In the last quarter Apple’s top line grew by 70% and the bottom line by 75%.
For a historical perspective, the following table shows year-on-year growth for products[1] and sales/earnings color coded with an arbitrary scoring range.
Continue reading “Apple's Growth Scorecard: 63% average earnings growth over 16 quarters”
The story of amateur out-performance has been getting more attention lately and that’s a good thing. Success emboldens more amateurs to try their hand at financial analysis. Transparency of methods and data demystifies a practice that is not as complex, and a skill that is not as hard to obtain, as it’s often assumed.
While, quarter after quarter, the gap between the two cohorts is calibrated, what we haven’t heard much of is a defense from the professionals.
That’s a bit strange given the negative impact some of the attention must be having on their reputations. This is why I was glad to see that Adam Satariano’s well-written piece finally got some reactions from the professionals. Continue reading “A new era in financial analysis is dawning”
Professional analysts’ first year iPad unit forecasts (sourced from TMO Finance Board)
The following chart shows the value of Apple’s cash and cash equivalents for end of 2010:
Thanks to a reader for asking this question: “Wouldn’t it be more telling to look at the monthly rate of downloads / device at any given time?”
Yes it would.
Here’s what can be derived based on download rates and installed base of devices.
Continue reading “iOS users download about 5 apps every month”
We believe that we’re on the face of the Earth to make great products, and that’s not changing.
We’re constantly focusing on innovating.
We believe in the simple, not the complex.
We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution.
We believe in saying no to thousands of projects so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us.
We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in a way that others cannot.
And frankly, we don’t settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company, and we have the self-honesty to admit when we’re wrong and the courage to change.
And I think, regardless of who is in what job, those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well.
– Tim Cook, Acting Apple CEO, January 2009 FQ1 2009 Earnings Call
See also: Apple vs. Exxon-Mobil
After reviewing the payments to suppliers, we can look at the store’s revenue generation rate. With the same assumptions, we have the following chart:
We will have to wait for another report to see whether the recent burst of volume from apps is sustained[1], but the trend shows income from apps narrowing the gap to music. Continue reading “How long before apps overtake physical video game content sales?”
The last analysis of the iTunes content store showed amazing acceleration in download rates. Since we know something about the pricing of apps in aggregate, we can make some guesses about the income from apps for both Apple and suppliers.
The key assumptions are:
The first chart shows the accumulated payments made to suppliers of content to the iTunes store over time. Continue reading “iTunes has paid over $2 billion to app developers and $12 billion to record labels”
The iTunes App Store is about to reach 10 billion downloads. That makes this a good time to revisit app growth metrics and compare them with the other digital media store that we have data for: the iTunes Music Store.
First, the download totals as time series[1]:
Continue reading “More than 60 apps have been downloaded for every iOS device sold”
So they don’t really offer strategic advantage to the adopter. Some may end up adding slightly more to a cost structure than others, but not in a way that determines strategy.
Flash on the other hand is not infrastructural. It is not shared, it is not invisible to users, it is a brand, it has a significant business model and market value. It is sustaining to Adobe.
So the argument I’ve heard against Google’s decision is that they are using an infrastructural technology decision (a new video codec) to placate or sustain Adobe Flash, at the expense of Apple, a potential or perceived rival.
If this was the plan, it would be a strategic mistake. Continue reading “What Google can learn from John Sculley: How technology companies fail by placing their strategy burden on technology decisions”
