On this week's all-new AppleInsider podcast, we discuss Apple's earnings call, Neil reveals how he feels about Wall Street analysts, Victor endorses the Mac App Store, and Mikey tells all about the good and bad of the Coin connected credit card.
AppleInsider staff members Mikey Campbell, Neil Hughes, and Victor Marks discuss the top stories:
- Apple's record June quarter earnings
- Apple Watch sales speculation on Wall Street
- The 'iPhone 6s' rear case may feature stronger construction
- New iOS 9 beta impressions
- Mikey's first impressions with the Coin connected credit card
The show is available on iTunes and your favorite podcast apps by searching for "AppleInsider." Click here to listen, subscribe, and don't forget to rate our show.
You can also listen to it embedded via SoundCloud below:
Show note links:
- Market watchers see buying opportunity as Apple shares slide after June quarter miss
- At 97%, Apple Watch customer satisfaction outpaces original iPhone, iPad - report
- Wall Street seems to prefer Kremlinology over factual analysis when it comes to the Apple Watch
- Gold rear shell purportedly for Apple's 'iPhone 6s Plus' said to feature stronger construction
- Apple releases second public betas of iOS 9, OS X 10.11 El Capitan
- First look: Coin 'smart' iOS-connected credit card
Follow our hosts on Twitter: @mikeycampbell81, @thisisneil and @vmarks.
We'd appreciate your feedback and comments, as well as any questions that we can answer on future episodes. Send your responses to the AppleInsider podcast at news@appleinsider.com and follow or tweet at us @appleinsider.
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8 Comments
This podcast was an interesting and intelligent conversation, but I would like to point out one thing: We heard that Apple used to "grossly underestimate" their guidance, and that it was a "running joke on Wall Street," and that they now have "more realistic guidance." Actually, what happened was this: Apple used to give "conservative guidance," which doesn't just mean "low" -- it means that, "this is the highest number we feel very confident we won't land below." So if Apple gave conservative guidance of 20 million iPhones for next quarter, that meant, "we're very confident we won't sell less than 20 million iPhones. Maybe we'll sell a little more than that, maybe a lot more than that, but definitely not less than that." And of course, when the actual number came in, it was higher than 20. This seems pretty clear to me, but somehow a meme started up, repeated even by pro-Apple commentators, that Apple was purposely estimating low to make their actual results look good. To counter this meme, Apple changed to a two-number system, where they now say something like, "we think iPhone sales will be between 20 million and 30 million." So they're still giving the same guidance they were before (20), but now accompanied by a high number (30) that they feel confident they won't exceed.
The problem with the Higher Number will be that the so called Analyists on Wall St will take the higher number as the minimum number that Apple will sell and if (using the 20-30 Million in your example) Apple sell 25 Million they will sell off Apple stock in a flash because they didn't make the higher number.
It seems that whatever Tim Cook and his team do, there are enough crystal ball gazers in NYC thinking that apple is doomed so they short sell the stock at the end of each quarter.
Strange that other hi-tech stocks behave exactly the opposite.
It might be time to think about taking the company private (like Dell). Then these sharks will have to find another stock to hate.
Apple makes $11B in one quarter and the stock sells off 5%. Amazon posts a piddly $92M profit and the stock soars 20%. Amazon's market cap is now close to overtaking Facebook's. Yeah yeah I know you can't compare Apple and Amazon but it is nuts. Amazon stock is up nearly 100% YTD. Here's something with Apple I don't understand. For FY 2015 they will probably report $230B in revenues. Based on their latest 10Q filing for the first 9 months of the fiscal year revenues increased almost 30%, net income 36% and EPS 44%. A $200+B company growing their top line 30% is mind blowing. But yet it's not rewarded. All we heard from Wall Street clowns over 2013-2014 was the "law of large numbers" and how it will be too difficult for Apple to have meaningful growth because of its size. Yet Apple is doing just that. So basically Apple is being penalized for things Wall Street thinks it won't be able to do in the future even though recent history doesn't back that up. Apple is selling more phones than ever even though they don't have a budget model and the Wizards of Smart all said the premium smartphone market was saturated and Apple was doomed if it didn't go downmarket. Will Wall Street ever not have the mentality that Apple is one mediocre iPhone away from having to close up shop?
Personally, I think Apple should stop providing any guidance quarter to quarter. They get absolutely no benefit from doing so and they are not legally obligated to provide such guidance.
[quote name="SpamSandwich" url="/t/187349/appleinsider-podcast-talks-earnings-future-of-iphone-ios-9-betas-coin-credit-card#post_2752224"]Personally, I think Apple should stop providing any guidance quarter to quarter. They get absolutely no benefit from doing so and they are not legally obligated to provide such guidance.[/quote] I'm not sure how that would make things better. Wall Street would come up with even more outrageous estimates that would be impossible for Apple to beat. That's what happened this quarter.