Apple stock opened at $457.70 this morning, down more than 10%, following its financial results on Wednesday. The Cupertino company announced $13.1 billion profit for the first quarter of 2013, a slight increase over the $13.06 billion it posted for the first quarter of 2012. But despite that increase, it’s clear Apple’s phenomenal growth has hit a stumbling block.
Apple’s iPhone continues to beat out Android as the best selling smartphone platform in the US, showing 51.2% of the market for a twelve month period which ended December 23 of 2012. According to the data released by market-analyst Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Android has remained stable in market share since the same period of time in the previous year, at 44.8%, while Windows phone brings up third place at 2.6 percent of smartphone sales sold in that time period.
Verizon has today announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2012, which has been its best yet in terms of subscriber growth. The company added 2.1 million new customers during the three-month period, bringing its total number of subscribers up to 98.2 million, with 58% of those customers using a smartphone.
CNN Money polled 67 separate analysts, 39 pros and 28 indies, on their thoughts about Apple’s upcoming financial report, due on January 23rd. The consensus among them all is that Apple is most likely going to report the best quarter it has ever had. Ever.
A day after AT&T announced its “best-ever” quarter for smartphone sales, rival operator Verizon Wireless is doing exactly the same thing. The carrier has announced that it expects to have reached a record 9.8 million sales during the fourth quarter of 2012, and it’s attributing that success to the popularity of the iPhone.
AT&T has announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2012 this morning, and once again, Apple’s iPhone has been its biggest-selling smartphone. The carrier sold 6.1 million smartphones in total during the three-month period, a whopping 77% of which were iPhones.
The iPhone 5 has been a sell-out since it went on sale on September 21, and it’s still incredibly difficult to get hold of in some markets even a month later. With five million units sold, it’s the fastest-selling iPhone to date, so it’s no surprise one analyst is predicting that iPhone sales could be even better than originally expected.
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.
Verizon announced its financial results for the third-quarter of 2012 today, and it has some impressive figures when it comes to the iPhone. The carrier sold more than 3.1 million iPhones in total during the three-month period, which is around 400,000 more then it sold during the second quarter. 21% of those were the new iPhone 5, according to Verizon, which translates to around 650,000 sales in less than a month.
Sprint announced its financial results for the second quarter of 2012 today, which includes “strong” iPhone sales of 1.5 million units. 40% of these devices went to new customers, but they couldn’t help the carrier get out of the red. It reported a net loss of $1.2 billion over the three-month period, compared to a net loss of $847 million for the same quarter last year.
