Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#61

Post by brisance » Wed, May 02, 2018, 1:56 AM UTC

ksec wrote: post #37

chollida1 wrote: post #4

My notes: Numbers: - Q Rev. $51.5B to $53.5B, Est. $51.4B - Q2 2018 revenue of $61 billion, equaling analyst's estimates. That's 16 percent growth from a year ago. It's the fastest year over year expansion since 2015 - Apple sold 52 million iPhones in the second quarter, compared to 50.1 million units in the year-ago quarter. This represents year-over-year 3 percent unit growth and 14 revenue growth - services revenu…

>Q2 2015: 61.2 million Worth pointing out 2015 was the last super cycle, which was the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones during the first quarter of fiscal 2015 year. So in terms of unit in two Quarter combined, 2015 still sold more unit. Personally i am not too happy with China's growth.

Q2 2015 was an anomaly and Cook even said so at that time.

They still got more profit from selling fewer units due to highe ASP.

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#62

Post by veidr » Wed, May 02, 2018, 2:03 AM UTC

hw wrote: post #21

diminish wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why were you disappointed? Imho a traumatic unit sales drop was feared due to some supplier numbers but it didn't happen. What were you expecting?

Well, iPhone sales have been pretty stagnant. The new iPhones Apple rolls out every year isn't exactly revolutionary. Not sure how long they can keep this up and expect people to buy new phones every cycle or every 2 cycle. The X was disappointing, given the hype, and I'd be interested to see the X sales numbers. The Macbook Pro line is also suffering some hardware issues - keyboard, batteries, touchpad. The touch ba…

Do you have an iPhone X? I'm not a big fan of Apple; I've been rooting for Android for years, and I carry two phones: a Google phone and an Apple phone.

IMO the iPhone X opened up the widest lead for iPhone there's ever been (and for work reasons I have had every generation of iPhone, and a recent high-end Android phone, usually Google's Nexus then Pixel models).

When I use the fingerprint sensor on my Pixel 2 XL, I feel like a caveman rubbing sticks together trying to make a fire. The face recognition Apple did is absolutely a huge, huge upgrade. I want that on all my devices including computers and doors.

When I see them side by side on my desk in their angled charging docks, the iPhone X screen is so much better than the Pixel 2 XL, it is hard to believe they are both using the same fundamental OLED display technology.

When I compare the precision-machined metal and awesome balanced hand-feel of the iPhone X with the plasticky cheap crap feel of the Pixel 2 XL, I wonder if Google even knows what a nice tool is supposed to feel like.

When start to use my iPhone X to ask Siri something verbally, I... go like Wait, what the fuck am I doing?? and reach into the other pocket and pull out the Google phone.

What I am trying to say, though, is that even coming from all the previous iPhones, the iPhone X is a fantastic upgrade, it feels to me like the biggest advance over the previous generation that iPhone has ever seen. The software still kind of sucks, as it has since iOS 7, but in terms of the device, I don't think it is disappointing at all when compared to any/all devices that have ever existed.

Only perhaps when compared to people's imaginary ideas of what the cutting-edge next-gen iPhone might be, could it really disappoint.

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#63

Post by craftyguy » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:50 AM UTC

shyn3 wrote: post #60

craftyguy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Laggy At least Google isn't making your phone laggy on purpose! (too soon?) Joking aside, there are a lot of sketchy, crappy Android devices, but there are also some decent ones (e.g. straight from Google). I suspect you've only been exposed to the crappy ones.

Google has tried to release a phone before and they fail hard. The phone stops getting updates. If you want an android device with updates you have to get a BlackBerry. Android OS is horrible because it's always different. From release to release. From phone to phone. Everyone has their own little tidbit to add and makes it non uniform.

> The phone stops getting updates

What? They provide major OS updates for 2 years, and security updates for 3 years.

> Android OS is horrible because it's always different

Are you referring to OEM modifications to Android? It's really hard to follow your rant.

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#64

Post by jonknee » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:57 AM UTC

rdlecler1 wrote: post #57

jonknee wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have the cash and people generally invest in AAPL for reasons other than having a stake in a bond fund, so it makes some sense. Buybacks vs special dividend are debatable, but impossible to say what is better until you see the future share price. They did hike the dividend substantially too so they're playing both angles.

Buybacks will also increase the dividend yield as dividends are distributed across a smaller number of shares.

No, it will decrease the amount of money they have to pay out in dividends though... Theoretically the yield would decrease since the share price should increase as shares are bought back. That said, they did also announce a dividend increase which should counteract that.

Think about it in round numbers, if there are 1 billion shares and a $1 dividend it's $1bn per dividend payment. If they buy back 100m shares, the next dividend payment would be $900m.

tl;dr dividends are declared on a per share basis, not a total amount that is divided by the current number of shares.

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#65

Post by mcphage » Wed, May 02, 2018, 4:17 AM UTC

ghazak wrote: post #49

hondo77 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The X was disappointing even though it was the top-selling iPhone every week of the quarter?

Whether it’s disappointing or not is always relative to what expectations were.

Common expectations were that it was a sales dud, which clearly was not the case.

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#66

Post by mcphage » Wed, May 02, 2018, 4:22 AM UTC

diminish wrote: post #26

threeseed wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No other growth drivers in sight after the failure of iwatch to become huge Apple Watch is the number one smart watch. It sold 8 millions unit last quarter (a rise of 10.3%) and represents about half of all smart watch sales. You would have to be deluded to think that it isn't anything other than a huge success.

Apple watch is successful in smart watch market. Smart watch market seems not to be a billions-unit market. That's what I mean.

> Smart watch market seems not to be a billions-unit market.

How many billions unit markets are there out there?

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#67

Post by ulfw » Wed, May 02, 2018, 4:58 AM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #7

Some scale for the new $100b buyback program... Larger than the market cap of all but 51 of the S&P 500 (with one of those being Apple!). That's nuts!

100 Billion not spend on taxes that could benefit everyone, 100 billion on charging customers too much (because Apple obviously doesn’t need the money), 100 billion not spent on employees or hiring or R&D or keeping any of their product lines properly alive (hello Macs, hello software)

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#68

Post by brisance » Wed, May 02, 2018, 5:45 AM UTC

craftyguy wrote: post #19

gressquel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. No, iOS people are not switching. They are staying but not buying newer models due to lack of innovation. Personally I would never switch to the cesspool named Android. Laggy, malware infested garbage

> Laggy At least Google isn't making your phone laggy on purpose! (too soon?) Joking aside, there are a lot of sketchy, crappy Android devices, but there are also some decent ones (e.g. straight from Google). I suspect you've only been exposed to the crappy ones.

You mean that time when Samsung and practically all major Android makers cheated at benchmarks? https://www.anandtech.com/show/7384/state-of-cheating-in-and...

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#69

Post by antirez » Wed, May 02, 2018, 5:48 AM UTC

emdowling wrote: post #35

threeseed wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've no data but my nerd friends are doing this a lot, and sometimes what you see in the nerd-sphere in a few years happens in the normal market "Nerds" are the group most adept at switching back and forth so your anecdote really isn't useful in the slightest. And the numbers really don't show a systemic move back to Android. Also this group may be trend-setters because it does happen sometimes. But far more often…

Just a slight point: iMessage is only relevant in Australia and US. In Europe, its WhatsApp, in China, WeChat, in Japan, LINE, etc. iMessage is not a competitive advantage in the markets where Apple can extract greatest growth going forward.

It's incredible this comment was downvoted. Is verifiable truth.

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#70

Post by clairity » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:11 AM UTC

BryantD wrote: post #43

clairity wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yup... 1. iphone is a mature product. 2. no onvious new groundbreaking product releases on the horizon (a watch is not it). 3. desktops are dying, and their replacements, the ipads, are stagnating. 4. intel screwed them with processor roadmaps intel had no hopes of meeting (cannonlake, anyone?) 5. no longer visionary on the future of computing (seem to be chasing all the flavors of the month lately). 6. services grow…

The Watch plus AirPods = the easier 2/3ds of a pervasive computing system. Audio plus haptic feedback is significant. Add a good set of AR glasses, which is the hard part, and you have something really interesting. Siri needs improving, though, no question.

yes, but pervasive AR is not coming any time soon.

i think the next step is getting a computer to be contextually useful through an audio interface, rather than sight and touch. haptic is helpful but i don't see how it can encode enough useful yet intuitive info to be a standalone interface.

the problem is not that apple is not working on this (since it is). it's just that it's not obvious that apple has a clear vision of how to get to the future. they are chasing all the shiny things at once, throwing them all at the wall to see which one(s) sticks.

(to be clear, this is not an endorsement of google and android btw. they're even worse in this regard, but they're taking more of a microsoft strategy of being all things to all people anyway.)