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Today I expect AAPL to announce that they are paying off the entire $100B+ of Debt they accumulated under Tim Cook.

That's NOT what most shareholders will want to hear, but it is the smart move for the company !

The Stock will tank upon that announcement (to ~$138), as most are hoping for a BIG dividend payout.
We'll see. I bought a bit more at $161 two days ago. Thinking positive. And if it does crash to $138, I'll get to buy even more shares with my dividends next week. I personally think they'll crank up dividends to $0.72/share (~15% increase).
 
Apple got some serious problems. Supply chain leaks and supply chain target misses. Lacking innovation and failed product range strategy. This is all due to the fact, that Tim Cook doesn't primarily overlook the supply chain as the did in the Jobs era and that Tim Cook is at helm and makes wrong strategic decisions:

1. Only one huge iPhone X instead of also offering a small version, hence the huge entry price

2. Failed Siri development and a hopelessly overpriced product, that loses to Amazons echo

3. Fighting windmills with obsessive development of Apple Maps / street view, that loses to Google maps

4. Modular Mac Pro fail, abandonment of Mac mini, refusal to do something useful with the trash can mac design.

5. Total destruction of former peripherals development department: No displays, no wifi-mesh, no thunderbolt 3 stuff

6. Apple TV, was around before Stream-Netflix and Prime Video ... not even 3rd most important platform right now

7. only 12, 13 and 15 inch notebooks, this is Apple just being LAZY

8. way to slow update cycles, i don't expect a show all the time but specs upgrades every f. year on every f. product

9. Apple Stores - now home of boredom. Not even every product on display, forget events and software demonstrations/courses

10. Still sticking on spinning hard drives. Seriously? You call Yourself the leading tech company? Embarrassing


And this is just what comes to my mind in 2 minutes.

It would be best, if Tim would return to his former job as CFO and monitor the supply chain. He was great at that. As CEO, many could do better, I would suggest Will Ferrell or Jonah Hill...
 
And, read my post. Don’t pull out one sentence and turn my post into something to take offense to.

I guess my point wasn’t clear. You can’t take a normally expected decline in ASP that will be reported today as evidence of disappointing X sales. Sure, last quarter it was $796 as the article states. But when it comes in at $725-ish, that isn’t proof of crappy X sales. ASP always drops off in Q2 over Q1, it happens every year—as do units sold. Which is why Apple expects (guided) revenue to be down 30% from last quarter.

I did read your post. My above comment still stands.
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There has not always been an iPhone X.

iPhone 6, 6s, 7, those were all iterations of basically the same product. So a drop in Q2 revenue is expected.

The iPhone X design is supposed to drive the market for the next decade. The effort and expectations on iPhone X were very high.

That would not be expected. For the last 15+ years there has always been a Q1 to Q2 decline.
 
Wish List for coming year:
1) iPhone SE2 with headphone jack and home button (same as SE but with better specs)
2) Mac Mini redesign to allow more user replaceable guts (keeps headphone jack and a few legacy ports)
3) Mac Pro redesign and jacked specs (keeps headphone jack and a few legacy ports)
4) FIX SIRI!!!
 
It is it the best use of $150 billion in cash?

Best use for whom?

for investors and the "public". yes, a big divident payout of stagnating cash is the best thing for the economy as it will inject a large amount of cash back into the economy.

for Apple itself? no. the more cash they can hoard for whatever reasons they're hoarding is in their own best interest.
 
You should buy some of the company. They are going to give many billions back today when they update their capital return program.
[doublepost=1525185543][/doublepost]
Don't read headlines to form your opinion. The TSMC results were not nearly as bad in general and for Apple as reported.

It's very difficult to use reports of other companies to infer anything about Apple. Proven time and time again.

You don't need to read headlines to know $1000 is too expensive for a marginal upgrade. The upgrades to the X vs the 8+ aren't worth the $. That is from a former X owner.
 
That would not be expected. For the last 15+ years there has always been a Q1 to Q2 decline.

It's about how steep that decline is.

  • Q1'2015 to Q2'2015 = $74.6 billion to $58 billion (-22%)
  • Q1'2018 to Q2'2018 = $88.3 billion to $60 billion* (-32%)
The expectation was iPhone X would be like no other iPhone. It would remain attractive to consumers for a longer period of time.

Instead, we're now expected to see revenues from Apple basically revert back to 2015 levels. Short term, Apple is raking in profits. Long term, there's a big question mark.
 
I did read your post. My above comment still stands
It seems you didn’t read my post. My post was about ASP, whereas your comment is somehow defensive about Apple’s guidance.

No idea why you felt the need to defend Apple’s guidance number, but apparently you did.

Informed analysis is difficult to come by around here. If you have comments relevant to my post about ASP, they would be welcome.
 
No idea why you felt the need to defend Apple’s guidance number, but apparently you did

I'm not defending anything. Calm down. The numbers and the Q1 to Q2 declines are what they are, as they have been for many years.
[doublepost=1525194936][/doublepost]
It's about how steep that decline is.

  • Q1'2015 to Q2'2015 = $74.6 billion to $58 billion (-22%)
  • Q1'2018 to Q2'2018 = $88.3 billion to $60 billion* (-32%)
The expectation was iPhone X would be like no other iPhone. It would remain attractive to consumers for a longer period of time.

Instead, we're now expected to see revenues from Apple basically revert back to 2015 levels. Short term, Apple is raking in profits. Long term, there's a big question mark.

Whose expectations were those? I think there was an abundance of caution. The X was also, and is, competing with iPhone 8 sales and the public's initial reluctance about FaceID being a suitable and robust phone unlocking/security technology.
 
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But is it the best use of $150 billion in cash?

A one-time extra dividend of few bucks a share would not cost $150B. More like $20B. But to your question, the best use of capital is always going to be reinvestment in expanding the company's business. But Apple has never been able to reinvest their profits at the rate they earn them, which is why the cash trove grew so large in the first place.
 
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Whose expectation were those? I think there was an abundance of caution. The X was also, and is, competing with iPhone 8 sales and the public's initial reluctance about FaceID being a suitable phone unlocking/security technology.

iPhone X under-performed based on everyone's expectations.

From Samsung, SK Hynix, to TSMC's own CEO who lowered their revenue guidance due to soft demand for a "very high end smartphone." Those suppliers were not idiots.

Apple already increased the price tag on iPhone 8 by $50 last year.

The explanations you offered should be up to Tim Cook to explain. But the end result is the same. We're expecting a steep decline in revenues for a once in a decade iPhone refresh.
 
But is it the best use of $150 billion in cash?

It might be. Apple hasn't been short of cash for many years now. Presumably they buy what they want to buy because they like the price and they see an opportunity. Their investment decisions are not based on where in the world they were keeping the cash prior to this repatriation. And they've never bought another company for cash at anywhere near $150B.

But now that the cash has to come back to the U.S. they can actually do a big dividend without first taking a huge U.S. tax hit. They couldn't do that before.

I'm hoping for a big dividend. But not expecting it at all. The conservative play will to leave the cash on the books "just in case". You can never defeat every "what if" scenario. So I suspect most of the cash will just continue to accumulate. While I trust Apple's management, I'd say it is equally likely in the long run that they will waste the cash than that a really good "what if" opportunity will arise where having the cash makes a difference.
 
I'm not defending anything. Calm down. The numbers and the Q1 to Q2 declines are what they are, as they have been for many years.
Calm down, I never claimed Q1 to Q2 declines weren’t normal. As I said: Apple obviously expected this. Which is why they literally guided a 30% decline in revenue for Q2 over Q1.

Q1 to Q2 declines in ASP are also normal. What’s your forecast? The article presents the Q1 figure of $796 without the historical context that we can expect the typical Q1 to Q2 drop off.
 
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Apple got some serious problems. Supply chain leaks and supply chain target misses. Lacking innovation and failed product range strategy. This is all due to the fact, that Tim Cook doesn't primarily overlook the supply chain as the did in the Jobs era and that Tim Cook is at helm and makes wrong strategic decisions:

1. Only one huge iPhone X instead of also offering a small version, hence the huge entry price

2. Failed Siri development and a hopelessly overpriced product, that loses to Amazons echo

3. Fighting windmills with obsessive development of Apple Maps / street view, that loses to Google maps

4. Modular Mac Pro fail, abandonment of Mac mini, refusal to do something useful with the trash can mac design.

5. Total destruction of former peripherals development department: No displays, no wifi-mesh, no thunderbolt 3 stuff

6. Apple TV, was around before Stream-Netflix and Prime Video ... not even 3rd most important platform right now

7. only 12, 13 and 15 inch notebooks, this is Apple just being LAZY

8. way to slow update cycles, i don't expect a show all the time but specs upgrades every f. year on every f. product

9. Apple Stores - now home of boredom. Not even every product on display, forget events and software demonstrations/courses

10. Still sticking on spinning hard drives. Seriously? You call Yourself the leading tech company? Embarrassing


And this is just what comes to my mind in 2 minutes.

It would be best, if Tim would return to his former job as CFO and monitor the supply chain. He was great at that. As CEO, many could do better, I would suggest Will Ferrell or Jonah Hill...

All I hear is blah blah blah blah blah.

Yeah, "serious" problem, record profits and 1.3B install base with a growing profitability in services... Sounds "bad".

Maybe they should lose money on most things or be one trick poneys like Google... Or even launch rockets... with cars.. wouldn't that be *cool* /s
 
A one-time extra dividend of few bucks a share would not cost $150B. More like $20B. But to your question, the best use of capital is always going to be reinvestment in expanding the company's business. But Apple has never been able to reinvest their profits at the rate they earn them, which is why the cash trove grew so large in the first place.
My mistake, I slipped a decimal, it would be about $15 billion. But I think institutional investors would rather see a buyback than a taxable, one-time dividend.

It does make you wonder what they’ll do with all that cash; R&D spending is already very high. Good acquisition candidate are few and far between.
 
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iPhone X under-performed based on everyone's expectations.

From Samsung, SK Hynix, to TSMC's own CEO who lowered their revenue guidance due to soft demand for a "very high end smartphone." Those suppliers were not idiots.

Apple already increased the price tag on iPhone 8 by $50 last year.

The explanations you offered should be up to Tim Cook to explain. But the end result is the same. We're expecting a steep decline in revenues for a once in a decade iPhone refresh.

We'll see huh bud. You know who buys all those products, well Samsung and all the other phone makers.
 
I’ve never seen another company that generates so much noise around earnings. Every quarter Wall Street is in a panic about Apple. And it’s always that the next quarter is going to be bad. So last earnings call Wall Street was panicked about the March quarter. Now they’re panicked about June. And two months from now they’ll be panicked about September. What other company (tech or not) continuously has Wall Street panicked the way Apple does. I can’t think of one.

True. But the articles are read and so they will continue to be written. That is how media works. And Apple is a huge company. Nearly trillion dollar market cap. So it is important in that regards. And since most of the revenue comes from iPhone, in some ways it is fair to say that Apple's value is more precarious than many large companies.
 
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I hope the X gets priced down because $1000 USD is too much for a marginal upgraded smartphone. TSMC already reported they have excess iPhone X parts because Apple stopped ordering them.

Check again what TSMC really reported vs what you have been told by analysts who didn't really understand or listen to the TSMC report. TSMC is doing just fine. Propagandists just twisted their words to make it seem like there was some big trouble there, but it simply is not true. TSMC performed according to their own guidance numbers very well.

Too often, propaganda like this is rubber stamped as the truth - but what is the real origin of the story that TSMC gave bad news about Apple - because they really did not.
 
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