This time around on CultCast: why we need $150,000$230,000 $500,000 for coffee with Tim Cook; Mr. Cook talks iPhone with a 5-inch screen; and with mobile products like the iPad taking over, could Apple eventually stop selling Macs? Plus, we’re finally getting a new Xbox console; the next iOS and OS X at WWDC; and the current Apple hardware drought needs to end!
All that and more on this week’s CultCast. Stream or download new and past episodes on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing now on iTunes, or hit play below and let the good times roll.
Apple has just announced the numbers for a quarter that most on Wall Street have declared to be doom. Apple has comfortably beat Street estimates, but still posted their first decline in year-over-year profit margins since 2008. What does it mean?
To help you make sense of Cupertino’s business this quarter, here’s a breakdown in easy-to-read chart form of everything from the growth of Apple’s revenues, profit and profit margins, to the rise and fall of Cupertino’s various product empires.
We even have a comparison of how Apple did this quarter compared to how Wall Street prediced Apple would do.
We can talk all day about whether or not Wall Street is made up of a gibbering bunch of mad men based upon their recent decision to start selling off Apple shares in droves after hearing that Apple had just reported another record quarter. Some think that’s proof of stupidity or a conspiracy; some think that Wall Street just buys against future growth, and Apple has peaked; and some just think that Wall Street doesn’t think tech stocks can last.
Whatever the rationale for Wall Street’s panic, this chart puts it in perspective: Apple’s “disappointing” quarter was still more profitable than the profits recorded by even other super-profitable companies. Really makes the sell-off look stupid, doesn’t it? If Wall Street isn’t abandoning Exxon in droves, they shouldn’t be abandoning Apple.
Apple submitted its annual 10-K report with the SEC today, which summarizes the company’s growth over the last year. Reading the report shows an amazing amount of growth for the Cupertino-based company across all areas of its business: retail, research and development, and square footage it owns.
As a publicly traded company, Apple submits its financial reports every quarter to let their investors know how well the company is doing. However, Apple is under no obligation to share specific financial results about each of the individual products it sells, data that it is still trying to protect via the court in the Apple v Samsung case in Northern California.
However, rabid interest in the specifics continues unabated. In a survey reported today, CNN Money asked 61 Apple analysts, 31 from Wall Street and 30 independent analysts, what their estimates were for specific device sales in the quarter that just ended on September 29, 2012. Turns out, the analysts estimates were all over the place when it came to predicting the number of iPads sold.
According to a report by ABI Research, Apple and Samsung have 50 percent of the smartphone market, and 90 percent of the global profits from that market. These top two companies dominate the smartphone industry so thoroughly, claims the research firm, that there is no one even close to becoming a third player.
“At this point in the year, Nokia will have to grow its Windows Phone business 5000 percent in 2012 just to offset its declines in Symbian shipments,” Michael Morgan, senior analyst for devices, applications & content at ABI, said in a statement.
![Apple Sells 35 Million iPhones In First Quarter, Shares 50 Percent of Global Market With Samsung [Report]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Samsung-Galaxy-S2-vs-iPhone-4-apple.jpg)
