did they say how much of iphones were sold in China?
I didn't catch that, but from memory I think he said something about App Store sales in China doubling (?or thereabouts) over the last year, then some great progression stats from Vietnam, Russia, and Brazil.
For those holding shares (or thinking of buying/selling them) wondering about the stock split -
it makes no difference to your wealth. The only difference it could make is if your broker charged per share for transaction costs or a holding fee (most don't), but the difference would be very small.
So, using hypothetical prices, if the day before the stock-split you held 100 shares at $560 with a quarterly dividend of $3.5 per share, you would have $56,000 of stock and receive a quarterly div of $350.
After the stock split you would still have $56,000 of stock and still receive $350 quarterly in dividends, but you would now have 700 shares, each share worth $80, and the div would be $0.5 per share.
The practical differences seem to me to be that
1. you can now buy in smaller chunks than $560. Mostly useful for automated investment plans or dividend reinvestment plans. Also fun gifts of one share for the grandkids.
2. Apple is a prime candidate for entering the (price-weighted) Dow now, if and when a space next becomes available.
3. brokers and exchanges that charge per share (not necessarily retail brokers) will make a ton more money. options houses (which do charge per option) will make a ton more money.
4. Apple mini options would seem to be no longer necessary. And to the extent that traders were unwilling or unable to use mini options, there should now be increased options activity on Apple, because before you had to trade in $55,000 chunks of the underlying. Sophisticated 'Mom and Pop' investors can now write covered calls on $10,000 of shares.
5. options pricing may be a bit weird and difficult to calculate for a while
6. financial sites and TV stations will write and broadcast reams of articles about what stock-splits mean for
you, and sell plenty of accompanying ads. Stats will be produced to show whether stocks have historically gone up or gone down after a stock-split. Much will be made of the "psychological effect".
My advice: hold the shares, they're going higher. They have a very attractive valuation - very low p.e minus cash. Decent growth of about 5-10% of revenue and earnings a year. Astronomically large absolute revenues and earnings. Great track history of management, sales, r&d and design teams. And still very negative sentiment, which is good for value investors. That means, very roughly, if you hold the shares for ten years and the company doesn't even grow at all, which would be surprising IMNSHO given all the potential growth in emerging markets, the company will still produce as much cash as the price of the share. That's net real money in the bank after all expenses and investments. So basically as an owner, after 10 years, you will probably have the shares
plus the same amount in cash - so you will have doubled your investment. The main threats are margin compression and commoditisation of phones. But I'm still spending a lot on computers and gadgets, 25 years after my first computer. In fact even though they're a bit cheaper now I'm buying a lot more of them when adding together all software and devices, and Apple's margins are as good as ever. So for the next 10 years I'm not too worried about margins or the "demise of the ipad". The stock-split is irrelevant, and I trust Apple to produce the right product mix at the right times, while safe-guarding my investment. This is no longer a go-go stock but seems fairly low risk for the medium term.