Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 371 posts

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#101

Post by bertil »

Cookingboy wrote: post #34
ykl wrote: 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…

Even their profit is enough for 3 Nimitz class super carriers. Then they can REALLY sink their competitions ;)

Their competition is Samsung. Something tells me the whole large ships argument is lost on Korean chaebols.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#102

Post by sokoloff »

downandout wrote: post #86
ykl wrote: 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…

Picture it this way: Net income of $18 billion over 12 weeks. That's $1.5 billion in net profit per week . $214 million per day. Absolutely mind blowing.

13 weeks

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#103

Post by jen729w »

akrymski wrote: post #91

Having bought the iPhone 6, I have to say I miss the size of iPhone 5, being able to use it with one hand, being less slippery, and the sturdy design. Many months passed by and I still miss it - this has never happened before. I won't be buying the Apple Watch because I have a real watch. And I simply don't see the point in having a watch that does a fraction of what my phone already does. I have just bought some PUT…

Ah, things were better back in my day! The kids now, they don't know what they've got. GET OFF MY LAWN! ;-)

But seriously. I sometimes find myself slipping in to this sort of mindset; I sometimes even long for my iPhone 5 for exactly the same reasons as you. But this is the inexorable march of progress, right? As if the iPhone 6 we have today is the pinnacle of smartphone design. We'll look back in ten years -- twenty years, fifty years -- when our phones are vanishingly thin, when we lick them and stick them to our arms, or when they just are our arms, and -- no offence -- your comment will look a little ridiculous.

And this is why Apple does what it does; it must be at the forefront, it must be the one at the bleeding edge. If it isn't, it dies.

And if it isn't, well, how boring would everything be if the iPhone 6 was "the end". That future sounds really boring.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#104

Post by Gustomaximus »

akrymski wrote: post #91

Having bought the iPhone 6, I have to say I miss the size of iPhone 5, being able to use it with one hand, being less slippery, and the sturdy design. Many months passed by and I still miss it - this has never happened before. I won't be buying the Apple Watch because I have a real watch. And I simply don't see the point in having a watch that does a fraction of what my phone already does. I have just bought some PUT…

> nor do I see another product category being as big as the truly personal computer that is the smartphone

I think these sectors will merge with solutions like Ubuntu Touch (though probably a MS/iOS/android version) creating a bigger smartphone sector but smaller overall combined sector.

Also re: apple sales growth, they just have to maintain market-share as the developing world becomes wealthier the volume growth is there. The big risk is margin. As the $200 almost flagship phones proliferate its increasing difficult to justify spending $800 on a phone. At some point Apple will have to take a smaller premium.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#105

Post by wvenable »

deeviant wrote: post #77
wvenable wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think many would agree with me when I say, Windows 8 was at least part, if not the biggest part of the problem . Nobody wants to relearn a UI just because MS wants to create a bridge into windows phone. The fact is the UI changes did not serve the average MS user, but served Mircrosoft's business ambitions. Any feature that I care about in Windows 8(faster boot, better monitor support, and ah I don't even know of a…

> Windows 8 was at least part, if not the biggest part of the problem.

Yes I agree. But ultimately the OEM's produced a bunch of touch-screen laptops and needed an OS to make use of them. Windows 8 fit the bill.

My father-in-law actually resorted to running programs from the Program Files folder because he couldn't figure out the start menu!

> Windows PC hardware is fine, drivers are more difficult because there is so much more Win PC hardware out there, but in general I have very little difficulty supporting a multitude of windows hardware/drivers.

PC laptops are 95% crap. They have low-res screens, poor batteries, low memory, etc. It actually took me a long time to just find a laptop with decent specs at a good price in store and it was an Asus Zenbook Prime.

That HN topic about the trackpad driver was actually started because of a post I made here -- that exact issue was what I had with my laptop! I also had serious issues with the Intel wireless drivers causing blue screens (seems to be fixed now). The problem is the platform owner, Microsoft, isn't responsible for quality control. And even when they are, like with the Surface tablets, driver issues and problems still crop up.

So you have mostly cheap hardware, mostly cheap driver software, and Windows 8. No wonder the PC market isn't doing so well.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#106

Post by acchow »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #3
Cookingboy wrote: post #2

This is pretty insane, I think $18 billion in quarterly profit is the largest ever for any corporations. Also the revenue from iPhone business alone now exceeds Microsoft and Google combined.

Yep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_corporate_profi...

This list is weird. How did Fannie Mae hit the top list annually in 2013 with $84bn but not have a single quarter with at least $21bn (=84/4) that year?

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#107

Post by robryan »

femto wrote: post #93

Does the "tax rate of 26.3 percent" mentioned refer to how much tax Apple actually paid, or its notional tax rate? For example, here in Australia, Apple had $6 billion revenue and paid $80 million tax. Assuming the margins are at least as good as the US, the profit would be $2.4 billion, so Apple's actual tax rate in Australia is 3.4%. Compare that with the theoretical Australian corporate tax rate of 30%, which woul…

It would be actually paid tax. They can externalise a lot of the tax from Australia but have to be paying it somewhere. For instance if they are selling itunes/ app store content via Ireland or another lower tax nation they will still have to pay tax there.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#108

Post by beezle »

fidotron wrote: 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…

I don't think one can by any stretch attribute Apple laptops for the sales of iPhones. Apple is 90% a phone company.

As to Macs, while their share has bumped up in recent years, its really just at the top of the historical range going back to the late 80s. (this of course depends what metric you look at and from whom but 7 to 13% seems to be the range). Can't count how many times I heard in the 2008 time frame that OSX/Apple would dominate all in the pc world in short order. Still waiting.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#109

Post by robryan »

Fomite wrote: post #89
kryptiskt wrote: post #85

The best part of the report is that iPad sales are plunging. It's a victory for general purpose computing that that segment of the walled garden is in decline. Let's hope that open systems can gain a toehold in phones sometime too.

It's entirely possible it's not "in decline" but has merely hit saturation.

Anecdotally it seems like ipads have a longer lifespan than a phone as well. Those with an ipad 1 will probably have to upgrade and those with a 2 might want to for the retina display.

The 3 though have been out for nearly 3 years and is still fine. Whereas someone who bought a phone at the same time may have already upgraded.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#110

Post by mchanson »

ykl wrote: 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…

More than 1% of the population of Earth bought an iPhone last quarter.

7.125 billion people 74.5 million iphones

74,500,000 / 7,125,000,000 = 1.05%

Post reply on HN