Transcript of Everything Apple Said About Its Record-Breaking Fourth Quarter Earnings Results

[MacRumors]

Apple today reported revenue of $52.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $10.7 billion, or $2.07 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of its 2017 fiscal year.

Apple's CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri discussed the results on a conference call today. MacRumors has prepared a complete transcript of the call ahead.

Tim Cook

Good afternoon and thanks to everyone for joining us. As we close the books on a very successful fiscal 2017, I have to say I couldn't be more excited about Apple's future.

This was our biggest year ever in most parts of the world, with all-time record revenue in the United States, Western Europe, Japan, Korea, the Middle East, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, and Asia. We had a particularly strong finish this year, generating our highest September quarter revenue ever, as year-over-year growth accelerated for the fourth consecutive quarter.

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Article Link: Transcript of Everything Apple Said About Its Record-Breaking Fourth Quarter Earnings Results

 

[Adelphos33]

Outstanding quarter. Phones, tablets, Macs, watches, services all growing in all places.

 

[I7guy]

There was some bemoaning on these forums about profits sinking and giving apple a much needed kick in the pants, in an effort to show them they are not listening to their customers. The customers have spoken. Not only that, there have been several blogs/articles about how the iphone x will steal some of the big retailers sales. People just cannot predict what the "masses" are thinking.

 

[argentum47]

Mac sale units increased by 10% while revenue increased by 25%.
Gotta love those increasing profit margins.

 

[Rocketman]

I don't think they verbalised the new cash position. It's in the report somewhere. 95% overseas is interesting indeed.

 

[sw1tcher]

Mac sale units increased by 10% while revenue increased by 25%.
Gotta love those increasing profit margins.

Mac sales and revenue would have gone up even more if Apple had updated the Mac mini.

Over 3 years with no update.

 

[Baymowe335]

I don't think they verbalised the new cash position. It's in the report somewhere. 95% overseas is interesting indeed.

They did, $268B plus.

Insane quarter with almost no impact from new products because watch and iPhone 8 only were selling 2 weeks in that Q.

 

[Cosmosent]

Tim Cook missed ONE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT POINT earlier today ... that the iPhone X will be the first iPhone for many with 3 GB of DRAM ! ... the significance of this very simple fact should NOT be UNDER-estimated by anyone ... prior to Sept 12th, ONLY the iPhone 7 Plus had 3 GB ... now, it's the 7 Plus, the 8 Plus, and the X.

Photo & Video apps in particular, benefit SIGNIFICANTLY from extra DRAM, and the more advanced ones work SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER with 3 GB of DRAM than ONLY 2GB of DRAM.

If Tim Cook had an Electrical Engineering or Software Development background, he would NOT have missed this EXTREMELY obvious fact !! ... it is in fact, an EXTREMELY BIG DEAL !

 

[pratikindia]

Less profit than Samsung?

 

[Karma*Police]

75% growth in Apple Music surprised me a bit... I'm sure the higher conversion rate has a lot to do with the new interface and improved algorithms. With siri support and tight integration with Apple's ecosystem of products, I see a lot more Apple Spotify users switching.

 

[steve123]

Nice quarter. I think the next quarter results will be even more interesting ...

 

[Klae17]

Tim Cook missed ONE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT POINT earlier today ... that the iPhone X will be the first iPhone for many with 3 GB of DRAM ! ... the significance of this very simple fact should NOT be UNDER-estimated by anyone ... prior to Sept 12th, ONLY the iPhone 7 Plus had 3 GB ... now, it's the 7 Plus, the 8 Plus, and the X.

Photo & Video apps in particular, benefit SIGNIFICANTLY from extra DRAM, and the more advanced ones work SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER with 3 GB of DRAM than ONLY 2GB of DRAM.

If Tim Cook had an Electrical Engineering or Software Development background, he would NOT have missed this EXTREMELY obvious fact !! ... it is in fact, an EXTREMELY BIG DEAL !

Seems like it’s a big deal to you. To those that wanted or needed 3 GB last year they already got the 7 Plus. 99.99999% of people don’t care how much ram there is. Tim knows his market, and it’s non-news.

 

[citysnaps]

Tim Cook missed ONE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT POINT earlier today ... that the iPhone X will be the first iPhone for many with 3 GB of DRAM ! ... the significance of this very simple fact should NOT be UNDER-estimated by anyone ... prior to Sept 12th, ONLY the iPhone 7 Plus had 3 GB ... now, it's the 7 Plus, the 8 Plus, and the X.

Photo & Video apps in particular, benefit SIGNIFICANTLY from extra DRAM, and the more advanced ones work SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER with 3 GB of DRAM than ONLY 2GB of DRAM.

If Tim Cook had an Electrical Engineering or Software Development background, he would NOT have missed this EXTREMELY obvious fact !! ... it is in fact, an EXTREMELY BIG DEAL !

Apple has never touted RAM size. Especially in quarterly earnings discussions. It's not that interesting to the general public or to Wall Street.

 

[Applebot1]

Nice quarter. I think the next quarter results will be even more interesting ...

Yes I’m interested to see how the X does.

 

[MacFan23]

Tim Cook missed ONE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT POINT earlier today ... that the iPhone X will be the first iPhone for many with 3 GB of DRAM ! ... the significance of this very simple fact should NOT be UNDER-estimated by anyone ... prior to Sept 12th, ONLY the iPhone 7 Plus had 3 GB ... now, it's the 7 Plus, the 8 Plus, and the X.

Photo & Video apps in particular, benefit SIGNIFICANTLY from extra DRAM, and the more advanced ones work SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER with 3 GB of DRAM than ONLY 2GB of DRAM.

If Tim Cook had an Electrical Engineering or Software Development background, he would NOT have missed this EXTREMELY obvious fact !! ... it is in fact, an EXTREMELY BIG DEAL !

Who would care in an earnings call?

 

[DeepIn2U]

Outstanding quarter. Phones, tablets, Macs, watches, services all growing in all places.

It's insane to be quite honest.

"we established a goal of doubling our fiscal 2016 services revenue of $24 billion by the year 2020" ... that's HUGE! TV Shows and a few one off movies alone is not going to do this:
iCloud services will have new offerings
Software as a Service (Saas) will play a BIG Role:
- Logic Saas, Lightroom or an evolution of this, Playgrounds (Eduational, Consumer, and Business) as a Saas, iCloud Swift ... yup I'm calling this one ... can seriously happen (allowing iPads to code and code history saved in real time)! Garaband icloud too ... plugins can be sourced from partners' websites at rapid speeds, enabled disabled etc.

e.g. Your iMac's screen and ports or entire iMac/MBP/MacPro is dead! You're loosing valuable production time ... well connect your iPad or a loaner and all your work has been saved ... in the Cloud ready to rock'n'roll. No re-installing software, no adjusting, setup, no TimeMachine re-installing etc. Just instantly WORKS! Heck they may call TimeMachine as a Saas doing delta uploads for changes.

of course there is the standard storage as well.

Mac sales and revenue would have gone up even more if Apple had updated the Mac mini.

Over 3 years with no update.

I think the paradigm shift of consumers either wanting an all in one unit or a laptop is clearly shown in the Mac hardware revenues BEST QUARTER EVER:
MacBook
MacBook Air
MacBook Pro
iMac

The remaining two are:
Mac Mini - which would be huge in education as well as Indian and other Asian markets as well as in S.African markets as well. Yet the profit margins would be much lower unless Apple has a trick or two up their sleeves.
Mac Pro - This will have THE highest profit margins per unit sold in Apple's entire repetoire, aside from software and services.
iMac Pro - a new category to fill the void of a Mac Pro modular system.

At this point I think Apple should be heavily embarrased to still have the Mac Pro trash-can in their stores display shelves. They should be heavily discounting this to rid the stock. Personally I'd LOVE to have even a 6-core unit, cause I love the design, feel the power would still be beyond my daily needs and I like the nostalgia of the Cube it had replaced.

Don't worry Apple will have us all covered in the Mac space by mid-2018.

Who would care in an earnings call?

Pricessly!

 

[polterbyte]

Doom! Gloom! Aaaaargh!

 

[weckart]

This was our biggest year ever in most parts of the world, with all-time record revenue in the United States, Western Europe, Japan, Korea, the Middle East, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, and Asia.

So Apple basically bombed in Canada, Central and South America, Kiribati, Antartica and the Moon. Time for Timmy to go.

 

[CarpalMac]

Who would care in an earnings call?

You are right, absolutely no one. It'd be like a bank discussing the GSM of the paper it prints out it's statements on.

I have read some ludicrous statements on Macrumors but the idea that it's extremely important to be talking about DRAM in an earnings call must surely take top spot.

 

[Niklas_nick]

„Is there any information you can provide on how iPhone X pre-orders compare to what you saw with iPhone 8 pre-orders?

Tim Cook: We never go through mix, but I can share with you that iPhone X orders are very strong for both direct customers and for our channel partners, which as you know, are lots of carriers throughout the world. We couldn't be more excited to get underway. I think as of a few minutes ago, the first sales started in Australia. I'm told we had several hundred waiting at the store in Sydney, and I'm getting similar reports from across that region. „

Funny how this year they won’t talk about first weekend sales numbers neither the following Monday nor the following earnings call. Would have expected „we were able to sell 1x mio iPhone X the first 3 days“.

 

[kiancheong]

Tim Cook missed ONE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT POINT earlier today ... that the iPhone X will be the first iPhone for many with 3 GB of DRAM ! ... the significance of this very simple fact should NOT be UNDER-estimated by anyone ... prior to Sept 12th, ONLY the iPhone 7 Plus had 3 GB ... now, it's the 7 Plus, the 8 Plus, and the X.

Photo & Video apps in particular, benefit SIGNIFICANTLY from extra DRAM, and the more advanced ones work SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER with 3 GB of DRAM than ONLY 2GB of DRAM.

If Tim Cook had an Electrical Engineering or Software Development background, he would NOT have missed this EXTREMELY obvious fact !! ... it is in fact, an EXTREMELY BIG DEAL !

Can’t wait to share Developer tips and engineering notes with Tim.

 

[69Mustang]

Tim Cook missed ONE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT POINT earlier today ... that the iPhone X will be the first iPhone for many with 3 GB of DRAM ! ... the significance of this very simple fact should NOT be UNDER-estimated by anyone ... prior to Sept 12th, ONLY the iPhone 7 Plus had 3 GB ... now, it's the 7 Plus, the 8 Plus, and the X.

Photo & Video apps in particular, benefit SIGNIFICANTLY from extra DRAM, and the more advanced ones work SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER with 3 GB of DRAM than ONLY 2GB of DRAM.

If Tim Cook had an Electrical Engineering or Software Development background, he would NOT have missed this EXTREMELY obvious fact !! ... it is in fact, an EXTREMELY BIG DEAL !

Know your crowd. That's a key element to public speaking. That's definitely the wrong crowd for that conversation.
Also, I think you need a new keyboard. The one you're using is randomly capitalizing words and inserting unnecessary exclamation points.

 

[0958400]

Dear Tim,
I couldn't be more excited about hearing other not yet as hollow considered phrases as the one I've just mentioned. (sigh)

 

[Seanm87]

Apple has never touted RAM size. Especially in quarterly earnings discussions. It's not that interesting to the general public or to Wall Street.

Or anyone else for that matter

 

[ocnitsa]

It's clear that those who are complaining that Cook needs to stop being so damn political are right. I mean look at these revenue reports!!!! The company is going down in flames all due to the liberal leanings of Tim Cook.

(sarcasm)