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Apple's iPhone sales are still down, but Wall Street is happy anyway
After seeing Apple struggle through 2016, Wall Street set its sights pretty low for the company's Q3 earnings report. Those financial results just dropped, and while they're still not amazing for the folks in Cupertino, Apple did well enough to allay some nagging fears and get its flagging stock price up a bit in after-hours trading.
AAPL reaches an all-time high share price
Not all the news is gloomy today; shares in Apple reached an all-time new high today on analysts at Argus raised their price target to $135 per share with a "buy" rating. The share price peaked at 120.00 at one point this morning, and is currently wavering around the $119 mark.
AAPL share price hovering near all-time high
Here's a surprise -- usually the day after Apple announces record-breaking financial performance, the stock drops. Today, however, on the heels of truly astounding news and optimistic statements from Apple executives, the share price has been climbing. Based on bad economic news yesterday, the stock markets fell sharply, leaving AAPL at 109.14 per share at the close of trading. This morning, however, the share price opened at 117.62 and has been wavering around that mark. Apple's share price reached an all-time high of 119.00 on November 26, 2014, resulting in a market valuation for the company of $700 billion. Should it reach or surpass that level today or in the near future, we'll be sure to let you know as soon as possible.
Apple's revenues soar thanks to iPhones and China
Well, it's that time again. Apple has just released its latest batch of quarterly earnings, and wouldn't you know it -- the folks in Cupertino once again sold more iPhones than it has in any other quarter. We're talking 74.5 million phones changing hands since October, up just about 50 percent from its last utterly insane holiday quarter. Apple doesn't break down sales numbers by model, but its smartphones' bang-up performance helped push company revenue to new heights; the company raked in a cool $74.6 billion in revenue, along with $18 billion in pure profit. That is crazy.
Wall Street analysts make their final Q1 2015 predictions for Apple
(Table from Fortune.com, Philip Elmer-DeWitt) With only a few hours to go until Apple releases its Q1 2015 (October 1, 2014 - December 31, 2014) financial results, Fortune's Philip Elmer-DeWitt has pulled together estimates from a number of Wall Street analysts on exactly how they think the company did. The numbers, from 30 professionals and 15 amateurs, are pretty incredible. First, Apple had provided guidance during the last call expecting revenues in the $63.5-$66.5 billion range. The amateurs think it's going to be about $69.27 billion, while the pros are a bit more pessimistic at "only" $68.28 billion. If one looks at the average of all the analysts, that's a year-over-year revenue gain of 19.3 percent over 2014's figure. Earnings are expected to be about $2.68 per share, which is up almost 30 percent year over year. But the big news? Apple's earnings could be the biggest in US corporate history. The current record is held by Exxon, which had a $15 billion third quarter in 2008. The analysts expect Apple to announce sales of 67.09 million iPhones (up 31.5 percent), 21.29 million iPads (down 18.2 percent), and 5.57 million Macs (up 15.2 percent). We'll be live-blogging the earnings call at 5 PM ET (2 PM PT) and would love it if you stopped by to check our commentary on the proceedings. See you then!
Join us tomorrow at 5 PM ET/2 PM PT for Apple Earnings Call Liveblog
On Tuesday, January 27, 2015 at 5 PM ET (2 PM PT), be sure to join us for our traditional liveblog of the Apple Earnings Call. This quarter's call will be quite fascinating, as we should hear about record iPhone sales thanks to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, increasing market share for the Mac family, how Apple Pay is progressing (and contributing to Apple's bottom line) and more. Who knows? Maybe we'll even get an idea of when the Apple Watch will ship! You can listen to the call live through QuickTime streaming, and we'll be providing commentary and analysis as the call progresses. The link for the liveblog is here; please note that we won't be starting the actual event until about 4:50 PM ET, about 10 minutes before Apple goes live.
Analysts get their Q4 Apple earnings estimates in line
Apple is scheduled to reveal its Q4 earnings today at 5PM EST, which means analysts far and wide are weighing in on what numbers they expect Tim Cook and company to reveal. The consensus seems to be quite positive, with all of Fortune's long list of professionals an independents agreeing that it's going to be a record-breaking day. Revenue estimates range from $41.80 billion on the high end to a low of $38.43 billion, which is just a technical way of saying that everyone knows Apple made a whole lot of money, and investors should be happy. Of course, Apple has a history of confusing Wall Street, and good news from the company is often met with a paradoxical drop in stock price, so don't be surprised to see AAPL experience a bit of a roller coaster this afternoon.
Despite being doomed, Apple once again rockets towards its highest stock price ever
The iPhone 6 is going to suck, nobody wants an iPad, and the iWatch is going to cost US$3,000, so it's really quite surprising that despite all this on its plate, Apple is still managing to creep near to its highest stock price in history today. At the time of this writing, AAPL is sitting at 100.38, which puts it slightly ahead of its previous closing high water mark that it achieved in September of 2012. Its previous intraday high, which was closer to the 100.75 mark, remains elusive. This is just the latest in a long and turbulent history between Apple and Wall Street. The two have never really gotten along. Apple's stock price often fluctuates at seemingly random times, and even has a habit of dropping after good news is released. Investors and analysts have never really understood the company, but that's never really been an issue for Apple's bottom line.
Without buybacks or dividends, Apple would have $210 billion in the bank
Apple's capital return program, originally announced back in March of 2012, has already returned vast amounts of money to shareholders in the form of dividends and stock buybacks Since its first incarnation, Apple has dramatically increased the scope of its stock buyback program, announcing in April of 2013 that it was expanding from an initial level of $10 billion to $60 billion. One year later, Apple increased its stock buyback program yet again, this time to $90 billion. This was also accompanied by steadying increases to Apple's quarterly dividend. All told, Apple's current capital return program aims to return $130 billion in value to shareholders. During Apple's most recent earnings report, Apple CFO Luca Maestri noted that the company has thus far taken action on "over $74 billion of our $130 billion capital return program with six quarters remaining to its completion." So with about a year and a half to go until the $130 billion figure is reached, Horace Dediu of Asymco earlier this week provided us with an up-to-date snapshot as to the state of the program. Breaking down Apple's $74 billion figure, Dediu notes that Apple thus far has doled out approximately $21.5 billion in dividend payments while spending approximately $53 billion on stock buybacks. That's an insane amount of cash and Dediu alerts us to the fact that Apple's cash position would be out of this world had they chosen to keep it all for itself. "What would have happened if Apple had not paid any dividends, bought back shares and taken on debt?" The answer is in the blue line. It would be about $210 billion today. There are about a dozen companies other than Apple worth more than that amount. On a related note, Apple's capital return program has had a discernible impact on the company's share price. Bloomberg reported not too long ago: The iPhone maker is up 25 percent since it spent $18 billion on its own shares between January and March and rallied 32 percent after a $16 billion buyback in 2013. Those are the highest four-month returns among the 20 biggest quarterly repurchases by any company since 1998, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and Standard & Poor's. As it stands now, Apple shares are on the cusp of an all-time closing high, having just barely topped $100 a share earlier today.
China and Macs power Apple's growth as iPad demand wanes
Apple had a very strong second quarter. iPhone sales were up significantly over Q2 2013 and the company pocketed $700 million more in profit than it did during the same period last year, even though iPad sales slipped slightly. The company's third quarter results, released today, reflect a similar trend. At $37.4 billion, revenue is up $2.3 billion over the same period last year, thanks in no small part to boosted sales in Asia. iPhone and Mac adoption remains strong, with 13- and 18-percent increases over the same period in 2013, respectively, but iPad and iPod sales both slipped, registering 9-percent and 36-percent respective drops. Apple sold 35 million iPhones during Q3 of this year, compared to 31 million in 2013, while iPad sales dropped to 13.3 million, from 14.6 million last year.
Forbes says AAPL is down 85%, isn't quite sure how stock splits work
You'd think that an outlet that specialized in financial news would have a pretty good handle on the workings of Wall Street. You'd think that but you'd be wrong, at least in the case of Forbes, which is noting via its inline stock tracking widget that AAPL is down a shocking 85% today by dropping over $551 per share as of this writing. OMG! Of course, there's nothing to fear here, as Apple's stock price is simply a result of the 7-for-1 stock split that went into effect today. The vast majority of financial outlets and their slick stock tools handle this change in the correct manner, which is to split the stock price retroactively so that the current value is reflected correctly. But not Forbes. Because Forbes.
Apple stock split, an acquisition, missing Maps, and more news for June 9, 2014
A mixed bag of news for this Monday. Apple's stock split took place and the company acquires a social search engine company, but internal issues seem to have kept Maps from gaining new features prior to last week's iOS 8 announcement. Lucky you! Every share of Apple stock you own just became seven shares. Apple's stock split seven-for-one, and opened at US$92.70 per share this morning -- equivalent to a pre-split price of $648.90. If the stock price happens to squeak by $100.72, that will represent an all-time high price for AAPL. Apple's stock last hit the pre-split high of $705 per share back in September of 2012. TUAW sister site TechCrunch is reporting that Apple has acquired Spotsetter, which is described as a "social search engine for places." TechCrunch's Sarah Perez says that the acquisition "was mainly about acquiring the technology and the talent of the two founders, ex-Google Maps engineer Stephen Tse and Johnny Lee". The company's app (which is no longer available) used an algorithm to pull in content from a number of social and review sites to put your friends' recommendations as a layer atop a map. It's thought that Spotsetter's technology will be used in future versions of Maps. And speaking of Maps, internal squabbles at Apple and missed deadlines are allegedly behind the absence of any word of an update to the mapping service at last week's WWDC keynote. Unnamed sources told TechCrunch that ""Many developers left the company, no map improvements planned for iOS 8 release were finished in time. Mostly it was failure of project managers and engineering project managers, tasks were very badly planned, developers had to switch multiple times from project to project." Ouch. We hates the rumors, we does, my precious. But Re/code's John Paczkowski says that there's a good chance Apple plans to hold a press event in October to announce a wearable device that would "make good use of the HealthKit health and fitness information-gathering app it recently showed off at WWDC".
The TUAW Daily Update Podcast for May 30, 2014
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get some the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the player at the top of the page. The Daily Update has been moved to a new podcast host in the past few days. Current listeners should delete the old podcast subscription and subscribe to the new feed in the iTunes Store here.
Apple to reveal its Q1 financial results today, and other news for January 27
It's time for Apple to hold its quarterly financial conference call and reveal last quarter's numbers. The January conference call is always the most important one of the year as it covers the all-important holiday shopping season that just ended. All signs have been pointing to Apple having a very good quarter as far as the iPhone and iPad are concerned thanks to the 5s and new iPad Air. If Apple hits it out of the park, its stock could jump after hours. The average analyst estimate is an earnings of US$14.32 per share and a revenue of $57.9 billion. You can listen to Apple's financial conference call live here at 2PM PT/5PM ET or follow it here at TUAW during the same time as we report on it live. In other news: As part of the 30th anniversary of the Mac celebrations last week, Tim Cook tweeted that Apple employees were treated to a performance by OneRepublic on Apple's campus. He later tweeted a picture of employees in the quad listening to the band. On Saturday more than 100 members of the original Mac team gathered in De Anza College's Flint Center where Steve Jobs first introduced the Mac 30 years ago. Three moderated panels were held to discuss the conception of the Mac, the engineering of the Mac and the third-party software developers who coded apps for the Mac. Jobs' first public demonstration of the Mac has been released online. The video has been virtually unseen since 1984. The demonstration was held at the monthly general meeting of the Boston Computer Society. The story of the video is as interesting as the video itself, which was tracked down again by Time's Harry McCracken.
Apple.com, Mac App Store celebrates 30 years of the Mac, and more news for January 24
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Mac and Apple is out in force promoting it. Tim Cook will be appearing on ABC's World News with Diane Sawyer later tonight for an exclusive interview and now the company has also revamped its homepage in celebration of the anniversary. However, more than just redoing its homepage for today, Apple has also created a special section on its website detailing the 30-year history of the Mac. Users can watch a video about the Mac's history, browse a year-by-year timeline of the major advances in the Mac and even take part in an interactive chart by telling Apple what your first Mac was, how you discovered it and what you used it for. In addition to the celebrations on Apple.com, Apple also has a special "Happy birthday, Mac" section set up on the Mac App Store spotlighting a special selection of apps and games that captures the spirit of what makes the Mac so extraordinary. In other news: Apple has silently discontinued the Keynote Remote app. New remote functionality was added to the latest version of Keynote for iOS yesterday, so Apple decided to pull the old dedicated app. This isn't a surprise as Keynote Remote had not been updated to reflect iOS 7's new design aesthetic. This week's free App of the Week is Disney's Where's My Mickey? The app is a physics-based puzzler with simulated weather mechanics done in a style of classic Disney animation from the 1920s. Samsung announced yesterday it missed earnings estimates by a large margin. The earnings miss is due in part to the popularity of the iPhone 5c and 5s and increasing competition from other Asian vendors that make low-end Android phones. Carl Icahn scooped up another US$500 million worth of Apple stock yesterday. He tweeted the news just days after he made the world aware he had purchased an additional half a billion dollars in Apple stock just a few weeks ago. He now owns $3.6 billion in AAPL shares and called AAPL's value a "no brainer."
Pixelmator gets 16-bit image support for Mac Pro, and more news for January 23
Mac image and graphics editor Pixelmator has just dropped a big update to its software that further sees the app move in the direction of becoming a legitimate replacement for Photoshop. Pixelmator 3.1 "Marble," released today, adds a host of new features, the biggest of which is 16-bits-per-channel color image support when running the software on the new Mac Pro. The software also takes advantage of the Mac Pro's dual GPUs, so everything you do on it in Pixelmator is faster and smoother. Here's a list of all the optimizations for the new Mac Pro: • Both GPUs are used simultaneously when applying effects: one for computing the effect and the other one for composition rendering. • 16-bit per channel color images are supported. • The image auto saving is computed in the background while image composition is being rendered. • Optimizations made for all 4-core, 6-core, 8-core, or 12-core Intel Xeon processors for better zoom out handling and faster bitmap layer duplications. • GCD Dispatch I/O technology and PCIe-based flash storage makes opening and exporting high resolution images faster. • Increased memory bandwidth is fully utilized for Pixelmator operations. Besides the new Mac Pro features, Pixelmator 3.1 adds the ability to order prints right through the app, offers a number of layer style improvements and brings a ton of other little improvements such as bringing back more than 10 effects to the app and more. Pixelmator 3.1 is a free download to existing owners of the app. Everyone else can buy it via the Mac App Store for US$29.99. In other news: Speaking of the Mac Pro, those hoping to get one will have to wait until March now, as Apple's latest desktop shipping estimate has slipped back from February. Apple has released Apple releases iTunes 11.1.4. The updated iTunes adds the ability for users to view their Wish List while browsing their iTunes library. It also includes improved Arabic and Hebrew support and stability and bug fixes. A research report from JDSU says owners of the iPhone 5s are using 20 percent more cellular data, on average, than their iPhone 5-owning counterparts. Finally, Carl Icahn has tweeted that he's unhappy with Apple again... but he's buying a boatload of more stock. Icahn tweeted, "We feel $APPL board is doing great disservice to shareholders by not having markedly increased its buyback. In-depth letter to follow soon," right after he tweeted, "Having purchased $500 million more $AAPL shares in the last two weeks, our investment has crossed the $3 billion mark yesterday."
Morning news roundup for January 9, 2014
Morning everyone! It's a happy day for most Americans as today is the day that sees the polar vortex beginning to leave the country. Average temps will heat up by 10 degrees. Here's your morning news roundup for January 9 to go with the thaw. The timing of Apple's next earning calls has upset many AAPL investors. Apple's earnings call is scheduled for January 27th, four days later than anticipated, leaving options traders taking heavy loses. The Xbox Music for iPhone app now allows for offline listening. One of the biggest complaints about Microsoft's Xbox Music app, released for the iPhone in September, was it didn't support offline listening. Microsoft has fixed that with the newest update. Yahoo busted for having employees write App Store reviews of its own apps. BuzzFeed has called Yahoo out for seemingly having its employees review its own apps in the App Store. As evidence, they point to the large percentage of positive reviews that appeared immediately after the launch of Yahoo's new Yahoo News Digest app. The 32-mile long underground Channel Tunnel that runs between England and France will get 3G and LTE service for UK travelers. This is great news for UK-based iPhone owners as previously they would need to subscribe to a French telecom to use their iPhone in the Chunnel.
CalPERS exec criticizes Icahn's plans for Apple stock
One very prominent Apple investor isn't happy with "activist investor" Carl Icahn and his plans to return more money to shareholders. Anne Simpson, head of corporate governance for the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), was interviewed by Bloomberg yesterday and was outright angry with Icahn, saying, "We are uncomfortable with a raider coming into a company with a proposal to disgorge cash. Carl Icahn is a Johnny-come-lately." As of September 30, CalPERS owned 2.4 million shares of Apple worth about US$1.2 billion. Simpson says that CalPERS is happy with Apple's current method of handling cash, returning about $100 billion to shareholders through dividends and stock buybacks. "We like what they're doing. They have a significant program for returning money to shareholders. Carl Icahn is late to the party." Simpson's interview was a sign that the CalPERS fund will fight Icahn's proposal to raise the share price of AAPL by pumping up the stock repurchase plan. That might be a good thing for Apple; Icahn has a reputation for making hostile takeovers of companies, stripping them of assets and then walking away from the resulting chaos with a nice profit. Photo Credit: AP Photo/Shiho Fukada
Daily Update for December 5, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
AAPL hits 52-week high
Perhaps it was the reports of huge volumes of iPads heading out the doors of retailers on Black Friday, or maybe it is Carl Icahn's shareholder proposal that's doing the trick. Whatever the case, shares of AAPL hit a 52-week high today, reaching US$575.14 at one point before retreating slightly. While that's a great feat, the share price still hasn't recovered from the $700-per-share level reached on September 21, 2012. AAPL fell as low as $390 per share in April of 2013, then began a slow, but sure recovery in July. With the new high for the year, the company's market value has now reached a whopping $515 billion, towering over the market cap of energy giant Exxon Mobil at around $412 billion. AAPL is now the world's most valuable publicly traded company again.
