Apple posts $63 Million Profit

[rtdunham]

market share decline not insignificant

That drop from 3.5 to 3.2 is an 8 or 9 percent decline. It warrants worry. As a happy mac user, it's easy to be excited by the OS, the other apps, PBs, the G5s, iMacs, etc. But one has to wonder whether the company will be an american sony, a consumer electronics company, five years from now, or whether it will be able to sustain itself as a computer maker. If, with the present product line, market share continues to decline, isn't it reasonable to wonder?

terry

 

[DGFan]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe
Are you sure? I thought I saw numbers from a few months that had Apples marketshare up slightly.

I'm wondering what kind of numbers people will be happy with? I don't think anyone should expect Apple's marketshare to jump from around 3 or 4 percent up to 10 or 12 percent overnight but that feels like what some people expect. The iPod wasn't an instant success, FCP wasn't an instant success, now that the G5's are out why do people expect Apple's PowerMac sales to suddenly skyrocket and launch them into a marketshare % that they haven't seen for years?


Lethal

According to this article at maccentral Apple's marketshare is down to 3.2%

In a year where PC shipments grew, Apple's went down.

 

[DGFan]

Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
Apple is loosing marketshare, the article stated it went from 3.5% last year to 3.2% this year. Apple continues to screw up. They need to fire whoever is the CFO and start running the corporation like a business instead of a niche market player catering to those few professionals and forgetting its about the consumer. its like they are clueless on how to expand the computer business. its so obvious to me. perhaps Steve should call me.

I would disagree to one extent. I think they should come out with a new iMac based on the G5. The G4 just isn't cut out for the desktop - even the low end. If they had come out with a new iMac 6 months ago based on the G4 they would now be in a position where they had to do another complete redesign. So, if a G5 iMac truly is in the works I can understand the "just hang on for a bit" strategy they seem to have taken with the current consumer line.

I am really hoping that the rumors from a highly unreliable site turn out to be true and that next week a real consumer desktop is released.

 

[k2k koos]

Profits are good!

I am not a financial expert (otherwise i probably would have no debts left...) but I think this profit is a good start of the year, and reminds me of imac introduction days.

Any profit, as small as it may be is good, as the money can be put into research and innovation, and have Apple come up with even more cutting edge products.

So what, the market share is not exactly groing, it'll come in time, I'm sure the iTMS and iLife products are a few good reasons why others should at least be curious to check out Apple's other offerings, and perhaps come potential buyers or switchers....

 

[splashman]

Careful with the generalizations

Originally posted by rog
Well about 50% of macs that can run OSX can't run it well. I'd say any G4 without an L3 or 512k L2 doesn't run it well. Nor does any G4 under 800 MHz. The 900 MHz G3 is barely adequate. All 1st gen iMac, iBooks, beige G3s and BW G3s that haven't been upgraded all run OSX horribly slowly.

Sorry, bub, you don't know what you're talking about. Plenty of other posters have claimed their slow G4s run OSX just fine. And I've got a 600mhz 2G iBook running Panther -- it's plenty fast for day-to-day usage. Sure, it's slower than my dualie, but your blanket statement just doesn't hold water.

 

[splashman]

Apple: go for the low end!

Originally posted by DGFan
I can't believe how many people HERE are missing the big picture and would rather argue about whether it's good to upgrade from OS9 to OS X.

Apple needs to come out with some products to capture the low end. It will help them regain marketshare which will give them *real* momentum.

That's the big picture.

Good points. Although I now use X, I am one of those who still defends OS9 as eminently usable. Apple has not yet made a compelling case for the other 60% to upgrade -- this should be obvious from the fact that they haven't upgraded. I'm guessing that most of the 60% are in the low end of the market (eMac and iMac). So I agree with you -- Apple needs to bring out a irresistible product on the low end. Think about the $ to be made if a significant number of the 60% were to upgrade in the next six months.

 

[rdowns]

Originally posted by rog
Well about 50% of macs that can run OSX can't run it well. I'd say any G4 without an L3 or 512k L2 doesn't run it well. Nor does any G4 under 800 MHz. The 900 MHz G3 is barely adequate. All 1st gen iMac, iBooks, beige G3s and BW G3s that haven't been upgraded all run OSX horribly slowly.

I'd disagree here. OS X runs very well on my iMac/600 MHz and iBook G3/900 Mhz. With 512 MB and 640 MB RAM respectively, I have no complaints about performance. Since Panther, I rarely see the beach ball.

 

[hulugu]

Originally posted by DGFan
According to this article at maccentral Apple's marketshare is down to 3.2%

In a year where PC shipments grew, Apple's went down.

Uh, n, Apple's market share went down.
Apple reported a 12% increase in Mac sales over the quarter, they also reported earlier in the year that they sold 7% of the laptops and were the number 4 player behind Dell, Gateway, IBM. Furthermore, they constitute 56% of the TV video market. As someone once stated, if you control all of the niches...
Think of it this way, say 100 computers were sold during one year and Apple sold 10 of those. The next year 1000 computers are sold and Apple sells 20. Their market share was 10% and now is 2% and yet they sold twice as many computers. What does this tell us? The market share numbers is a statistic that doesn't necessarily indicate the growth of a company. It is an important number, but not the only statistic of value.
Apple has a moment of great potential, their mindshare is excellent, the iTMS is the market dominator, the iPod is easily a powerhouse, and the G5 shows real value in comparison to x86 equivalents, futhermore the iLife suite rocks (although my teeth still gnash together and thought of having to pay for it now) and Macs show up everywhere from television shows including Friends, the West Wing, etc. to the desktops of the NASA crew in charge of Spirit.
Apple will never be able to capture the market above 10% because that is the total number of computers sold, which includes sales to cublicle farms and your local telemarketers, industries in which Apple has absolutely no chance (nor wants) to grasp.
Apple is doing well and I hope for some products coming out this year that will help them stay relevant in this market.

 

[DGFan]

Originally posted by hulugu
Uh, n, Apple's market share went down.
Apple reported a 12% increase in Mac sales over the quarter

You didn't look at my other post or read the article did you? Overseas sales kept Apple afloat in this quarter. US shipments were down 17% sequentially and flat year over year.

Why don't you look at the full earnings report which breaks down sales by product line and region? Apple is doing well in some areas but horrible in others. They are basically non-existent in the consumer desktop line right now. What should be a strength is a weakness.

 

[svenas1]

Re: Apple: go for the low end!

Originally posted by splashman
Good points. Although I now use X, I am one of those who still defends OS9 as eminently usable. Apple has not yet made a compelling case for the other 60% to upgrade -- this should be obvious from the fact that they haven't upgraded. I'm guessing that most of the 60% are in the low end of the market (eMac and iMac). So I agree with you -- Apple needs to bring out a irresistible product on the low end. Think about the $ to be made if a significant number of the 60% were to upgrade in the next six months.

Can the eMac boot into OS 9 at all ??

 

[simX]

Originally posted by rog
Well about 50% of macs that can run OSX can't run it well. I'd say any G4 without an L3 or 512k L2 doesn't run it well. Nor does any G4 under 800 MHz. The 900 MHz G3 is barely adequate. All 1st gen iMac, iBooks, beige G3s and BW G3s that haven't been upgraded all run OSX horribly slowly.

Good god you are horribly jaded. I had a G4 cube that ran Mac OS X 10.1 VERY well. That means that Jaguar and Panther can only run better. Furthermore, I've done testing of Panther on my original bondi blue iMac (233 MHz), and it runs really well. It's not able to run any of the recent games or anything, but it does run Mac OS X like a champ.

A 900 MHz G3 is not "barely adequate". That's a ridiculous statement. A 900 MHz G3 is much more than enough. My mom's iBook has a 600 MHz G3 processor, and it runs Mac OS X fine.

What do you do to your Mac OS X installs... beat them with an I-don't-want-you-to-run-well-so-I-can-complain-about-it stick?

 

[splashman]

Originally posted by simX
What do you do to your Mac OS X installs... beat them with an I-don't-want-you-to-run-well-so-I-can-complain-about-it stick?

Heh heh. Good one!

 

[splashman]

The other 60%

Originally posted by svenas1
Can the eMac boot into OS 9 at all ??

Older eMacs and iMacs (more than a year old) certainly can boot into OS9, and this is the "other 60%" market I'm talking about -- the ones who haven't upgraded their hardware recently. I'm honestly not sure whether current eMacs and iMacs can boot into OS9. Does anyone else know?

I think it was about a year ago that Apple switched to having OSX be the default boot system on new Macs. Prior to that, OS9 was the default. Does anyone know for sure when that switch occurred?

 

[hulugu]

Originally posted by DGFan
You didn't look at my other post or read the article did you? Overseas sales kept Apple afloat in this quarter. US shipments were down 17% sequentially and flat year over year.

Why don't you look at the full earnings report which breaks down sales by product line and region? Apple is doing well in some areas but horrible in others. They are basically non-existent in the consumer desktop line right now. What should be a strength is a weakness.

First, I did look at the full earnings report, and US sales are important, but UK sales help this company no matter.
Secondly, Powermac sales fluxuated from 158,000 to 221,000 and then down to 206,000. However, this is still a year to yaer increase. Also, Powerbook sales swung wildly from 101,000 to 195,000. The bad news, consumer desktops including the eMac and iMac got hosed, and I did agree with your post, but you made the statement "in a year when PC shipments rose, Apple's went down" which is a simplification of what happened. Did you note also, that IBM and Gateway only account for 5.2 and 3.8 respectively? That really suprised me. So, we're both guilty of making easy assumptions, and Apple needs to upgrade the iMac line—as you suggested—quick, because they're just not capturing people any more. 1.8Ghz G5 w/ 20" around 1,999 would fly out the door, IMHO.

 

[iChan]

Originally posted by Prom1
Just like Rodney Dangerfield always says Apple "can't get no respect"!

rdowns, I agree with your estimate of Apple stock going up to roughly $50 dollars.

when do you see this happening?

 

[iChan]

Re: lotsa weird posts in here.

Originally posted by Selecter
The stock went lower becuase of poeple having sell orders to lock in profits if Apple beat the street ( which they did, by 3 cents a share.) THATS WHY THE FRIGGIN STOCK WENT LOWER. It will slide lower yet by more poeple locking in more profits before it goes back up.

what does 'locking in the profits' mean?

does it mean, selling the shares if they have gone up to get the profit, and then buy them back at a lower price or something?

 

[jxyama]

Re: Re: lotsa weird posts in here.

Originally posted by iChan
what does 'locking in the profits' mean?

does it mean, selling the shares if they have gone up to get the profit, and then buy them back at a lower price or something?

in principle, yes. but it's not really true, in general. why would you "lock in the profit" when you may think that the price may have gone even further up? there are many factors involved in the movement of the stock prices and "locking in the profit" is usually not the reason share prices go down. it's usually much broader than that.

if a share price has been going up and suddenly goes down, it's a cliche to describe it as "taking in the profit." but it's usually just a cliche. if a company is healthy, there's no reason to have to do short term transactions like taking in the profit. it's much much more difficult to time the market like that and make money.

if you had microsoft stock in the mid-80s, there was absolutely no reason to let it go until quite recently, despite some small declines M$ stocks experienced in the meantime.

 

[eazyway]

Re: The other 60%

Originally posted by splashman
Older eMacs and iMacs (more than a year old) certainly can boot into OS9, and this is the "other 60%" market I'm talking about -- the ones who haven't upgraded their hardware recently. I'm honestly not sure whether current eMacs and iMacs can boot into OS9. Does anyone else know?

I think it was about a year ago that Apple switched to having OSX be the default boot system on new Macs. Prior to that, OS9 was the default. Does anyone know for sure when that switch occurred?

The only macs not able to boot up in OS 9 are the current crop of G5's . Any future G5 system will have the same problem. They will all run classic mode in OS X . (but some businesses will run OX 9 for a while still..adoption is slow)

This will be a problem for Apple for a short period of time and may hurt some sales. But over time the sales will pick up as the IBM G5's roll of the lines at higher and higher speeds. Apple has lost market share over the past 5 yrs or so because of the poor road map of the G4 by Motorola. This is now out of the way and the G5 road will accelerate Apple to new heights over the next few years.

The foundation has been laid and as any business man knows it takes time to all for it all to come to a boil and to get the sales jumping once again. A lot of people were worried about G5 and will it be compatible. I expect Q3 and 4 of this year to be a renewed resurgance of the desk top mac.

 

[splashman]

Re: Re: The other 60%

Originally posted by eazyway
The only macs not able to boot up in OS 9 are the current crop of G5's . Any future G5 system will have the same problem. They will all run classic mode in OS X . (but some businesses will run OX 9 for a while still..adoption is slow)

This will be a problem for Apple for a short period of time and may hurt some sales. But over time the sales will pick up as the IBM G5's roll of the lines at higher and higher speeds. Apple has lost market share over the past 5 yrs or so because of the poor road map of the G4 by Motorola. This is now out of the way and the G5 road will accelerate Apple to new heights over the next few years.

The foundation has been laid and as any business man knows it takes time to all for it all to come to a boil and to get the sales jumping once again. A lot of people were worried about G5 and will it be compatible. I expect Q3 and 4 of this year to be a renewed resurgance of the desk top mac.

Good analysis! Makes sense to me.

 

[jxyama]

G5's aren't the only machines not able to boot OS 9:

- all Al PowerBooks, including a year old rev. A 12 and 17 inchers

- all G4 iBooks

- all G4 iMacs introduced after Jan. last year

- all new eMacs, with 1 GHz G4.

just clarifying.