DailyTech - Apple Earnings Worry Investors; Stock Falls 10 Percent

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Gadgets Apple Earnings Worry Investors; Stock Falls 10 Percent
Tiffany Kaiser - January 23, 2013 7:06 PM

94 comment(s) - last by Argon18.. on Jan 28 at 1:27 PM

(Source: Goodfon)

Apple's profit is flat due to higher manufacturing costs

While Apple managed to surpass analysts' profit forecasts for the fiscal 2013 first quarter, the company's stock took a tumble as investors worry over Apple's ability to maintain steady growth with new products.

Apple reported a revenue of $54.5 billion for the quarter ended December 29, 2012, compared to $46.33 billion in the year-ago quarter. The tech giant just missed analyst expectations of $54.73 billion.

Apple also earned a net profit of $13.1 billion ($13.81 a share) compared to $13.1 billion ($13.87 a share) a year ago. Profit clearly remained pretty flat, but it exceeded analysts' expectations of $13.44 a share.

The iDevice maker also noted that it had record iPhone sales for the quarter at 47.8 million (compared to 37 million in the year-ago quarter). It also had an uptick in iPad sales, from 15.4 million in the year ago quarter to 22.9 million in the most recent quarter.

“We’re thrilled with record revenue of over $54 billion and sales of over 75 million iOS devices in a single quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’re very confident in our product pipeline as we continue to focus on innovation and making the best products in the world.”

While Apple did okay for the quarter, investors are concerned with the company's flat profit due to higher manufacturing costs and also worry whether Apple can keep up its momentum with product popularity. Many new devices are hitting the market at lower prices and offer newer, better features. For instance, the iPad's market share was bested by Google's Nexus 7 tablet in Japan mainly due to cost differences.

Apple's stock has lost nearly 25 percent of its value since September 2012 ($170 billion in market value).

In after-hours trading today, Apple's stock fell over 10 percent.

Looking forward to fiscal 2013 second quarter, Apple expects a revenue of between $41 billion and $43 billion.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Apple had cut iPhone screen and component orders by 50 percent for the first quarter of 2013.

Source: Apple

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RE: Flat

By Mint on 1/24/2013 4:25:45 AM , Rating: 2

That kins of growth was probably expected when people were buying its stock at $700+/share, but at $500/share the lack of huge growth was accepted as reality.

I think this latest drop is due to the drop in margins. That's the whole reason that Apple is worth many times as much as companies who produce similar volumes. Unless you have a huge edge in IP or technology that is difficult to copy, it's very hard to sustain such high margins.

I'm just angry that I set my price to short APPL at $730. At $700 I was looking at put options and thought I'd wait just a little longer, since everyone was talking about $1000/share and I was sure it would get there. I even made my intentions to short APPL clear here on DT. Unfortunately I didn't act...

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