Apple Reports Record Earnings and iPhone Sales: $18B Profit on $74.6B in Revenue for Q1 2015

[Abazigal]

I'm concerned about the fact that the iPhone makes up nearly 70% of Apple's revenue. If somebody makes a better phone, Apple crashes. I know that's unlikely given that people have been trying quite hard even since the first iPhone and haven't managed it yet, but still, talk about putting all your eggs in one basket.

Could it happen? Sure.

Would it happen? Probably not very likely in the near future. I don't think this is something to worry about for now.

 

[Trapezoid]

Lol at the clowns who kept saying apple is doomed...75 million iPhones...thats so amazing it's almost comical

 

[IJ Reilly]

They said revenue growth would have been 4 percentage points higher on a constant currency basis. They could not have known 3 months ago that the Canadian and Australian dollars and euro would tank, and the Swiss move last week caught everyone off guard.

Looking at the results in more detail, it's clear that the US market is still bigger than China, which suggests there is even more room for growth in the future. Some had predicted this would be the quarter where China passed up the US as Apple's biggest market.

The China passing up the U.S. is one of those arbitrary factoids that make for headlines but is otherwise meaningless.

 

[MikePLP]

It's up 5% after hours, erasing today's losses and then some.

If it wasn't for Microsoft stinking up the market today, it would be up lot more.

 

[TallManNY]

I never mentioned any specific brand, model or OS.

What you say is true in the short term.

When you will have perhaps a $100 phone in 5 years time, being better than a $700 phone from Apple today. Just as an example, as you might understand it's going to get harder and harder for the high end.

I'm sure you can understand this.
Nothing lasts forever.

High end, expensive mass consumer products, always crash in price.
The laws of physics will stop Apple and others almost dead in their tracks.
The cheaper items, will get closer and closer and closer.

Hence, Apple, and others who rely on high priced items will have to find new things to make and sell.

It just happens.

This is true, but the five year time frame might be way off. Look at the increase of Mac sales compare to the availability of fairly powerful $600 PCs. Certainly those $600 PCs are more powerful than the Macs from 5 years ago. And we are 30 years into the PC market. While only 7 years into the iPhone smartphone market.

As long as Apple keeps making better and better smartphones, it can keep ahead of the cheaper market. Eventually you will be right. Maybe. But this argument has been out there for years now with the cheap android phones. But Apple has just increased its sales by 46% year over year.
And you might not be right (or at least not right in our lifetime), if the smartphone eventually evolves into something even more. It could just be "the computer you carry with you", not really a phone or even an email device (which is largely what they are now). Do you think computers are nearing the end of their improvement? Think broader. Think artificial intelligence. Think of the smartphone as the device that allows you to connect with the internet of things. There might be lots of room for improvement here.

 

[eac25]

I never mentioned any specific brand, model or OS.

What you say is true in the short term.

When you will have perhaps a $100 phone in 5 years time, being better than a $700 phone from Apple today. Just as an example, as you might understand it's going to get harder and harder for the high end.

I'm sure you can understand this.
Nothing lasts forever.

High end, expensive mass consumer products, always crash in price.
The laws of physics will stop Apple and others almost dead in their tracks.
The cheaper items, will get closer and closer and closer.

Hence, Apple, and others who rely on high priced items will have to find new things to make and sell.

It just happens.

If I understand your point correctly, you're saying that products 5 years from now will cost less and be better than Apple's products today.

Gee - that's a leap!... Next thing you're going to tell us is that someone has invented a better mousetrap!...

 

[Solomani]

Well Mac sales are still going strong despite we are now in the "post-PC" era. So hopefully Mac gets some extra loving' in 2015.

But I do worry about the future of iPods. The graphs show they they hardly registered a presence (compared to all other Apple devices).

 

[thekeyring]

How long until the PC market is such a commodity that Apple can't capture a huge portion of the high-end? Let's say that process hasn't finished yet and the home PC is in its 25th year or thereabouts. If we still have a decade of run left in the smartphone market, then why worry about this issue?

It's such a shame when people meet 'apple is doomed' head on with logic

----------

Well Mac sales are still going strong despite we are now in the "post-PC" era. So hopefully Mac gets some extra loving' in 2015.

But I do worry about the future of iPods. The graphs show they they hardly registered a presence (compared to all other Apple devices).

They haven't been updated in a while, and the Music portion of Apple's business was hardly mentioned last year. However, we know about Beats. Let's wait until the Beats Music re-unveiling, there might be new iPods/a sign of where the iPod is going then.

 

[kgelner]

I will still stick to what I said some time ago.

As years go by, it's going to be harder and harder and harder for anyone to justify high priced phones and tablets.

Years have gone by. You can get a laptop cheaper than ever before, yet Apple sales still grow year after year.

I think it's up to you to present the case why you think anything will be different with movie devices. It sure has not been until now - you can get a smartphone running Android cheaper than ever before, iPhone sales keep growing. Even near free tablets from many companies could not do anything against the more expensive iPad.

5 years on, and 5 years is nothing.

But the computer industry is far more than five years on, and what you predict has not come fully true - the devices are more powerful as you predict, but it has not mattered in terms of selling good higher end gear.

Apple, and other will hit technical walls, and year after year, Apple's next model's improvement over the previous model will get less and less.

Already happened in computers. Didn't matter.

More and more people will realise, hey, this cheap model is amazing.
It's 95% as good as, say Apple's model for 1/4 the price.

Now this is where your argument really falls down. It will simply never be the case that the cheapest models in the market are 99% "as good" as the top end of the market. There is always a way to use a combination of the latest materials or chips or connectivity options or software to create a large gap between yourself and the low end of the market.

It's inevitable this will happen.

Funny that something so inevitable has never happened.

Just with DVD Players, Microwaves, Washing machines, Laser Printers, there will always be a market for the very high end items at very high end prices. But that market will shrink and shrink and shrink, as more and more people realise the cheaper models are by then really good and so much less expensive.

You are comparing incredibly mono-funcitonal devices with general purpose ones. Such comparison always goes very badly for the person attempting to compare them in the end.

What I think also confuses you are natural cycles in a market, which can lower the market as a whole for some product but then eventually you see a surge of interest again in higher end gear as people who bought into the low end realize that if you cut enough corners, all you get are left with is a drain.

 

[2499723]

I think this is a very clear cut example of Tim Cooks Apple researching and then following market demand and trends to maximize profits and increase market share for the iphone. What it does not do though, is follow the pioneering spirit and vision which was Steve Jobs to make products that were innovative, cutting edge, inventive, and above all...ones that took a chance and were the stuff of imagination. I think that the average person can see the total different direction under two different CEO's. It may not necessarily be a bad thing, especially for the profits of Apple, but I think that people who try and make the case that this company has any soul of what it once was, is lying to themselves and us. Apple is now officially a "me-too" bandwagon company that makes very refined products that its core audience and followers will of course, embrace. Nothing less, and certainly nothing more now.

I have an affinity toward Apple products, perhaps an unhealthy one, but I don't really understand your line of thinking. You say that Apple had a history of innovating before Cook, but now that the company is somehow paint-by-numbers. From 1984 until 2001, the company was rather derivative, even under Jobs in the late 90s. It's a computer company; I don't get the sense that it's trying to be much else. Some natural advancements are to extend that into new arenas (iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc), but these products are not on some other plane of existence. They fit very much with Jobs' aim to break the boundaries between the user and the computer.

If you're expecting Apple to invest in driverless cars or some kind of visor, then you might have the wrong company. Most of Apple's explorations outside of personal computers in the 90s ended up failing (Newton, Pippin). Is that the kind of innovation you'd like to see? We're never going to have the Apple II or Macintosh moment again, sad to say. Not until technology makes another leap forward.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

I think you're the only one concerned.

It's the second most upvoted comment, with 14 upvotes, so I don't think I'm the only one with that concern.

Go back and check the graphs; the iPod and iTunes used to be the money spinners. As long as they keep moving forward with their new categories new opportunities will arise.

The problem is, the iPhone isn't their newest category. The iPad is. The iPad was set to overtake the iPhone as the leading product, but now it's declining. The iPhone is now 8 years old - this is about the point in the iPod's life where it began to decline.

I think the iPhone has either peaked or will within the next two years. What will be replacing it? A lot of people are saying Watch but I see no chance of that happening, so long as it's just an iPhone accessory. Maybe if it were compatible with Android, the same way that iPods were with Windows, then I could see the Watch becoming popular enough to rival the iPhone in income it generates.

Another, bigger possibility is Pay. Or maybe Apple will get serious about TV at some point.

Im also concerned Toyota makes most of its money in cars, or Exxon in oil, man that must sure suck for them...

Toyota makes more vehicles than just cars, and each one does well. Exxon's days are numbered - I don't think there's anyone who argues otherwise about any of the oil companies. They're big now. They'll be big in 10 years. But give them ~30 years and I don't think they'll exist anymore.

 

[Rettun1]

Wow, they even passed the highest estimations of the analysts.... That's something

 

[zosokm]

iPad customers (many of them) are people who think they need a computer but they don't want to buy a computer because it is too complicated. These customers keep their iPads until they break, and then they buy a new one. I'd bet there are people who are going to buy four or five iPads over the next 20 years, depending on how long they last. Every time the old one breaks down, they buy a new one.

The iPad 2 in particular was such a solid device that for most people there was hardly any reason to upgrade .Mine is still good for most tasks and still gives fantastic battery life . I bought an iphone 4 and iPad and iMac at the same time . I have since upgraded to the iphone 5 and then a 6 plus but my iMac and iPad 2 are still going strong and I find no reason to upgrade. Many people also like to flaunt the latest iphone . Not so for the iPad which is still a device for media consumption/ work.

 

[firewood]

I'm sure you can understand this.
Nothing lasts forever.

In the end, we will all die...

...but a few of us might leave a nice big inheritance for the kids and grandkids...

before an asteroid or nearby supernova takes out all mammalian life on Earth.

In the meantime, Apple has collected an immense amount of expertise across many many areas (software, manufacturing logistics, processor design, antenna design, retail, banking, branding, etc.)

Even if Apple suddenly gets amnesia, no other company is close to having that complete a competence (Google divested Motorola, etc.) and improving at it (Samsung's Tizan?, Microsoft's retail stores?, no way!). No single competitor has got its act together well enough yet to make it a good horse race.

 

[Tech198]

I'm not to fond, or even seem to understand net sales, but....

That's one big slice of pie

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

Wrong on both counts once again.

So explain to me how anti-trust laws work.

Would purchasing Samsungs electronics division give Apple a monopoly?
No.

Is there anything illegal about having a monopoly?
Nope.

Does Apple's purchase of Samsungs electronics division create artificial barriers of entry to competition?
Try again.

 

[Keirasplace]

So explain to me how anti-trust laws work.

Would purchasing Samsungs electronics division give Apple a monopoly?
No.

Is there anything illegal about having a monopoly?
Nope.

Does Apple's purchase of Samsungs electronics division create artificial barriers of entry to competition?
Try again.

Even if you buy every single maker of a particular tech, it can still not be a monopoly that the government cares about. Say Apple bought all makers of finger biometric equipment? Would that really fall under antitrust... I doubt it. There's plenty of tech with one maker protected by a few patents.

It is not like you can't use your phone without touch ID (or similar), most phones still don't have it.

If Apple bought every single chip making equipment, even Intel... Well, yes, that's a monopoly the US government would probably care about...

 

[Homme]

how about the iPod Sales... any figure????

but anyways, good job Apple

 

[mi7chy]

Kind of risky relying on just iPhone sales. Considering the additional 18% drop on top of previous year over drops on iPad sales Apple should focus on introducing a Mac OS X Macbook AirTouch tablet with pen input and detachable keyboard/touchpad. It's inevitable.

 

[firewood]

how about the iPod Sales... any figure????

So small that it's now hidden under "Other Products", which shrunk 5% to "only" $2.689B.

 

[ryanasimov]

I imagine if you graphed the first 8 years of the iPod and iPhone side by side it would be a huge difference in volume, no?

 

[Rogifan]

I'd love to know why Tim Cook thinks the Mac might be taking sales away from iPad.

 

[IJ Reilly]

So explain to me how anti-trust laws work.

Would purchasing Samsungs electronics division give Apple a monopoly?
No.

Is there anything illegal about having a monopoly?
Nope.

Does Apple's purchase of Samsungs electronics division create artificial barriers of entry to competition?
Try again.

These are the right questions to ask about the antitrust implications.

Even if you buy every single maker of a particular tech, it can still not be a monopoly that the government cares about. Say Apple bought all makers of finger biometric equipment? Would that really fall under antitrust... I doubt it. There's plenty of tech with one maker protected by a few patents.

It is not like you can't use your phone without touch ID (or similar), most phones still don't have it.

If Apple bought every single chip making equipment, even Intel... Well, yes, that's a monopoly the US government would probably care about...

The government doesn't care about monopoly, so these are the wrong questions to ask about the antitrust implications.

Of course the real question is whether Apple owning Samsung makes even a lick of sense.

 

[JamesMike]

No wonder the Apple folks are smiling with those profits.

 

[69650]

iPads continue to disappoint.

Sales will probably pick up again when the 12 inch iPad Pro launches