Research archive for AAPL

Apple reported earnings of which my colleague Paul covered in detail here. The stock closed up over 4.5% on the following trading day, adding the market value of Dell in just one trading session. Why Dell? Well according to Prof. Scott Galloway, my hero, 15 years ago at Davos, Michael Dell (basically a father figure to me) said that Apple should be sold for scrap, oops!

Apple released its quarterly profit date update last night, after the market close. This was the one that I had been waiting for, as I explained earlier this month. I was eager to see how Apple's lower number of shares in issue (as a result of aggressive share buybacks) would affect earnings per share and the company rating. I was not disappointed!

Yesterday at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced the all-new redesigned retro, cheese-grater inspired Mac Pro. The 2019 professional computer boasts high processing power, which comes at a high price of only $5 999.

Apple is our second most widely held stock in Vestact portfolios in New York, so it's worth checking in on it often. It's an interesting investment, because it's one of the world's most valuable companies by market capitalisation, and it is also absurdly cheap.

The US top court has decided against Apple and is allowing an antitrust lawsuit to move forward. This refers to the class action lawsuit which argues that Apple has too much control over what apps are available for purchase in their App Store, and how much consumers must pay for the products.

Apple reported its second-quarter earnings on Tuesday after-market and the shares surged 7% in after-hours trade. All thanks to the continued success of the company's service business, and the ultra-profitable iPhone. From the left field, out of the ashes emerged a big surprise from the iPad showing some growth too!

Talk of an Apple streaming service with paid for content has been doing the rounds for a while now. Even from the company itself. Last night the details became official when Apple TV Plus was launched. They will be spending around $2bn a year creating content with the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg. Still a far cry from Netflix's $15bn annual spend but it is a start. This will all be accessed through the Apple TV app.

Apple has another hit on its hands, or perhaps one should say, in its ears. AirPods have become the second best-selling Apple product out of the gate of all time. Apple has huge capability in the wearables category. Look at this chart of cumulative sales after launch. Read the full blog post here.

Last week it was announced that Apple and Goldman Sachs have joined forces to issue a credit card that pairs up with your iPhone.

According to Bloomberg, Apple's iPhone shipments to China plummeted 20% in the last quarter of 2018 - - and its loss was Huawei's gain. China's own local smartphone market shrank by 9.7% in the same quarter, leading to Apple's shipment dropping twice as much.

I read a report yesterday that suggested that Google was responsible for at least 23% of Apple's services revenue. How you may ask, Google and Apple are huge rivals in the mobile space?

Last night Apple, formerly the worlds biggest company, reported its Q1 numbers. This will be the first time in over a decade where the holiday season didn't see sales growth. Total sales dropped 5% from $88 billion to $84 billion. Roughly speaking Apple sells $1 billion worth of products every day! Thanks to Apple deploying some of their huge cash pile in buying back shares, 377 067 to be exact or 7% of the company, EPS is at a record high.

The share price of Apple has pulled back sharply in recent months, so we are watching it closely. The all-time high was $232 per share on 3 October 2018. It got as low as $142 over the Christmas period, but has since rallied to last night's close of $153.31. As we mentioned earlier this week, sales of the new models of iPhones have been a little disappointing, especially in China.

Apple closed nearly 10% lower after a sales warning last week. Tim Cook, in an announcement, said that the slowdown in China is affecting sales revenues for the iPhone. It's one of our single largest holdings in offshore portfolios, so we were upset.

Apple is reported to be experimenting with new pricing models for the iPhone in order to attract more customers. The company is exploring trade-in offers to existing customers that will help reduce the price of the iPhone XR to $449. Internally the project is dubbed 'Fire Drill'.