The Apple WWDC shows starts soon. June 11-15 in San Francisco.
The show is sold out.
There are a growing numer of rumors claiming a raft of new products and upgrades. We expect the details of the latest OS – Mountain Lion. Release 12A203j is now with developers.
And we expect the new Mac Book to move to a Retina Display. With Apple’s MacBook Pro line now widely rumored to be gaining ultra high-resolution “Retina” or “HiDPI” displays at next month’s Worldwide Developers Conference, CNET reportsthat such panels are already available in the supply chain and that they carry price premiums of up to $100 over their non-Retina counterparts. But what remains to be seen is whether that price difference will be passed along to consumers or if Apple will find ways to cut costs in other areas in order to maintain its existing price points.
DisplaySearch Senior Analyst Richard Shim says that super high-resolution 13.3-inch and 15.4-inch panels that Apple would be a prime candidate to use are already available from suppliers.
“We’re seeing it at 15.4 (inches),” Shim said in an interview yesterday. “You can get it.”
According to Shim, a Retina 15.4-inch display at 2880×1800 resolution for a density of 220 pixels per inch (ppi) currently costs approximately $160, a $92 increase over Apple’s estimated cost of $68 for the current display in the 15-inch MacBook Pro. In the smaller 13-inch MacBook Pro, a Retina display at 2560×1600 costs $134, a $65 premium over the display used in the current model.
Throughout the 1990′s Microsoft held its ground as the dominant force in personal computer sales. In the late 90′s and leading into the 2000′s, though, Apple (who had been active throughout the same time period, but who were somewhat less successful) came back into power with the device that would come to be known as the iMac.
The iMac came as a breath of fresh air to many computer users; it not only had the same functionality as the average PC but it also had a unique shape and customizable colors. While those things didn’t come into play on a functional level, they did provide consumers with enough incentive to start buying Mac products again and eventually helped Apple rise back into prominence.
More than 10 years later Apple is annually selling almost as many devices (including computers, iPads and iPhones) as cars worldwide. Unsurprisingly, they are also one of the most successful businesses in the world. The sum of their total sales in 2011 was an incredible $128 billion. To put it in perspective, their 2011 sales amounted to more than the GDP of 160 nations worldwide.
Another huge quarter for Apple with record revenue of $39.2B revenue and net profit up a stagering 94%.
For the quarter Apple shipped 5.2 million Macs, 11.8 million iPads and 35.1 million iPhones during the quarter. Analyst consensus was around 4 million, 11 million and 33.5 million, respectively. Number of iOS devices sold to date: 365 million.
For fiscal Q2, Apple reported $39.2 billion revenue and net profits of $11.06 billion, or $12.30 a share. A year ago, the company reported revenue of $24.67 billion and $5.99 billion net quarterly profit, or $6.40 per share.
Net profit rose Y on Y by 94 percent.
Three months ago, Apple forecast $32.5 billion in revenue for fiscal 2012 second quarter, with earnings per share of $8.50. Analyst average estimates were higher than Apple guidance: $36.81 billion revenue and $10.06 earnings per share.
Gross margins rose 6 points year over year to a healthy 47.4 percent. Apple contunues to expand in all teritories and international sales now account for 64 percent of revenue.
Looking ahead to fiscal third quarter, Apple projects $34 billion revenue and $8.68 earnings per share.
Apple ended the quarter with a healthy$110.2 billion in cash, up from 97.6 billion three months earlier.
Q2 2012 Revenue by Product
Desktops: $1.56 billion, up 8 percent from $1.44 billion a year earlier.
Portables: $3.5 billion, down 7 percent from $3.7 billion a year earlier.
iPod: $1.2 billion, down 25 percent from $1.6 billion a year earlier.
Music: $2.51 billion, up 32 percent from $1.6 billion a year earlier.
iPhone: $22.7 billion, up 85 percent from $12.3 billion a year earlier.
iPad: $6.6 billion, up 132 percent from $2.84 billion a year earlier.
Peripherals: $643 million, up 11 percent from $580 million a year earlier.
Software & Services: $832 million, up 12 percent from $743 million a year earlier.
iPhone. Apple shipped 35.1 million iPhones worldwide during fiscal second quarter, up from 18.65 million iPhones a year earlier. That’s an 88 percent increase, year over year. Wall Street analyst average estimate was about 33.5 million units. Apple counts shipments into the channel, typically making them several million units higher than numbers released by Gartner, which measures actual sales.
During the quarter, iPhone 4S was available in 100 countries from 230 carriers. Apple ended the quarter with 8.6 million units in the channel, up 2.4 million sequently for 4 to 6 weeks of inventory.
Recent analyst data bodes well for iPhone. Earlier this month, Nielsen reported a huge surge in the number of new purchasers choosing iPhones compared to Android. For the three months ending in February, 48 percent of Americans who recently bought a smartphone, chose Android — 43 percent iPhone, according to Nielsen. A year earlier, 27 percent of new acquirers chose Android versus 10 percent for iPhone.
comScore reports share for overall market, not new purchasers. During the three months ending in February, Android share was 50.1 percent among smartphone subscribers 13 and older — that’s up 3.2 points. iOS: 30.2 percent, up 5 points year over year and 1.5 points three months earlier. Those numbers are fairly consistent with Nielsen’s: 48 percent for Android and 32 percent for iOS.
But Verizon caused some market panic following news it activated 3.2 million iPhones during first calendar quarter, a 1-millon sequential decrease. I don’t see a problem in that but something else: Quarter on quarter, iPhone dropped from 58 percent to about half of Verizon smartphone sales, based on activations. Android is gaining, no doubt propelled by 4G LTE.
Q2 2012 Unit Shipments by Product
Desktops: 1.2 million units, up 19 percent from 1 million units a year earlier.
Portables: 2.82 million units, up 2 percent from 2.75 million units a year earlier.
iPod: 7.7 million units, down 15 percent from 9.02 million units a year earlier.
iPhone: 35.1 million units, up 88 percent from 18.65 million units a year earlier.
iPad: 11.8 million units, up 151 percent from 4.7 million units a year earlier.
iPad. Apple shipped 11.8 million iPads globally during the quarter — that’s up from 4.7 million — a 151 percent — a year earlier.
Apple ended the quarter with 2 million iPads in the channel, that’s down 300,000 units sequentially, for 4 to 6 weeks in inventory. About a month ago, my daughter said that San Diego School District would buy iPads for 2012-13. Today, during Apple’s earnings conference call, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer says that the school district bought 10,000 iPads during fiscal Q2 and will get another 15,000 this quarter.
“The new iPad is on fire”, Oppenheimer says, adding that Apple is selling as fast as it can make them. Supplies are constrained globally. New iPad is available in 40 countries.
Analysts repeatedly asked about the impact of $399 iPad 2 on overall sales. Apple CEO Tim Cook says that lower pricing definitely appeals to educational buyers and in some geographic markets. However, Apple isn’t yet certain about the final sales mix between iPad 2 and new iPad.
iPad continues to dominate the tablet market, and it’s an increasingly important category. In a report issued yesterday, Forrester Research analyst Frank Gillett proclaims: “Tablets will rule the future personal computing landscape”. He predicts the global install base of tablets will be 760 million by 2016, with 375 million sold just in that year — one third of them to businesses.
He predicts that “tablets will become our primary computing device”.
Q2 2012 Revenue by Geography
Americas: $13.2 billion, up 41 percent from $9.32 billion a year earlier.
Europe: $8.81 billion, up 46 percent from $6.03 billion a year earlier.
Japan: $2.65 billion, up 91 percent from $1.38 billion a year earlier.
Asia Pacific: $10.15 billion, up 114 percent from $4.74 billion a year earlier.
Retail: $4.4 billion, up 38 percent from $3.2 billion a year earlier.
Computers. Mac shipments rose significantly during fiscal second quarter. Apple sold — what company executives really mean by shipped — 4 million Macs during the quarter, up from 3.54 million units during fiscal Q2 2011; growth was 7 percent year over year. Wall Street consensus was about 4.5 million units worldwide.
Apple PC growth easily beats the market at large. Two weeks ago, Gartner and IDC reported dismal global shipments. IDC put year-over-year growth at 2.3 percent, but only 1.9 percent by Gartner’s estimates. The hard drive shortage had nominal impact compared to fourth calendar quarter.
The Mac is big windfall benefactor of the PC shipment/sales crisis, because:
Apple’s brand is sizzling hot right now.
Most people use Windows, which is old to them if upgrading, while the Mac is fresh.
iPad cannibalizes Windows PC sales, as businesses and consumers buy the tablet as upgrade companion or even replacement.
Apple is more insulated from the hard drive shortage, in part because of how it sources components compared to most other computer makers.
“The consumer segment continued to be a drag on market growth, as PC demand was low”, Mikako Kitagawa, Gartner principal analyst, says. “Questions remain on whether low-end systems can attract consumers, as their attention has moved to other devices”. Reiterating previous observations, Gartner again highlighted smartphones and tablets as leaders among those “other devices”.
But those consumer sales problems are specific to the larger industry, and not Apple. In the United States, Apple ranks third. IDC puts market share at 10 percent and Gartner at 10.6 percent.
Q2 2012 Unit Shipments by Geography
Americas: 1.21 million units, flat from 1.21 million units a year earlier.
Europe: 1.05 million units, up 5 percent from 995,000 units a year earlier.
Japan: 158,000 units, up 2 percent from 155,000 units a year earlier.
Asia Pacific: 771,000 units, up 29 percent from 596,000 units a year earlier.
Retail: 826,000 units, up 4 percent from 797,000 units a year earlier.
iPod. Apple shipped 7.7 million iPods during fiscal first quarter, down from 9.02 million a year earlier — a 15 percent decline. iPod touch accounted for more than half of units sold. Apple ended the quarter with 4 to 6 weeks of inventory.
iTunes revenue: $1.9 billion, up 35 percent year over year.
Retail. Revenue was $4.4 billion up 38 percent year over year. Apple retail stores sold 826,000 Macs during the quarter. Apple opened two new stores for 363 worldwide. With average 361 stores open for the quarter, they generated $12.2 million each.
We love the Kickstarter site where new and interesting ventures and products can be funded.
The Pebble is a new product seeking funding to bring the watch to life. They initially requested $100,000 and have blown right past that with close to 25,000 backers raising a total of $3.4 Million (April 18th) with a month to go.
Apple informed the world that it sold more than 3 million iPads during the launch weekend for the latest model iPad tabet.
The tally is a record for opening weekend iPad sales, Cupertino, California-based Apple said in a statement. AT&T said earlier today that it had also set a single-day record for iPad sales when it was made available on March 16. Full story below.
“CUPERTINO, California―March 19, 2012―Apple® today announced it has sold three million of its incredible new iPad®, since its launch on Friday, March 16. The new iPad features a stunning new Retina™ display, Apple’s new A5X chip with quad-core graphics, a 5 megapixel iSight® camera with advanced optics for capturing amazing photos and 1080p HD video, and still delivers the same all-day 10 hour battery life* while remaining amazingly thin and light. iPad Wi-Fi + 4G supports ultrafast 4G LTE networks in the US and Canada, and fast networks around the world including those based on HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA.”
As a comparison Apple sold a record 15.4 million iPads in the fiscal first quarter, which ended Dec. 31.
The new device initially went on sale last Friday in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Switzerland, the U.K., U.S. Virgin Islands and Hong Kong. Next week, on n March 23, it goes on sale in 24 additional countries.
The iPad sales figure is Apple’s second major announcement today. The world’s most valuable company said earlier that it will use some of its $97.6 billion in cash and investments to institute a dividend and stock re-purchase.
Apple are sitting on close to $100 Billion and people have been asking what are they going to do with that pile of cash. The company is generating additional cash at a pretty rapid rate.
The last release in Jan 2012 showed that Apple added $17.5 Billion in the quarter ending Dec 31 2011. A year earlier for the quarter ending Dec 31 2010 Apple generated $9.8 Billion.
The company could announce a stock buy back, a dividend plan, a one off dividend or a decision to do nothing.
Update – Apple’s Tim Cook announced that he will share the love – Over the next 3 years Apple will spend $45 Billion on share buy backs ($10 Billion) and a regular dividend starting at$2.65 / share, starting in the July quarter.
This will be the first Apple dividend in 17 years. The stock closed at just over $600.
Our brand new iPad – the so called iPad 3 just arrived care of a man in a van.
The box looks just the same. The content just as expected – you get a charger and a cable.
The iPad itself is marginally thicker by a couple of mm. The outside edge is slightly different, but it would be hard to tell them apart. The only real difference is the new iPad has a slightly large lens on the reverse of the device.
Once you turn the little beauty on the difference in screen is huge. Not only is the device faster but the screen does look very impressive. It is supper sharp.
The image quality is hard to demonstrate with a simple photo. All these images were captured care of an iPhone 4.
In terms of use it is quicker at general surfing and general responsiveness, but not by much.
The iPad does include a speech to text converter. And it seems to work rather well, far better that we had expected. You press the button and talk and then press it again and the screen shows what you have just said. It works in any application that uses the keyboard. So you can speak a website and display the results. See sort video. Some words work better than others.
China Telecom will be launching the Apple iPhone in China joining China Unicom the iPhone launch carrier.
The volumes of the Chinese mobile market is astounding: China Unycom the 2nd largest carrier has close to 200 million subscribers while China Telecom scrapes by with a mere 129 millions subs. Lets put that in perspective: Verizon has about 100 million mobile subs in the US. While 02 in the UK has 16 million. So the 2nd largest Chinesse carrier is over 10 times the UK largest.
The largest player in China is China Mobile with north of 650 million subscribers. That’s a large number, about 10 times the size of the entire UK population. Apple is in talks with China Mobile to introduce the iPhone on thier network.
Estimates from Morgan Stanly put the number of potential iPhone subscribers in China at about 150 million. The report goas on to say that as the Chineese economy adds to the middle class the nuber of potential sales of iPhones could grow to 60 million per year.
Apple unveiled the latest iPad with a slightly confusing name of the ‘new Ipad” at the long-expected press conference on March 7 in San Francisco. This latest version of the widely popular device offers better graphics with a vastly enhanced screen and camera.
The screen is now super hi def or what Apple call the retina display offering four times more pixels than the iPad 2. The screen is now 2048 by 1536 giving 3.1 million pixels. That’s a huge number and we cant wait to see one in real life.
Of course having huge amounts of pixels is one thing, their spacing is more important and the iPad 3 puts them to work in the same 9.7 inch display as before. Apple claim the new iPad display has a million more pixels that your standard 1920 * 1080 hi def TV box.
To drive all this screen Apple has given the new iPad a new heart – The A5X cpu, providing quad-core capabilities. They do not say much about the processor, as is the standard practice. All the say is that it will power the device for about 10 hours.
The camera has been enhanced to offer the same specs as the iPhone: 5 megapixle with iSight and HD recording capabilities.
The networking features also get a boost with support for what is being called 4G, the best thing since 3G. The providers are still working out the finer details of what 4G should be. The one standard you will hear is LTE that is billed as providing incredibly fast network conection speeds. The max speed is apparantly a whoping 42 Mbps.
What else did we get: Oh yes a minor upgrade to IOS 5 with Siri in additional languages.
Last year the distribution network was swamped with orders and stock was is short supply. This year Apple are releasing units in key countries on March 16 with additional countries followng a week later. That’s a major distribution plan.
And to cap it all the iPad is reduced in price: Now the cheapest iPad is £329 for a base model 2 while the 3 starts at £399.
Apple announces that a Chunli Fu of Qingdao in China is the lucky winner of the $10K iTunes card. The 25,000,000,000 download was Where’s my Water ? A game by Disney.
The show is sold out.
