Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Watch the stock price drop due to the lower than expected margins. And some people on here still question the decision for 16GB base phones and 5400rpm hard drives. If they didn't have those as base units, their margins would be even lower, leading to lower stock performance.

Which normally shouldn't matter, unless most of your corporate administration's compensation and bonuses are tied to stock performance.

If Tim's financial package wasn't tied so closely to stock performance, then he'd be more free to do what's best for the customers instead of the shareholders. Sure the company margins would be a little lower, but you'd have iPhones with 64GB of space at 16GB prices, and SSD iMacs as a base for the same price as 5400rpm machines today.
 
For everyone who constantly discredits Steve Jobs contributions, the man did do something at Apple. He didn't write code/source parts from vendors etc, but he gave direction as he knew what to work on. Tim Cook isn't the same visionary; the numbers show this. Apple needs to **focus** on building fewer products and making them the best.

The question isn't whether Steve Jobs was a good CEO. He isn't coming back. The question is whether there is someone out there, whether at Apple or elsewhere, who could do a better job than Tim Cook as CEO. I'm not sure if "focus" is the key issue. Right now Apple is dealing with a strong dollar in a weak global economy. The drop in China sales is concerning, but primarily a function of a bursting bubble there. My guess is that the revenue projection miss may well be because Apple expects the cheaper iPhone SE to be a higher proportion of the sales than analysts expected, rather than because unit sales will be lower. An economic slowdown in China and a saturation of the smartphone market are not things that Steve Jobs could have prevented.

A potential bright spot is that service revenue was flat from the holiday quarter. It may well be that services is where the next "big" thing is for Apple. If they can get their cloud act together that would help. Maybe instead of increasing their dividends and buybacks, they should make a strategic acquisition in that space.
[doublepost=1461704045][/doublepost]
Sales of the SE are not reflected in this quarters results.
No, but clearly ARPU fell in this quarter, and Apple's revenue projection for the first quarter in which the SE is for sale were significantly lower than expected. So that could mean that the iPhone SE's lower price will drive unit sales at the expense of revenue.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mrhick01
Umm...Cook did. Last quarter he announced that this was coming in the previous conference call.
 
65% of apple's profits are from a single product line - that can be a scary statistic to the wall street folks. The iPhone isn't going anywhere but Apple's success is tied to the iPhone

When you saturate the market as much as they have, with the one item that makes up 65% of your business, your growth is bound to slow. They need to focus on other things and/or, come out with another hit. It's how business works. Adapt, change or die.


When you make products that disrespect your customers, you lose sales. Simple.

Messy and cluttered product lines.

Poor and outdated product specs.

Exploitative upgrade prices.

Terrible marketing.

Glib focus on crass fashion items.

Tacky accessories.

Apple needs to refocus. Now.

I agree with a few things but this isn't why sales are declining. They've reached a saturation point. It's like winning the lottery. You can only live so long off the winnings before they run out. You either stop spending, invest or adapt.


None of this is news. Apple however needs to take this seriously and do something to change it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ghost31
When even I - a super fan - started getting bored with Apple products I knew things were amiss. Canary in the coal mine.

I like the products but I now upgrade when I need; not because I salivate for the latest Apple. My spend has gone down from $5-6k per year to half that.

I sold 1/3 my Apple yesterday. Figure I'll pick it back up at $75 or $80 and ride it back to $110 with iPhone 8.
 
And here you see the clever concept behind the iPhone SE, at 250 dollar less it's still the same profit margin.

SE wasn't part of that quarter. Look at the margin guidance for this quarter if you want to guess at SE's impact on margins. But yes I bet its margins are still quite good.

I think price cuts are coming to the 6s and the SE was priced low to allow for that.
 
Finally.

QEeguBo.png

Great game by the way. Looking forward to the new version on May 13th.
 
I hope this is wake up call for Apple. Samsung are forging ahead in terms of functionality on their devices and VR is going to be big over the next few years.; Apple need to release the beast with major upgrades on their hardware to keep the consumer interested.
But Samsung's profits are still small compared to Apple's. They are beating expectations that were dramatically reduced after 2015 (which was as bad or worse for Samsung as 2016 has been so far for Apple).
 
It's interesting to note that "Services" (which I assume is iCloud and Apple Music subscriptions) brings in a substantially larger percentage of revenue than "Other" (Apple Watch, iPods, and Apple TV?). I guess they won't be too willing to raise that free tier of iCloud storage to much more than 5 GB since it appears to be an easy cash cow for them, as we all know that it is.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jarofclay73
For everyone who constantly discredits Steve Jobs contributions, the man did do something at Apple. He didn't write code/source parts from vendors etc, but he gave direction as he knew what to work on. Tim Cook isn't the same visionary; the numbers show this. Apple needs to **focus** on building fewer products and making them the best.

You and I must have seen totally different numbers. Revising history doesn't benefit anyone, least of all Steve Jobs cuz he's dead. Look at Apple's revenue and profit under Cook's tenure and tell me which numbers support your assertion.
 
I see that Average Selling Price for iPhone is relatively low. Now that is concerning for the main product.
 
When you saturate the market as much as they have, with the one item that makes up 65% of your business, your growth is bound to slow. They need to focus on other things and/or, come out with another hit. It's how business works. Adapt, change or die.




I agree with a few things but this isn't why sales are declining. They've reached a saturation point. It's like winning the lottery. You can only live so long off the winnings before they run out. You either stop spending, invest or adapt.
Plenty of people buying other phones and computers.

Apple is a long, long, long, long, long, long, long way from saturation point.
 
When you saturate the market as much as they have, with the one item that makes up 65% of your business, your growth is bound to slow. They need to focus on other things and/or, come out with another hit. It's how business works. Adapt, change or die.
No question, Microsoft faced similar issues with Office. While a different product, it was a cash cow that was slowing in sales. It looks like among other things successfully transition office to a subscription.

For Apple they've tapped out all of the markets (US, Europe, etc) and while other regions present possible growth, the double digit increases in sales are a thing of the past.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CarpalMac
Party had to end some time. Still making a boat load of money. The 2017 iPhone should propel them.
 
maybe this will mean apple will finally update macbook airs, pros and the mac mini.

For a company that's so big and successful, they take forever to update hardware... The success of iOS devices are partly to blame for this and Intel delaying chips.

Maybe look for new areas to bring in money? Treat the Apple TV as a true game console? Bring out a headless iMac?
 
Have no doubt: if this was a different Apple, one which didn't have a 3-year-old flagship Mac, for instance, then the majority of people here would be saying "who cares about profits, it's about the great products". And that would be absolutely true.

The fact we're all pro-Apple, and for one reason or another, we're all users of their products — yet seem to be revelling in this negative news today — tells a much bigger story, about how it's really necessary to see those profits go back into the products.

I hope I speak for everybody here when I say nobody wants Apple to fail; we just want them to get a wakeup call, and stop taking advantage of their consumers and ecosystem.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.