Apple Lowers Revenue Guidance for Q1 2019 Citing 'Fewer iPhone Upgrades' Than Anticipated

[newyorksole]

What I have learned over the years is that the more you write the more you try really hard to find excuses. It’s like when u don’t want to go out with friends sending a 400 characters text on why you are not coming instead of being like „not in the mood“

That’s true, but it’s so tricky. If I REALLY wanted to go somewhere I give a long honest explanation as to what happened. And the person that invited you prob just doesn’t care since your reasoning is so lengthy.

But then if you have a short reason as to why you’re not going, they might think you don’t care and never wanted to go Lol.

Either way, I’ve learned it’s best to just say you don’t feel like it or aren’t in the mood. No one wants to read a laundry list of reasons/excuses.

And people are deff not interested in Apple’s excuses.

 

[itguy06]

So the CEOs of most companies should be fired? 2018 was rough on most companies in the stock market.

Most were not sent back to mid 2017 levels and on track to give up those gains if the market opens near what it's doing in post-market. And yes, many companies that under perform this bad send their CEO's packing.

 

[LovingTeddy]

Haha. Yeah, the most successful CEO in the history of the world, revenue of approximately $84 billion. He must be on his way out. Come on people. Get a grip. Tim's not going anywhere.

You can pretty much say the same thing about Steve Ballmer. During his tender at Microsoft, revenue went from 25B to 70B and with 75% gross profit margin. Judith by your standard, he would be great CEO, yet he is clearly not.

 

[itguy06]

It’s really not.

Denial isn't only a river in Egypt.

 

[macmyworld]

Because its true. It just isn't something that shows right away.

Time Cook and Company have spent the past seven years pulling all the value out of Apple. They've taken their customers for granted and it is finally at the point where it is beginning to show.

When you run off the smartphone cliff it happens a lot faster than people think it will. Nokia, Motorola, BlackBerry and HTC were all powerhouses at one point. Look where they all are now.

Apple was always in a precarious position. It was envitable that sooner or later we would hit peak smartphone. We may have finally hit that point.

Couldn’t agree with you more. A business can only maintain high margins for so long before they reach a tipping point. The market is officially saturated and phones are becoming commodities until the next big thing.

Cook sounded like he just read CEO for dummies by citing every piece of mumbo jumbo possible. The problem is that the products are too expensive to keep replacing so quickly and the value of new products is declining. Most products see prices decrease over time as they mature. Apple wants high margains for less product.

It is far from the end of the road for Apple they are still a monster. At some point the growth was going to stop since they live and die by the iPhone. Sorry Tim, it is not China, it is the price. Your own workers in China can’t afford your phone.

The entire Mac line feels stale and overpriced. Apple Watch is a great niche product and iPad is stagnant with very slow replacement cycles.

Unless the next big thing shows up, Apple will struggle meeting their historical numbers. Bet they wish they wouldn’t have overpaid for all those stock buybacks.

 

[aaronhead14]

This is not surprising. Apple has been employing anti-consumer tactics over the last few years, and customers are simply fed up with it.

We don't want products that force us to use dongles instead of having unified ports across all products lines. We also don't want overly-priced computers that are designed to be disposable; instead, we want a professional, user-upgradeable, tower-style Mac.

These are no-brainer concepts that Apple has been actively pushing against in recent years, and it's been a pain in the seat for customers. A word of advice: don't tell us what we want in our products. Listen to what we want in our products.

 

[blairh]

Good to see the fanboys like Gruber eat crow after entirely dismissing the obvious from analysts and Apple marketing the XR at $449*. The current iPhone lineup is a mess. We need lower prices and a smaller model with Face ID.

 

[KPandian1]

Tim gonna blame everything except for the high prices lol

Yep! He has already started by blaming China, after bending over backwards to accommodate the government's demands!

 

[trifid]

Yeah. The dude wasn't Jesus Christ, contrary to modern myth and lore. There's some right-place-right-time stuff that happens. That's not to take away from him—he was no doubt a product genius—but there are plenty of examples of stupid stuff and failures that happened under his tenure too.

But hey, go on with your hero worship. Seems like fun.

Nah, I agree there is plenty to criticize Jobs for, it's just the good far outweighs the bad, and in today's Apple that lack of vision is so egregious and so similar to what happened to Apple in the 90s that it's hard not to ache for that driving force that made Apple be cutting edge and lead the industry.

 

[citysnaps]

Apple's performance is inextricably linked to China's economy.

As China experiences an economic slowdown as it has for the last few months, Apple does as well. And upcoming trade tariffs will further punish.

 

[LovingTeddy]

My new cutoff is $1,499. For something I’m on dozens of times a day and will have for three years the cost per day is nominal.

I don’t buy this cost per day argument. You can justify almost all purchase with this just a dollar a day reasoning.

Even if cost per day reasoing is valid, iPhone still have top cost per day among all the smartphone. I can have OnePlus 6T for far lower cost per day. And it is not like Android alternative is much worse than iPhone these days.

People are just not comfortable with spending over 1000 dollars for a phone. There is no way for me to spending 1600 Canadian plus tax for a 64GB XS Max. This is not happening. Even XR in Canada cost 1029 plus tax. I am not even surprised with lower sales

 

[I7guy]

I don’t buy this cost per day argument. You can justify almost all purchase with this just a dollar a day reasoning.

Even if cost per day reasoing is valid, iPhone still have top cost per day among all the smartphone. I can have OnePlus 6T for far lower cost per day. And it is not like Android alternative is much worse than iPhone these days.

People are just not comfortable with spending over 1000 dollars for a phone. There is no way for me to spending 1600 Canadian plus tax for a 64GB XS Max. This is not happening. Even XR in Canada cost 1029 plus tax. I am not even surprised with lower sales

I understand everybody has their own notion of value vs price. Last year it was being said the iphone X was a dud. Turned out not to be the case.

I also understand the exchange rate to CAD makes the phones more expensive.

As far as android vs ios, to me the max was worth every penny.

 

[Baymowe335]

That's exactly what I have been saying to every single one of your comments defending Apple in the past 2 months.

I have said (back in October/November) that their strategy isn't working. In which you replied "LOL, who cares about their strategies, they are killing it."

I have also highlighted their weak guidance. In which you defended Apple by saying that "It is wrong to compare guidance against actual..."

You are welcome.

I’m being a stand up guy, even going as far as saying I was wrong, and you still come back with this response? Wow, lol. Don’t give yourself too much credit. They were killing it based on the facts and are in many ways, still are. I have acknowledged the facts have now changed, but it seems entirely based on iPhone. I believe they can fix it.

Remember, the game still isn’t over and while this was not great news, Apple is still a very strong company. This was primarily an iPhone story in China. The filing flat out says China was responsible for most of the iPhone disappointment. They posted the worst growth in 25 years.

Services, wearables, and the installed base were all reconfirmed as doing great. They NEED the iPhone to do better and I think we will see some strategy change to make it happen.

As I said, I’m disappointed.

 

[Michael Goff]

Most were not sent back to mid 2017 levels and on track to give up those gains if the market opens near what it's doing in post-market. And yes, many companies that under perform this bad send their CEO's packing.

Denial isn't only a river in Egypt.

Stock Market overall is down 6% from the end of 2017 to the end of 2018. What are you talking about?

Alphabet is actually not doing so well either.

 

[I7guy]

Couldn’t agree with you more. A business can only maintain high margins for so long before they reach a tipping point. The market is officially saturated and phones are becoming commodities until the next big thing...

As has been pointed out repeatedly by @john123 the margins have remained consistent since Jobs days. The components of today are more expensive, hence the higher prices.

 

[LovingTeddy]

All easy to say, but the iPhone is literally the best product of all time, by far. It’s a once in a generation type product. As you point out, the other segments growing at 20% are impressive, but everything is dwarfed by the great product of all time.

That is the unfortunate reality for Apple. They are somewhat a victim of their own success. It’s not easy to just come up with the next iPhone. They are undoubtedly trying to and have spent over $10B/year on R&D for quite some time. It’s just not that damn easy.

That is why they have CORRECTLY milked the iPhone as much as possible. They have to, they should, and it’s worked. It’s only now STARTING to crack, but it’s srill extremely powerful. Services have become a $40B+ business, but it takes time to build momentum.

Apple has innovated with wearables like the Watch, AirPods, and have innovated A LOT in mobile processing, which is going to give them a lead in the “next” big thing that could be AR devices like glasses or more features for iPhone.

Even the iPhone took 10 years to get to this point. It was originally deemed a “flop” and then just “niche.”

There is no doubt about iPhone changed how smart phone looks like and worked. It is once a generation product. However, iPhone is no longer the best of smartphone right now, Android competitors has been caught up with their offering. With ever increasing of iPhone price, Android phone never looked more attractive. People are start looking at iPhone alternatives and people are jumping ships.

This quarter suppose to be the biggest quarter with big holiday season sales. Yet Apple still dropping their guidance. This says something. Remember, Apple is pretty much iPhone centric company. All the services are pretty much meaningless when iPhones aren’t selling much. Apple should start charging this and making their services available to other platforms like how they did with Apple Musics.

 

[Naraxus]

You'd think a bean counter like Cook would have done his due dilligence on this...

 

[2GoldFish]

Steve brought us:

• Apple 2
• Macintosh
• iMac
• iPod
• iTunes
• iPhone
• iPad

Tim brought us:

• Beats
• Dongles
• Touchbars

So either Steve was an incredibly lucky guy or maybe, just maybe he had a knack for product. No doubt he was an incredible salesman.

Don't forget, Tim also brought us black Mac and black Mac mini!

Innovation at its finest...

 

[dogslobber]

Good grief, did anybody see Cook's performance on CNBC? That was truly terrible and you could tell from his body language as he tried to spew off the script where he keeps looking down to his left. It was possibly the most rattled I've ever seen Cook in that 2.5 min segment. All is not right with Apple and he says he's not seen December numbers. I think Cook and the board decided to get the numbers out now to dampen the plunge which would be worse when they disclose even more bad news on the con-call at the end of Jan. This is maybe Cook's final quarter at Apple.

 

[Act3]

What happened to the price of desktops, DVD players , vcr’s , etc as they matured ?

 

[kazmac]

Improve build quality (stop gimping with cheaper parts!) and lower prices, please.

 

[I7guy]

What happened to the price of desktops, DVD players , vcr’s , etc as they matured ?

DVDs are a great example of old tech that has benefited from mass production. OLED tvs however, are more expensive than their LCD counterparts. Cars don't seem to get any cheaper for various reasons. Not everything that has been around for a while, declines in price while the apparent value goes up.

 

[macjoshua]

Prices are a huge issue, but I actually think perception is just as much of a problem. I used to be one of the only Mac users that I knew, but almost overnight it seemed like everybody had them and they didn't seem so exclusive. Then quality control (seemingly) dropped off with issues like bendgate, crappy keyboards, etc. The cool factor wore off as well as the reputation of quality. There are still plenty of Apple fans out there, but the overall perception that most people I talk to these days is much less rosy than it used to be. With a somewhat negative perception, higher prices will be the nail in the coffin for Apple (or at least Tim Cook's tenure). I've sold a lot of people on Macs in the past, and I've owned way more Apple stuff than I'd like to admit, but for the last couple years I've found myself advising people, "Yeah, it's really not worth the money, you should get this instead..."

 

[itguy06]

Stock Market overall is down 6% from the end of 2017 to the end of 2018. What are you talking about?

Alphabet is actually not doing so well either.
View attachment 813777

They basically gave up their 2018 gains. AAPL is back to MID 2017 and even worse if you count post market.

 

[yAak]

Steve brought us:

• Apple 2
• Macintosh
• iMac
• iPod
• iTunes
• iPhone
• iPad

Tim brought us:

• Beats
• Dongles
• Touchbars

So either Steve was an incredibly lucky guy or maybe, just maybe he had a knack for product. No doubt he was an incredible salesman.

True but it's a pretty accurate indicator of corporate success.

Your list is missing a few things that Tim executed on:

• A larger freaking iPhone, long overdue, which Steve hated the idea of (2014)
• Apple Watch (2015)
• iPad Pro (2015)
• Apple Pencil (2015)
• HomePod (2018)
• Apple's insane growth in SOC development: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/11/apple-walks-ars-through-the-ipad-pros-a12x-system-on-a-chip/

(Yes, presumably plans for all these started before Steve passed in 2011.)