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Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

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61–70 of 371 posts

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#61
post #46

Remember, Apple needs to target the low end to succeed in China. They need to put out the crappiest, cheapest phone they possibly can otherwise Samsung and Xiaomi will eat their lunch. Edit: Obvious sarcasm is apparently not obvious enough.

Do you see these numbers? Why would Apple care about low-end, low margin sales in China?

[deleted]

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#62
post #56

Remember, Apple needs to target the low end to succeed in China. They need to put out the crappiest, cheapest phone they possibly can otherwise Samsung and Xiaomi will eat their lunch. Edit: Obvious sarcasm is apparently not obvious enough.

Apple doesn't need to target the low end. They seem to be doing just fine, making the largest quarterly profit in history by not indulging in a race to bottom in search of market share.

[deleted]

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#63
post #6

Truly phenomenal. But then when no one else is making decent laptops this is what happens. If anything the gap has grown thanks to Windows 8. I'm not a fan of Yosemite by any stretch, but it is very much the least bad of the available options. And on mobile, iOS is very clearly in for the long haul now. There was a time a couple of years ago when Android looked like it might gain enough momentum to sweep them away, b…

More than Windows sucking, the OEM laptop industry has largely fumbled hardware. For a while it looked like Dell and/or Samsung might actually give Apple a run for its money in terms of design and quality, but that fell flat on its face. I'm a pretty biased sample, but honestly I know more people running non-OSX on Apple laptops than I know people running non-OSX on non-Apple laptops. Apple's laptops beat the rest of…

It's a big branding issue as well.

I know Apple makes two laptops: MBAs and MBPs.

I don't know what all laptops Dell or Lenovo make. I don't know if they have ultrabooks, and if they do, what are their names.

When I buy a new Windows laptop, I sort by specs, not brand. I avoid a few brands (HP, Acer), but as long as I get good enough specs at a good enough price, I'll buy anything.

I don't care about specific models/brands in Dell, Samsung or Lenovo because I don't even know if they exist, and if they do, why I should give a crap about them.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#64
post #19

It shows that margin on Apple products is too high. This leaves plenty of room for some company to come into the market and steal their customers. That it hasn't happened shows the strength of Apple. They make products people will pay premium for.

In other words, Apple is a successful business. People have been making that same statement for a long time and nobody has been able to do what you are suggesting.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#65
post #6

Truly phenomenal. But then when no one else is making decent laptops this is what happens. If anything the gap has grown thanks to Windows 8. I'm not a fan of Yosemite by any stretch, but it is very much the least bad of the available options. And on mobile, iOS is very clearly in for the long haul now. There was a time a couple of years ago when Android looked like it might gain enough momentum to sweep them away, b…

Windows 8 is not the problem; it's the terrible PC hardware. Even when the hardware is good, manufacturers still screw up when it comes to drivers like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8546702

Most laptops are so low-end. Finding one that's decent is tough.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#66
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that getting away with building a huge navy would be the hard part.

Korea will be happy to supply the steel bits, the rest is going to be a lot harder. Brings the snowcrash world a little closer though. Apple vs Microsoft round #3 would be interesting.

Perhaps even Samsung Heavy Industries, until Apple gets around to vertically integrating that part of its supply chain.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#67
post #9

Sometimes just to wrap my head around really large numbers like this, I like to put things in units of aircraft carriers. The US Navy's last finished carrier cost $6.2 billion[1], meaning that $74.6 billion[2] is enough to buy Apple 12 nuclear carriers, a.k.a. a nuclear carrier fleet larger than that of the US Navy. Of course this is an inaccurate and very silly comparison[3], but at least for me it does give some se…

It is very impressive when compared to the $9 billion budget of the LHC [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider#Cost

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#68
post #9

Sometimes just to wrap my head around really large numbers like this, I like to put things in units of aircraft carriers. The US Navy's last finished carrier cost $6.2 billion[1], meaning that $74.6 billion[2] is enough to buy Apple 12 nuclear carriers, a.k.a. a nuclear carrier fleet larger than that of the US Navy. Of course this is an inaccurate and very silly comparison[3], but at least for me it does give some se…

Buying aircraft carriers is the easy part. Maintaining and staffing them is the hard part but it's a nice unit to use right next to libraries of congress and stationwagons full of tapes.

Ah, but you forget. An apple super carrier would be extremely user friendly. It could probably be crewed with 10 hipsters and a few Apple geniuses.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#69
post #54
post #9

Sometimes just to wrap my head around really large numbers like this, I like to put things in units of aircraft carriers. The US Navy's last finished carrier cost $6.2 billion[1], meaning that $74.6 billion[2] is enough to buy Apple 12 nuclear carriers, a.k.a. a nuclear carrier fleet larger than that of the US Navy. Of course this is an inaccurate and very silly comparison[3], but at least for me it does give some se…

"Sometimes just to wrap my head around really large numbers like this..." Personally I like to divide profits and revenues by the number of employees. They have 98 000 employees so they generated revenues of $761 000 and net profits of $184 000 per employee in Q4 2014. Think about this: if you work for Apple, on average you helped the company generate $0.76 million dollars in sales in the last 3 months. Edit: @smackf…

It's a weird metric, because 1 guy at Apple can hire a firm of 100,000 employees at FoxConn in China to do the actual work for Apple. If those employees instead worked for Apple directly, the end result would be the same but the amount per employee would be far less.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#70
post #6

Truly phenomenal. But then when no one else is making decent laptops this is what happens. If anything the gap has grown thanks to Windows 8. I'm not a fan of Yosemite by any stretch, but it is very much the least bad of the available options. And on mobile, iOS is very clearly in for the long haul now. There was a time a couple of years ago when Android looked like it might gain enough momentum to sweep them away, b…

Google's lack of oversight in the Play store (which is actually a core philosophy) is really holding back Android. There are countless really, really crappy apps and clones crowding the app store. Plus, since most people pirate, developers can't make money (Monument Valley saw around 95% piracy rate and just $250k in revenue from Android, vs. $5.5M from iOS). This sunk Windows Mobile, which I still believe has the be…

Do you know where we might read more about those Monument Valley numbers? That's an interesting statistic.
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