Research archive for AAPL

The chart below shows the 12 most valuable companies in the world, ranked by their market capitalisation. Which ones do you own in your portfolio? If you are a Vestact client, you most probably own 8 of them, or perhaps 9. If you've been a client for many years, you've owned them since before they were on this list.

Apple reported earnings on Thursday that surpassed Wall Street forecasts with a 5% revenue increase. Despite the strong performance, Apple shares remained flat in after-hours trading and only closed 0.7% higher on Friday.

Apple and Google have a good working relationship. For example, Google pays Apple around $20 billion a year to be the default search engine on Apple devices. In return, Apple uses Google Cloud for all of its online storage.

In Ben Evan's latest newsletter, he lays down some criteria for what he believes will make generative AI and ChatGPT work. Firstly, the software needs to be embedded in a system that has lots of information about the user. Social networks, search engines and mobile operating systems all tick that box.

On Monday Apple released a range of new products, including the much anticipated Apple Intelligence (AI). The new upgrades are coming to iPhones, Macs and iPads in the second half of this year. Apple Intelligence will be powered by generative AI, giving Siri a massive upgrade, and if Siri can't assist you, free access to ChatGPT will.

Of the tech titans, Apple stands out as the one that isn't really generating much excitement around AI. Microsoft, Google, Meta and Amazon are all regularly launching new and more powerful AI tools, but not Apple.

Before Apple's quarterly results for the period to end-March came out on Thursday last week, the market's expectations were low. There were dire reports of smartphone market share losses in China, to cheaper local brands like Huawei. The consensus was that iPhone sales were going to be muted.

In the first quarter of 2024, Samsung snagged the top spot of smartphones sold with over 60 million devices shipped, boosted by its Galaxy S24 series launch.

Apple has been taking some heat recently from regulators in Europe and the US. The most recent allegation has come from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) who have filed a civil lawsuit against Apple suggesting that they have monopolised the smartphone market by discouraging any innovation that threatens their own business. This has resulted in less choice for consumers, slow competition and increased consumer costs.

On Thursday evening, Apple reported its earnings for the festive season quarter. The tech behemoth had revenue and profits that were higher than the street was expecting, posting sales of $120 billion for the quarter, a growth of 2.1% over a year earlier. The share price was little moved.

Apple is working to remove the blood-oxygen sensors from its latest watches, including the Series 9 and Ultra 2, because of an ongoing patent dispute with medical technology company Masimo.

Last quarter, Apple's services business reached an all-time revenue high of $22.3 billion. That's more than twice the size of Netflix's sales. More importantly, services accounted for 40% of Apple's gross profit despite being only 25% of the group's revenues.

In this digital age, the quality of your pictures is very high up on the priority list. I've just got myself an iPhone 15 Pro and I can confirm that the image quality is fantastic.

Late last week, Apple reported record quarterly revenues from iPhone sales, and an all-time revenue record for its services business. This helped the company beat analyst expectations, and the stock price has risen by 6% this month.

Apple has long sought to break into the healthcare industry. This article on Bloomberg by Mark Gurman is titled Inside Apple's decade-long challenge to reinvent health care.