Apr 14

What I love about the press, and the absence of Mac mini numbers

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Apple released it’s latest quarterly earnings report yesterday and it was full of good news. Apple sold more than one million Macs for the second quarter in a row, this quarter’s Mac sales being a 43% increase from the year-ago quarter, and the most Macs Apple has sold in a quarter in four years. Apple’s CPU sales are growing faster than the industry as a whole, which means Apple is gaining (still meaningless) marketshare. A full 62% of Apple’s revenue is generated by Mac sales. iPod sales increased a mind-numbing 558% percent from the year-ago quarter. Education sales are the best they’ve been in five years. Apple’s cash hoard is somewhere near $7.05 billion and the company is in great shape.

And obviously the media has to find some way to piss all over their parade.

Check out this article from Fox News:

Apple Profit Jumps But Outlook Disappoints
Thursday, April 14, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple Computer Inc.’s (AAPL) quarterly profit blew past the most optimistic Wall Street expectations, powered by strong sales, but its revenue forecast for the current quarter was below the more optimistic expectations and the stock fell.

You read that right… the forecast for the current quarter, which isn’t over yet and for which there is no data, was something less than some analysts’ more optimistic expectations, instead of realistic expectations, so Apple is doooooommmmed!, doomed I tell you!

Completely ridiculous. Apple has experienced enormous growth in the past six months or so, and that kind of pace is near impossible to sustain for an extended period of time. When Apple realistically forecasts that things will level off or normalize, when Apple doesn’t meet more optimistic or otherwise irrational expectations set by unnamed analysts, it’s disappointing.

It never ceases to amaze me that, no matter how good the news about any topic, the press goes out of their way to find something negative about it.

As a side note to a theme I’ve kept going on this site, I’d like to note that Apple did not release any numbers for Mac mini sales in the past quarter except to say that combined sales for iMacs, eMacs, and Mac minis doubled from the year-ago quarter. Without hard numbers to tie to the Mac mini, there is no evidence that it has done anything to increase Mac marketshare or the number of Macs in use. In fact, we may never get Mac mini numbers because Apple stated that starting in June, it will no longer break down sales by CPU, only as desktop and notebook sales and respective revenues. Apparently that’s how the rest of the industry does it, and Apple is following suit.

One Response to “What I love about the press, and the absence of Mac mini numbers”

  1. Aaron Adams Says:
    April 14th, 2005 at 11:52 am

    Let me add a few more:

    Apple shares fall on revenue worries
    Sales of iPods didn’t live up to some hefty predictions

    While Apple beat analysts’ estimates, its shares suffered because some analysts expected revenue as high as $3.5 billion.

    Not that the numbers were bad, not that Apple didn’t live up to any estimates, or most estimates, or realistic estimates, it didn’t live up to hefty predictions.

    As expected, the iPod ruled over Apple’s results.

    It did? It was only 31% of revenues. How does that “rule over” the results?

    Enough of that one, how about this one:

    Mac Mini and iPod spur Apple profits

    Booming sales of the trendy iPod music system and its new Mini Macs helped Apple Computer blow away the latest Wall Street profit estimates.

    Huh? There were no Mac mini numbers released. There is no way it can be attributed with helping Apple this past quarter.

    Apple shares initially rose after the earnings report, but then began to slip when the company’s forecast for revenue in the current quarter was largely in line with analysts’ expectations, rather than exceeding them.

    The forecast was in line… how awful for Apple. :eyeroll:

    Here’s one that gets it right:

    Apple nets a 530% jump in earnings

    “You had some folks expecting over six million iPods being sold and that struck me as just a bit ridiculous,” said Michael Sansoterra, analyst and portfolio manager at Principal Global Investors.

    Here’s a tidbit from that article that surprised me:

    Chief executive Steve Jobs said he was “thrilled” with both profit and sales performance. “Apple is firing on all cylinders and we have some incredible new products in the pipeline for the coming year.”

    He also said that some 40 per cent of all Macs sold at its retail stores in the quarter were to customers who did not previously own a Macintosh computer.

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