook.....completely out of the question.

Those are not the processors, they're the heat sinks. (Plus a fancy aluminum "G5" placard attached to the visible side.) Obviously there are thermal issues with a G5 laptop, but the physical size of the processor is NOT a problem.

A G5 chip looks like this:

 

[madmaxmedia]

Regarding the stock dropping on good news, the general consensus seems to be that the stock dropped due to slightly disappointing iPod unit sales.

I think people are trying to guess the top of the iPod potential market. I think there is much headroom to go.

But regardless, this upcoming holiday quarter is big. With a new nano and a 5G iPod, Apple will be expecting to sell well over 10 million units (based on typical patterns for 3rd to 4th calendar quarter.)

Also, keep in mind that the stock dropping has nothing to do with people perceiving that the company is doing poorly. The stock moves largely on what people believe the stock will do in the future, which is somewhat different than saying the stock moves largely on how people believe the company will do in the future.

 

[rendezvouscp]

Hello - This is my first post here!

Not sure if this was mentioned or even worth mentioning, but on the conference call, someone asked about the Nanos and how they are prone to scratches. I found the response interesting:

(paraphrased): "The nanos are made from the same material as the 4th Generation iPod was."

Is the past tense mentioning of the 4G iPod anything or am i reading too deeply into it?

(by the way - I am hoping to buy my first powerbook tomorrow! )

I think that the "was" was on purpose. While some mistakes can just be chalked up to poor English, I do not believe that the response would be phrased so that the production of the 4G iPod was in the past tense. However, I unless they went aluminum (totally throwing the top of the line away from the other two lines) I think that the 5G iPod would be made of the same material.
-Chase

 

[danielsan26]

Event coverage?

So what is the word on the coverage for this event? Is MR going to use that AJAX thing they tried for keynote again? Is there an official IRC? Anyone know of somone on the inside? Right now I'm just expecting MR to be "too busy at the moment" pretty much from 9AM-3PMET.

 

[egor]

Okay now you see the two things in that box that say G5? Yea, those would be the G5 processors-a whole lot bigger than a powerbook!

You realise those two big blocks are in fact the heatsinks/cooling equipment and no processor looks like that, right?

Regarding the earnings.. what a disappointment, I've got nothing in apple, but this was meant to be the start of a couple of weeks of many major tech stocks releasing their earnings reports.. allowing the blue chips to bounce back.. LLTC for example (which actually manufactures some components found in apple products, iPods in particular). Well, we'll see, maybe AAPL will bounce back tommorow? Hopefully these were just people with short positions cashing in on uncertainty.

What a bizarre time to call the conference though.. after trading. Hopefully come tommorow they'll all start off as well as today but won't slump.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I'm a long Apple stockholder and I'm not worried in the least. The drop is typical for Apple after earnings announcements, no matter how good the news. Just some profit taking. Expect it to open lower tomorrow and begin its rise on the new announcements. We;ll be back to yesterday's levels by month's end.

I'll take that as a promise.

 

[balamw]

There is no sarcasm there.

I think technocoy was referring to the "final nail in the coffin of a beleaguered company" comment.

I mean we all know Apple is dying, and has been since 1981.

B

 

[IJ Reilly]

What a bizarre time to call the conference though.. after trading. Hopefully come tommorow they'll all start off as well as today but won't slump.

These conference calls are always held after the close of regular trading.

 

[Frobozz]

Who votes NEGATIVE on this story? Really? My god the best quarter in Apple history and ~10 people are still upset about that? Sheesh.

Anyway, what's more telling ... Apple is predicting 1.1 billion MORE in revenue for next quarter than this quarter. Maybe only 5 people will be upset with those numbers.

I was one of the people who already had an iPod (mini) but bought a Nano the nano-second that they came out.