Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Apple : Gary Marshall: Apple's numbers have a story to tell

Apple : Gary Marshall: Apple's numbers have a story to tell

Gary Marshall: Apple's numbers have a story to tell

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Gary Marshall: Apple's numbers have a story to tell

Anybody who stuck by Apple in its underdog days should be feeling pretty smug today: after yet another record-breaking quarter, Apple now has all the money in the known universe.

Apple's profits now exceed Google's entire revenue, and the world is its oyster.

Tim Cook could commission a helicopter made of cheese, a robot army and a selection of intercontinental ballistic missiles to point at Samsung without making the tiniest dent in Apple's cash mountain, but that's not the most interesting thing about the latest financial results.

What's interesting to me is that once again, reports of Apple's doom have been wildly exaggerated.

For much of the last year, we've heard that Apple's doomed (John Gruber of Daring Fireball fame has been collecting the predictions). 2011 would be the year that everyone dumps the iPhone for other smartphone OSes. 2011 would be the year that rival tablets give the iPad a wedgie. 2011 would be the year that Apple's bubble bursts.

It hasn't burst. And it doesn't look like it's going to. Even if you hate Apple with a passion, it's worth looking at the numbers, because they're not just figures on a balance sheet. They're tea leaves, or runes, or crystal balls.

They're in the money

The numbers are extraordinary. The "disappointing" iPhone 4S drove sales of iPhones to a record high - 37 million in three months - with the 4S far and away the most popular model.

Sales are up 128%, and given that many iPhone 4 owners - me included - are hanging on for iPhone 5 before upgrading, and that Apple has barely begun to sell in huge markets such as China, 2012's numbers are going to be even bigger.

Tablets? 15.4 million iPads, up 111% on the previous year. Whoever's buying Kindle Fires, they aren't buying them instead of Apple tablets. Maybe they're buying them instead of BlackBerry Playbooks, or sheds.

Macs? Up 26%. Even the Apple TV shifted 1.4 million units. The only thing that isn't doing so well is the iPod, which Apple predicted would be replaced by the smartphone.

To do those numbers at any time is incredible. To do it in the middle of a global recession is bordering on the miraculous.

Apple's numbers are telling a story, and the story is that Steve Jobs was right: the post-PC era is here. Whether you're an Apple fan or an Android one, the chances are that more and more of your everyday computing is taking place on a post-PC device - a tablet, or a smartphone.

It's personal computing, but we're doing less of it on PCs.

iTunes Store grossed £77m on Christmas Day

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iTunes Store grossed £77m on Christmas Day

iTunes users spent an incredible $120m (£77m) on music and apps on December 25th.

The company revealed the figure during Tuesday's first fiscal quarter earnings call for 2012 where it announced all-time record iPhone and iPad sales.

The whopping Christmas Day iTunes splurge is probably attributable to the masses of iOS devices and iTunes gift cards handed-out as presents over the festive season.

Apple said that the iTunes Store brought the company $1.7 billion (£1.09bn) in revenue for the quarter and also announced there are now 20 million songs to download.

More good news for Apple

Other noteworthy figures from the record-smashing earnings include news of 85m registered iCloud users, while there have already been 600,000 downloads of the iBooks Author app since last week's announcement.

Also, despite iPod sales falling 21 per cent year-on-year, the company still possesses more than 70 per cent of the MP3 player market.

All-in-all, everything remains spectacularly rosy in the Apple garden in the post-Steve Jobs era.

Apple smashes iPad, iPhone sales records

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Apple smashes iPad, iPhone sales records

Apple's earnings juggernaut has shown no signs of slowing in the post-Steve Jobs era, with the company posting record iPhone and iPad sales.

Cupertino says Q1 2012 was its best quarter ever in terms of revenue, bringing in $46.33 billion (£29.7bn) with profits of $13.06 billion (£8.37bn).

Apple also announced earnings of $13.87 per share, smashing Wall Street estimates of $10.06 out of the park.

However, the biggest story of Tim Cook's first quarter in charge of the company is the all-time record iPhone sales of 37.04 million - up 128 per cent on the corresponding period last year.

iLicense to print money

iPad sales followed suit, up 111 per cent to 15.43 million, while Mac sales were up 26 per cent on last year and totalled 5.2 million.

The only blot on the landscape was another fall for iPod sales as they slipped 21 per cent year-on-year, but still added up to an enviable 15.4 million.

An understandably delighted CEO Tim Cook said: "We're thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs.

"Apple's momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline."

The company announced that it now has $97 billion stockpiled in cash as it closes in on Exxon Mobil as the most valuable company in the world once again.
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