mac512pbg4 said:
This just isn't true. Apple has huge margins on their hardware. Plus, R&D going into software is pretty extensive, not to mention that they give their software away with new Macs.
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Apple Posts $295 Million Profit
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This just isn't true. Apple has huge margins on their hardware. Plus, R&D going into software is pretty extensive, not to mention that they give their software away with new Macs.
I sold about 10 grand of Apple stock when they were 22 bux.... 
The only reason i'm not jumping off a bridge right as i speak is because my pops made me sell them. He thought I should diversify my portfolio
Even worse, I waited to long to order a mac mini, now I have to wait 3-4 weeks
The only reason i'm not jumping off a bridge right as i speak is because my pops made me sell them. He thought I should diversify my portfolio
Even worse, I waited to long to order a mac mini, now I have to wait 3-4 weeks
jcook793 said:
Taxes decrease considerably if he waits until he's held for 2 years. So if he thinks the stock will stay this high or higher for a year, then ...
bbarnhart said:
Well, the funny thing is, the digital player market is growing fast, and still has a significant amount of room to grow. I think in terms of raw sales we'll see a MASSIVE uptick the next couple of quarters, with the iPod cannibalizing its competitor's market share, but also with the general digital music player market continuing its ascent.
Compare the number of digital music players to other portable music players and it is ob vious that there is a LOT of market expansion room. Compare the number of players sold this year versus last year and it is obvious that the market *is* expanding to fill that void.
No, no market can expand forever. I'd give the iPod market (assuming Apple can remain ahead of the pack) at most five more years of expansion before relative stagnation (replacement buying instead of new buying). However, that gives Apple five years to come up with the next new big thing, and of course five years of astronomical profit potential.
In terms of markets, the digital player market is still a baby. It has a lot of room to grow. Other companies would kill for the potential there. Witness Creative, spending massive amounts of money just to get a toehold in the market.
Object-X said:This is certainly a good time for Apple enthusiasts. Let's hope this is just the snowball at the top of the hill. It is hard for me to concieve how anyone would want to use a PC after working with a Mac. Imagine if all these new "switchers" become as fanatical as us!
Don't want to scare you (much) but the switchers that I know have become MORE fanatical than any long-time Mac users that I know. I think it has something to do with realizing that the grass really is greener over on this side. I think it's a shock, causes very strong favorable reactions.
Maybe it's time to start a new religion?
After the ""The mother of all challenges"" regarding G5 PB my patience has dramatically reduced.
I hope hoping for June in the Developer Conference.. but now, I really don't think PB G5 will happen then.
Hoping for a dual G4 core later in the year.
I hope hoping for June in the Developer Conference.. but now, I really don't think PB G5 will happen then.
Hoping for a dual G4 core later in the year.
SWC said:
On CNBC they said the high profits were in part to the huge ipod sales... 8 million on the year... 4.5 million in the holiday season.. and an increase in the powerbook sales.. they may have misspoke and meant iBook tho. They also mentioned the flash based ipod... and how its timing was super in order to continue these high growths. I was disappointed they didn't mention the mac mini tho.
Converted2Truth said:
I'm a "pure blood."
My mom worked for apple back before she was married in the days of the Lisa! All I can say is, YEY FOR APPLE. I learned to type on a centris 610.
Avicdar said:
We already have gifted developers writing software for the Mac. I have been a Mac user for 16 years and I recently started a job where I have to use a Windows machine all day. The software that is written for Windows is predominantly crap both in functionality and interface. Let me list just a few of the beautifully designed apps that I miss each and every day that aren't written by Apple:
- GraphicConverter
- BBEdit
- OmniGraffle
- Watson (sorry to see this go)
- DragThing
- Fire
- Delicious Library
- Audio Hijack
- OmniOutliner
- Portraits & Prints
- TeXShop
And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Frank
mac512pbg4 said:
What modest predictions for the next quarter???
Apple said:
Considering the fact that the $3.5 billion was for the Christmas quarter I'm not exactly sure why $2.9 billion sounds modest for this quarter..... especially since the same quarter last year only saw $1.9 billion in sales.
Frank
Toppa G's said:
Um, no. Not compared to the real world. We're talking 25-28% margins for Apple. In the real world of manufacturing, 20% margins represent rock bottom margins for SURVIVAL.
Thinking those type of margins are huge is a sign that the PC market is really kinda crazy--there's no magic that suddenly allows PC makers to make it on margins much lower than 15-20%.
gwangung said:
The extremely-low margins on the PC side are the reasons for the prediction a couple of months ago that 3 of the top 10 pc manufacturers will leave the market in the next year. With IBM selling its pc division the predicition is already coming true, and there is no reason to think that at least two more won't depart this year. (BTW Apple was predicted to remain strong)
The good news in this prediction is that with some of the major players leaving the market and others merging, there will be less competition amongst the pc makers and less of a cut throat marketplace. Thus making $400 Dells and Gateways with minimal (or non-existent) profit margins a less attractive business model. Once the market matures the remaining players will level out profit margins.
Which, without the artificially low prices of PCs, will make Apple appear more competitive in the market, and not scare away people looking for (hopefully discontinued) disposable $400 PCs with sticker shock.
Interesting, how the timing of MWSF and the quarterly results is really just a form of hedging of the bets. If one goes wrong, the other is hopefully something to tout, and keep the stock up there.
Also, 25% increased in mac sales.... does anybody know how this stacks up to the industry as a whole right now? (IE- is the this market share or riding the wave, primarily?) Likewise, to interpret, was that 25% a dollars number or units sold? And anybody remember if a year ago was a particularly good or bad quarter, in terms of the product cycle, other not so long term trends?
All in all, looks good, but the question will be what will wall street thing, particularly given that apple went down with mac world, rather than up.
Good god, the mac mini is a risk. Every other mac, success is selling enough to make it profitable. But the mini isn't about that, it's saying, here we are, with as much hype, cash, momentum, and an edge over windows as we're ever going to be, now is the time to gamble, and try and take on windows. Cheap stuff and iworks-there is no greater symbol of taking on windows than that, for apple. If they fail, they fail big, stock plummets, they sink huge dough into it too, to try and get what can be got from the situation. If it works, well, it works, and 65 bucks is justified, so why not 100?
The good news is, the timing is perfect. Windows has to be near rock bottom, as far as viruses etc. go-they're going to recover soon, or at least be able to convince people that longhorn will fix it all. But longhorn is so far away, and windows is so trashed. Mac OS is at the top of it's game, and there isn't much more it can do-it's got the great features under it's belt, and one promised to come, so nobody will think, hmm, there's not much left to do but bloat it all to hell. If panther's searching wasn't on the horizon, it wouldn't look like apple had future growth, but if it was any earlier with the OS, then there wouldn't be exposé, ilife in such great glory, all the rest. Also, apple is at it's maximum of hype, both with the imac, and apple as a brand, and more so with the ipod. But that is great, because both the hype is good, and apple has been bid up as the ipod company, not the mac company. So failure to move the mac part isn't gonna kill them, but success could be huge. And, of course, 10 million ipods out there, and still nothing comparable, is as good of a "hey, might try a mac" kinda crowd as they're going to get, until of course the ipod isn't actually that much better than the competition.
But, I've already read reviews calling the mac mini overpriced- compared to gateways with monitor and mice included, same price.
Naturally, though, nothing is that enticing about the gateway, to a windows user, while a computer they can consider totally secure and stable, and with awesome software, might have quite a draw.
Also, 25% increased in mac sales.... does anybody know how this stacks up to the industry as a whole right now? (IE- is the this market share or riding the wave, primarily?) Likewise, to interpret, was that 25% a dollars number or units sold? And anybody remember if a year ago was a particularly good or bad quarter, in terms of the product cycle, other not so long term trends?
All in all, looks good, but the question will be what will wall street thing, particularly given that apple went down with mac world, rather than up.
Good god, the mac mini is a risk. Every other mac, success is selling enough to make it profitable. But the mini isn't about that, it's saying, here we are, with as much hype, cash, momentum, and an edge over windows as we're ever going to be, now is the time to gamble, and try and take on windows. Cheap stuff and iworks-there is no greater symbol of taking on windows than that, for apple. If they fail, they fail big, stock plummets, they sink huge dough into it too, to try and get what can be got from the situation. If it works, well, it works, and 65 bucks is justified, so why not 100?
The good news is, the timing is perfect. Windows has to be near rock bottom, as far as viruses etc. go-they're going to recover soon, or at least be able to convince people that longhorn will fix it all. But longhorn is so far away, and windows is so trashed. Mac OS is at the top of it's game, and there isn't much more it can do-it's got the great features under it's belt, and one promised to come, so nobody will think, hmm, there's not much left to do but bloat it all to hell. If panther's searching wasn't on the horizon, it wouldn't look like apple had future growth, but if it was any earlier with the OS, then there wouldn't be exposé, ilife in such great glory, all the rest. Also, apple is at it's maximum of hype, both with the imac, and apple as a brand, and more so with the ipod. But that is great, because both the hype is good, and apple has been bid up as the ipod company, not the mac company. So failure to move the mac part isn't gonna kill them, but success could be huge. And, of course, 10 million ipods out there, and still nothing comparable, is as good of a "hey, might try a mac" kinda crowd as they're going to get, until of course the ipod isn't actually that much better than the competition.
But, I've already read reviews calling the mac mini overpriced- compared to gateways with monitor and mice included, same price.
Naturally, though, nothing is that enticing about the gateway, to a windows user, while a computer they can consider totally secure and stable, and with awesome software, might have quite a draw.
From Forbes Magzine
But profit margins on the mini and shuffle are lower than the company's 27 percent gross margins. Although Apple executives wouldn't provide many details, analysts speculate that shuffle margin is about 20 percent, and the mini is as low as 18 percent.
But profit margins on the mini and shuffle are lower than the company's 27 percent gross margins. Although Apple executives wouldn't provide many details, analysts speculate that shuffle margin is about 20 percent, and the mini is as low as 18 percent.
frankly said:
Particularly because, with the new dominance of the ipod, there should be a lot more fluctation with the christmas quarter than previously for apple. After all, how many people will buy a ipod for a gift at 300 bucks, versus a powermac for 3 grand? Hopefully the rate of growth for the ipod is great enough that it sells about the same number without the christmas boost as it did with.
swissmann said:
Good.
They deserve it for not getting on the PowerBook issue before it became one in the first place. Hope PB sales tank further until they can actually come out with something that isnt craptastic.
With that out the way.
Heres hoping for some major Mac Mini sales the first half of the year. Wouldnt it be cool of Jobs could announce 1.5 million Mac Minis sold by WWDC. Yah, yah its a pipe dream but I can dream cant I?
Converted2Truth said:
I think I can explain exactly why they aren't advertizing the mini as such, and aren't going to.
Stock price. If they advertize it as a PC killer, a major source of switchers, then they must either gain serious market share, or deal with major loss of face and stock price. If they advertize it more subtly (and yeah, they can do a good ammount of advertizing, if they wish, just not if it's about windows), then they either gain serious market share, just the same, or simply loose some R&D and marketing costs, and make another cube-sure, a weight on the company, but nothing too problematic.
SiliconAddict said:
Sure ya can. Just wondering what's in your pipe to illicit dreams like that.
Sushij said:
eh, I don't want apple to dominate. The reason the mac is so much better isn't because apple's all cool like that, it's because they have to be to stay around. Windows sucks so much because they can. that's what it means to be a monopoly. So, I wouldn't want apple with more than 50%, because it would mean less competition and crappier computers for everybody. For that matter, 50% would be way, way too much weight to swing in one hardware manufacture. If apple adopted a crappy standard, but there was a better one out there, all sorts of other makers of parts, software and full systems would be forced into it, because you just can't ignore the market share from a profit standpoint, and you don't want to anger somebody with half the money in the buisness.
So, my dream would be maybe 45% market share, as an OS, but apple would start to liscense when they hit 25-30% market share, so as hardware it was only about 1/4.
But, you know, I'd love 10 or 15%, too. That would be awesome. And more profitable, because the cost of devoloping all the software doesn't increase a penny, but it sure spreads the burden out, as MS knows.