News from category ‘Financial’

According to a survey, conducted by a mobile advertising company InMobi, 41 percent of US customers is going to purchase the next-generation iPhone. 50 percent of them will do it within the first six months after public launch. This time Sprint customers will also have access to the new iPhone, so Apple seems to open new market for its smartphone, taking in account that Sprit has 52 million customers.

If consumers put their money where their mouths are, these numbers could go a long way to bumping up Apple’s overall market share in the UK and the U.S.. According to figures from Kantar Worldpanel, in Q2 Apple had an 18.3 percent share of the UK smartphone market; another research group, comScore, puts it around 20 percent. If people follow through with their purchasing intent, InMobi says this share would go up to 40 percent. In the U.S., the market share would grow to 41 percent.

Nevertheless, despite the InMobi’ estimates, Apple could release slightly revised version of the iPhone 4 – co-called iPhone 4S, reducing number of customers who will purchase such device.

Microsoft announced today that it concluded an agreement with Samsung Electronics to cross-license patent portfolios, providing wide coverage for technologies of both companies. According to this agreement, Microsoft will get royalties from Samsung for its mobile phones and tablets based on Android platform. Also two companies agreed to collaborate on the marketing and development of Windows Phone.

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The fourth fiscal quarter ends on this Saturday, September 24th, and as usual Apple will hold its conference call webcast to announce results, this year on October 18th.

Apple’s conference call webcast discussing Q4 – 2011 financial results will begin at 2:00pm PT/5:00pm ET on Tuesday, October 18, 2011.

Please note that comments made during this call may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, and that actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. For more information on the factors that could influence results, please refer to Apple’s SEC filings.

In Q3 2011, Apple managed to earn $28.57 billion of revenue with net profit of $7.31 billion, sold 20.34 million iPhones, 9.25 million iPads, and 3.95 million Macs. The previous quarter was record for Apple, especially comparing with the results of the year-ago quarter, when Apple posted revenue of $20.34 billion with 3.89 million Macs, 14.1 million iPhones and 4.19 million iPads sold during the quarter.

JPMorgan analysts have recently predicted that Apple slashed its fourth quarter iPad production plans by 25%, suggesting significant price cut. But The Wall Street Journal believes that such argument is insufficient to make these predictions. Other analysts not that Apple appears to have actually accelerated production ahead of the holiday shopping season. Sources also indicate that Apple plans to begin production of the iPad 3 at the end of the fourth quarter or early in 2012, so accelerating production now, the company tries to ease that transition.

We believe chatter regarding iPad production cuts are misleading – we have seen pull-ins, not cuts. We have noted recent comments by competitors discussing iPad production cuts for 4Q. Our recently published AAPL supply-chain checks noted a sequential decline in 4Q iPad builds from 17 mln-19 mln units in 3Q to 11 mln-13 mln units in 4Q. However, the 4Q sequential decline was accompanied by an increase in 3Q builds, leading us to conclude that production was likely pulled-in from 4Q to 3Q.

Some analysts suggest that the fourth quarter production cuts may be connected with shifting some production to Brazil by the end of the year.

Research firm Gartner has published sales forecasts for the tablet market, stating that a lack of momentum from competitors will allow iPad to be absolute leader during the holiday shopping season. Looking further ahead, Gartner predicts that Apple will maintain more than 50 percent share of this market segment through 2014 even as Research in Motion’s QNX and Microsoft's Windows 8 platforms are expected to build up some momentum. Research vice president at Gartner Carolina Milanesi explains:

“This is because Apple delivers a superior and unified user experience across its hardware, software and services. Unless competitors can respond with a similar approach, challenges to Apple’s position will be minimal. Apple had the foresight to create this market and in doing that planned for it as far as component supplies such as memory and screen”.

Gartner has lowered its estimates for sales of Android tablets in 2011 by 28% over second quarter’s projections, noting very weak adoption due to its interface issues, high prices and limited app availability.

The company expects that Android will see growth as Google releases its next-generation Android’s "Ice Cream Sandwich" and addresses fragmentation across the Android ecosystem. However, according to Gartner's sales forecasts, Android tablets will not catch up the iPad by the end of projection period of 2015.
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Taiwnese company VIA Techologies has reportedly filed a patent lawsuit against Apple. VIA Technology accuses Apple of infregement of patent rights by using processors in Apple’s iOS devices.

Via, a semiconductor maker based in Taipei, seeks a jury trial and an order to prohibit Cupertino, California-based Apple from selling products containing the inventions in the U.S., according to a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware.

“The products at issue generally concern microprocessors included in a variety of electronic products such as certain smartphones, tablet computers, portable media players and other computing devices,” Via said in the complaint.

The lawsuit is targeting Apple’s ARM-based A4 and A5 processors used in iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 4, iPhone 4 CDMA, iPod touch 4th generation, and Apple TV 2nd generation.

Keeping to the Apple’s schedule, the company opens six more stores on this weekend. It starts with the Nanjing East store in China opening tomorrow (Friday, September 23) and then the IFC (Hong Kong), Hornsby (Australia), Centro Sicilia (Italy), New Haven (Connecticut) and Metrotownn (Canada) Apple Stores will open on Saturday. The Nanjing East store (shown above) is the third Apple in Shanghai. IFC store is the first store that locates in Hong Kong. ifoApple Store notes that this store features a unique design:

The rear wall of both levels are glass windows looking out towards the city. On the inside, the lower level has two wide stainless steel walls, with a visitor entrance in the middle. The walls include back-lit display cases promoting Apple’s products. The upper level has an all-glass front window visible from the mall hallway.

According to London-based research company Brand Finance, Apple takes the second position after Google in brand value rating. The 33% increase allowed Apple to overtake Microsoft, Wal-Mart, GE and IBM for the first time. The research firm attributes Apple’s high rating to loyal consumer base, successful marketing activities and innovative design.

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According to data from market research firm NPD (via BusinessInsider), Apple’s Mac sales in U.S. are up 22% year-on-year for two month of the third quarter of this year, leading the company to a new record for quarterly sales of Macs. Gene Munster, analyst from research firm Piper Jaffray, attributed so high sales to launch of new Mac mini and MacBook Air line in July, which is expected to account for 10 to 20 percent of total sales of Macs over the third quarter.

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Recently in an interview on State of the Union of CNN channel, Jim Hoffa, International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union President, claimed that Apple is unpatriotic as it outsources manufacturing in other countries.

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Apple’s current generation of MacBook Air is very popular with customers. Apple sells up to 500,000 units per month. MacBook Air’s success has drawn the interest of “Ultrabook” models’ manufactures whose aim is to compete with the MacBook Air. Intel and Windows PC seem to test the waters, limiting initial shipments to a combined 50,000 units.

First-tier notebook brand vendors Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba and Asustek Computer, understanding that demand for notebooks is unlikely to recover in the fourth quarter, while Apple's products are taking up all the glory in the market, will limit their initial Ultrabook shipment volume to below 50,000 units for testing the water, according to sources from notebook makers.

Intel planed that Ultrabook pricing will start under $1000 but the company faces difficulties trying to bring costs to the point where they can compete with the MacBook Air.

We already reported that in the second quarter of 2011 Apple had passed Nokia as the world's largest smartphone vendor as measured by shipments. But Nokia still excelled Apple in sales to end user. Digitimes Research now projects that Apple will be a top smartphone vendor of 2011 with nearly 19% of the market at 86.4 million units.

Apple is expected to overtake Nokia as the top ranking vendor in terms of shipment volume in 2011, while Huawei Technologies will enjoy robust growth in shipments enabling the China-based company to close its gap with Sony Ericsson and Motorola.

Apple's smartphone shipments are projected to top 86.4 million units in 2011, up 82% from 47.5 million units in 2010. In contrast, Nokia's smartphone shipments in 2011 will decline to 74.4 million units from over 100 million in 2010, said Luke Lin, analyst for Digitimes Research.

Openware Systems has filed a lawsuit against Apple and RIM, accusing them in infringing of five of its patents. Three of them are related with mobile computing, while other two apply to cloud computing and fast page navigation.

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Google and Apple, two main parties on the smartphone market, are continuously fighting for consumers especially those who have not yet decided which OS they want to have in their next smartphone. According to Nielsen survey in July 2011, these ‘undecideds’ will be the customers which manufacturers will be hoping to win over. It is interesting that late adopters are least sure among likely smartphone upgraders about their next phone platform.

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According to a survey from retail analysis company RetailSails, Apple is the best in retail sales per square foot among 160 top U.S. retailers. As the table above shows, Apple is nearly two times better than its closest competitor Tiffany & Co, and nearly five times better than its closest technology related competitor GameStop. It is impressive that Apple managed to become the best having much less experience ( ten years) than most of its competitors included in the survey.

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