51 million iPhones sold in the last quarter, 26 million iPads, and yet share price drops.
“Revenue for the quarter was $57.6 billion, up $3.1 billion, or 6%, from the year ago quarter and near the high end of our guidance range,” says Apple’s Peter Oppenheimer. “No technology company has ever generated that much revenue in a single quarter.” Yet it’s not enough for analysts, who predicted even more sales, and share price dipped after the quarterly report by about 5%.
Apple sold 51 million iPhones in the last quarter, a phenomenal achievement, up from 47.8 million year-on-year. But analysts were expecting 55 million iPhone sales, and even though a record is still a record, people are nervous about Samsung and Apple’s other Android rivals. Sure, sales are up, but where’s future growth coming from? Maybe China, where Apple recently struck a deal with China Mobile, or maybe somewhere else; but the worry is that maybe there isn’t any future growth, and it’s all downhill from here.
The Americas is still Apple’s largest sales segment, but it’s declining; revenue fell 1%, to $20.1 billion. Apple attributes this to supply problems for the 5S, and some carriers changing their upgrade policies, such that customers used to upgrading within a year now were forced to wait a full 24 months. Apple’s hoping this is a short term problem, and points to its successes in the emerging markets as a reason for good cheer.
Source: Guardian, Seeking Alpha
