iPhone sales surge, easing investor concerns

It's a pretty surprising outcome actually, given the fact that it was widely assumed that smartphones were nearing market saturation point, and even Samsung got hammered on smartphone sales numbers in their stock price. It seems like the iPhone is still managing to differentiate itself in the market.
 
Proof of 3 things.

1) the failure of the american Education system

2) Siri cannot do an internet search or the users would have noticed the iPhone 5 is the 5th best phone on the high range market and buying it is a bad idea

3) apple fans are like 1970's Afrikaans people, completely brainwashed by propaganda (before you freak out I am Afrikaans)
 
Baxteen said:
Proof of 3 things.

1) the failure of the american Education system

2) Siri cannot do an internet search or the users would have noticed the iPhone 5 is the 5th best phone on the high range market and buying it is a bad idea

3) apple fans are like 1970's Afrikaans people, completely brainwashed by propaganda (before you freak out I am Afrikaans)
Click to expand...

This post is proof of three things.

1) Irrespective of how educated we think we are, there's no escaping the herd mentality... on both sides.

2) Actual user experience trumps an internet search of comparative specs every time and iPhones hold their value better than most smartphones out there

3) Apple haters gobble up their own propaganda and dispense it more often and rabidly than any apple user I have met. This matter-of-fact world view is almost always backed up by the fact that they have never owned an Apple product... ever (before you freak out I am an Afrikaans Apple fan)
 
greg0205 said:
This post is proof of three things.

1) Irrespective of how educated we think we are, there's no escaping the herd mentality... on both sides.

2) Actual user experience trumps an internet search of comparative specs every time and iPhones hold their value better than most smartphones out there

3) Apple haters gobble up their own propaganda and dispense it more often and rabidly than any apple user I have met. This matter-of-fact world view is almost always backed up by the fact that they have never owned an Apple product... ever (before you freak out I am an Afrikaans Apple fan)
Click to expand...

4) When it comes to Apple people become either rabid vituperative loons or rabid slobbering fanboys :D
 
cerebus said:
4) When it comes to Apple people become either rabid vituperative loons or rabid slobbering fanboys :D
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Not me I enjoy my iphone 5 but can remain subjective about it.

I think a big part in the increased interest in iphones is IOS7,even though it hasn't been announced it has given the ios ecosystem a promise of the proper refresh its been needing for a while now.

I was thinking of letting my iphone 5 go for an s4 but ios 7 has prevented me from doing so,I know several other people who have done this also,and now with the release of bbm for ios and android in September south africans are going to go crazy for iphones and androids!(i bet the other big bb markets will experience the same and android and iphone numbers should get a boost).

I can really see this being the end for blackberry as a smartphones hardware manufacturer,they may remain on as a niche but will no longer be mainstream.Their phones are just lagging too far behind they are one generation back,for example z10 is actually a proper s3 competitor not an s4 competitor.
 
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Have you tried the beta yet? By all accounts it's gotten much more stable with the last release.
 
Just bought myself an iPhone 5.

I'm an isheep I'll admit, I used to hate apple but since my iPad 2, iPad 3 and now iPhone 5 they have grown on me immensely , previous phone was Samsung with base android, most of the features never worked even out the box which got me frustrated after 1hr of use, granted it was a cheap phone.

The iPhone will be my first foray into a premium phone.
I even run Mountain Lion Hackintosh on my laptop , i have the bug, I would even have AppleTV if it was jailbroken.
 
cerebus said:
It's a pretty surprising outcome actually, given the fact that it was widely assumed that smartphones were nearing market saturation point, and even Samsung got hammered on smartphone sales numbers in their stock price. It seems like the iPhone is still managing to differentiate itself in the market.
Click to expand...
I too was really surprised by the the iPhone sales figures... Selling in excess of 30 million units when the mix includes a 3 year handset nearing its EOL. Even the mighty Samsung is staggering to reach those figures with a brand new handset on the market.
falcon786 said:
Not me I enjoy my iphone 5 but can remain subjective about it.

I think a big part in the increased interest in iphones is IOS7,even though it hasn't been announced it has given the ios ecosystem a promise of the proper refresh its been needing for a while now.

I was thinking of letting my iphone 5 go for an s4 but ios 7 has prevented me from doing so,I know several other people who have done this also,and now with the release of bbm for ios and android in September south africans are going to go crazy for iphones and androids!(i bet the other big bb markets will experience the same and android and iphone number should get a boost).

I can really see this being the end for blackberry as a smartphones hardware manufacturer,they may remain on as a niche but will no longer be mainstream.Their phones are just lagging too far behind they are one generation back,for example z10 is actually a proper s3 competitor not an s4 competitor.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I too think that BlackBerry will now be resigned to being a niche player if they soldier on with the hardware business.
 
cerebus said:
Have you tried the beta yet? By all accounts it's gotten much more stable with the last release.
Click to expand...

Nope.I was quite keen, although when I did the research on how to install and found out that some peoples phones died,frequent crashes etc I decided to wait it out for a few months until a proper version is released.
 
cerebus said:
It's a pretty surprising outcome actually, given the fact that it was widely assumed that smartphones were nearing market saturation point, and even Samsung got hammered on smartphone sales numbers in their stock price. It seems like the iPhone is still managing to differentiate itself in the market.
Click to expand...

A lot of analysts were happy because of the high number of iPhone sales. I look at is slightly differently. I think the fact that their profits dropped in spite of hose high sales means that they are being squeezed on margins. Their margins are heading towards normal tech margin levels which is probably going to hurt their share price quite badly in the longer term. Someone posted on CNN money how their profit was the same as Walmart, Ford and General Motors combined. The problem is that so is their net value. As their margins fall, so will their share price. How that affects their allure both to investors and clients will be up in the air because they have been the darling of the industry for a long time. I still believe that they need a Steve Jobs, a thinker. Someone who will give them the next big ticket item. At the moment that is missing and their focus is on minor incremental updates, spec bumps and protecting their market.
 
Abe said:
A lot of analysts were happy because of the high number of iPhone sales. I look at is slightly differently. I think the fact that their profits dropped in spite of hose high sales means that they are being squeezed on margins. Their margins are heading towards normal tech margin levels which is probably going to hurt their share price quite badly in the longer term.
Click to expand...
The fall in profit is due to them bringing out lower cost, lower margin items - primarily the iPad Mini; and probably the older iPhone contracts that don't get them as high a pay-in as the iPhone 5. Being squeezed on margins is inevitable and it's not such a big deal.


Someone posted on CNN money how their profit was the same as Walmart, Ford and General Motors combined. The problem is that so is their net value. As their margins fall, so will their share price. How that affects their allure both to investors and clients will be up in the air because they have been the darling of the industry for a long time. I still believe that they need a Steve Jobs, a thinker. Someone who will give them the next big ticket item. At the moment that is missing and their focus is on minor incremental updates, spec bumps and protecting their market.
Click to expand...

I don't know if their share price will ever rocket again 10fold. It might just be that they stay stable. iPhone and iPad were massively disruptive but they were also somewhat conceptually obvious; and I'm not sure where that next product category could be. iWatch - well - it'll be nice but it sounds like a glorified iPod Nano to me. Still, I think the fact that people are still clearly buying the iPhone in numbers greater than expected, is a fairly good portent.
 
Abe said:
How that affects their allure both to investors and clients will be up in the air because they have been the darling of the industry for a long time.
Click to expand...

Perhaps with consumers but never with Wall Street, as reflected by the P/E ratio compared to their peers.


Abe said:
I still believe that they need a Steve Jobs, a thinker. Someone who will give them the next big ticket item. At the moment that is missing and their focus is on minor incremental updates, spec bumps and protecting their market.
Click to expand...

Apple at the moment is following the same path that they followed under Jobs. People seem to overstate the frequency of disruptive innovation at Apple.
 
icyrus said:
Perhaps with consumers but never with Wall Street, as reflected by the P/E ratio compared to their peers.
Click to expand...

Good point.

Apple at the moment is following the same path that they followed under Jobs. People seem to overstate the frequency of disruptive innovation at Apple.
Click to expand...
And fail to recognise it when it actually arrives. And discount Apple because they think a new category of device is just a tweaked iterative version of an old one.
 
icyrus said:
Perhaps with consumers but never with Wall Street, as reflected by the P/E ratio compared to their peers.
Click to expand...

The thing is that their PE will start dropping or the share price will drop. Investors look for potential when pricing shares. At present, $397 will buy me $6.9 for a quarter. Thats just under 7% return on investment. With their old growth, people were happy to pay a premium on the share price because of the future earnings. Now, without those huge profit margins, investors are just looking at 7% which is relatively low. They would be better off investing the $397 in Ford and getting 8.2% return on their investment. I would hate to see what the returns were what Apple was $700 per share.

So basically, Apple are becoming more like other tech companies with their squeezed margins. That means less value so less interest from the investors. Are people excited about buy MS products? As the lose some allure on the investment side, it's bound to spill over into the consumer side.

Apple at the moment is following the same path that they followed under Jobs. People seem to overstate the frequency of disruptive innovation at Apple.
Click to expand...

Not so, under Jobs, released a number of "special" products. iPod was in 2001 but it only really took off in 2004 when it was opened up to all platforms. iPhone was 2007 and iPad 2010. We are now 3 years on and I don't see anything special in the wings. As the iPod growth was slowing, the iPhone came out boosting sales more, same with the iPad. iPad sales are slowing down now with no new product in the wings. iPhone sales have helped them a bit there but the market is already close to saturation on the top end as can be seen by the better sales of the older products. The new cheaper products will increase revenue but squeeze the margins even more.
 
Abe said:
The thing is, tweaked iterative versions are not that appealing to the consumers.
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Says who? Look at the iPhone 4S... Probably the best selling phone known to man.

Regarding margins... It was inevitable due to OEMS flooding the market with cheaper phones and tablets but looking at it in a one dimensional manner serves no real purpose.

Apple's margins are constricting due to a number of factors.

1. Older phones are still selling well, especially in developing economies.

2. New product lines like the iPad mini which came with new production processes and increased costs. This affected iPhone 5 margins too. (I fully expect to see margins rise a few percentage points again due to product stability in the future). Historically Apple's margins peak during the S release cycle.

3. Even though no new products have been announced for some time, R&D expenses have remained stable.

All these contribute to the constricting margins.

I'm also of the opinion that Apple will drop the 3.5" inch screens when they release the cheaper iPhone. This cheaper product again has the ability to drive margins upwards in the future if priced correctly due to the cheaper component costs and 1 generation behind in breakthrough tech.

I've been toying around with the notion that, due to the cheaper iPhone, Apple will cease to supply older models in the future to drive margins. So what we will have is only 2 iPhones on sale at any given time ie the premium iPhone and the cheaper iPhone with the previous releases EOL'ing.
 
Abe said:
Not so, under Jobs, released a number of "special" products. iPod was in 2001 but it only really took off in 2004 when it was opened up to all platforms. iPhone was 2007 and iPad 2010. We are now 3 years on and I don't see anything special in the wings.
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Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 and Apple do not announce products before they are done.

By your very own examples: 3 products in 14 years and you think you can declare them done, from the outside, after 2? The mind boggles at some of the **** written and said about Apple.
 
Abe said:
I am talking about new products that you can sell to existing customers. What reasons does an iPhone 4S user have to upgrade to an iPhone 5?
Click to expand...

What reason did iPhone 4 owners have to upgrade to the iPhone 4S?

Apple faithful will always upgrade to the latest and greatest and they're walking the earth in droves. People underestimate the allure of Apple and its ecosystem.

Very few companies can get away with iterative releases. Apple is one of them.
 
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