Apple’s Q1 ’13: Misses at $54.5B rev, beats with $13.1B profit at $13.81 EPS, with 47.8M iPhones sold

Apple today announced its earnings for its first fiscal quarter of 2013. Apple’s revenue amounted to $54.5 billion in Q1. With earnings of $13.81 per share. Apple posted $13.1 billion in profit. This means that Apple narrowly missed street estimates on the revenue numbers, but beat on profits.

Apple sold 47.8 million iPhones, a record number which is up 23% year over year, and 22.9 million iPads this quarter, up 33% year over year. Apple sold 4.1 million Macs during the quarter, bringing sales down 22% when compared to the same quarter a year ago. iPod sales were at 12.7 million, which is down 18% year over year.

“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.”

“We’re pleased to have generated over $23 billion in cash flow from operations during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “We established new all-time quarterly records for iPhone and iPad sales, significantly broadened our ecosystem, and generated Apple’s highest quarterly revenue ever.”

It’s important to remember that there was only 13 weeks of sales included in Q1 2013, as compared to 14 weeks in the year-ago quarter. This will make today’s numbers a tad more impressive than they look when compared y/y. Note, too, that the numbers beat Apple’s own guidance, which was $52B in revenue and earnings of $11.75. If you adjust growth numbers for a 13 week quarter, iPhone grew 37% and iPad grew 60%.

The worries going in to Q1 were primarily in the iPhone sales numbers, something that was mitigated by strong reporting of sales by Verizon, Sprint and AT&T in the US. There was also the matter of the iPad mini cannibalizing regular iPad sales, resulting in a lower relative margin for the cheaper device.

Apple is estimating revenue between $41B and $43B for Q2, 2013.

Comparing and estimating

Fortune estimates of Apple’s Q1 had placed overall revenue estimates from analysts at around $54.74 billion in revenue, with earnings of $13.45 per share. Estimates had placed iPhone sales at around 49.5 million and iPad sales at around 24 million. Independent estimates had placed those numbers somewhat higher.

In the first fiscal quarter of 2012, Apple’s revenue amounted to $46.33B, with earnings of $13.87 per share. The company’s net profit in Q1 was $13.06 billion. In the Q2 2012 earnings report, issued in April, Apple reported $39.2 billion revenue, $13.06 billion profit, $12.30 EPS, 35.1 million iPhones, 11.8 million iPads, 4.89 million Macs.

Apple’s revenue amounted to $35B in Q3. With earnings of $9.32 per share. The company’s net profit in Q3 was $8.8 billion. These numbers ‘missed’ industry estimates slightly but beat Apple’s own estimates. Apple sold 4 million Macs during that quarter, bringing sales up 2% when compared to the same quarter a year ago. iPod sales were at 6.8 million down 10%.

Apple’s revenue amounted to $36 billion in Q4. With earnings of $8.67 per share, Apple posted $8.2 billion in profit.

In Q4 of 2012, Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO said that it expected revenue of about $52 billion and diluted earnings per share of about $11.75 in Q1 2013. This means that today’s earnings easily beat internal estimates.

On October 17th, 2011 Apple announced that sales of the iPhone 4S had exceeded 4 million units over its first weekend. The iPhone 5 was said to exceed that, selling 5M units over its first weekend. This September, Apple said that 2M iPhone 5s had been ordered in 24 hours, doubling the pre-order record for the iPhone 4S.

Apple will be streaming its earnings call live at 2pm, we will bring you important news and analysis from the call shortly thereafter.

The stash

Apple now has a cash hoard, including cash, short term and long term investments, of some $137.1 billion after its newly instituted dividend payout.

The Charts

Note: Apple did not break out Mac desktop and laptop sales this year for the first time in a decade. That’s why the chart below is a tad wonky.

Image Credit: Feng Li/Getty Images

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Ten things Apple has changed in the last year

As CEO, Jobs would not have issued an apology regarding poor quality Maps. He would have either not allowed a half-baked product or would have quietly fixed it.

ACCEPTING AWARDS

Apple had a strict, no awards policy under Jobs. After his death, Jony Ive and his senior design team at Apple went specifically to accept awards at London's Design & Art Direction (D&AD) event.

SUPPORTING CHARITY

Apple is now contributing to charities like (Project) Red & Stanford University Hospitals. Jony Ive recently agreed to design a Leica camera for charity. Jobs had made it clear that he was totally against charity.
LARGER iPHONES

When the iPhone was first launched, Jobs made it clear that a 3.5-inch screen was the ideal size — it allowed for seamless one-hand operation. However, the iPhone 5 has a 4-inch screen now & we may see even larger screens soon.



SMALLER iPADS

Jobs believed that the 'sweet spot' for a tablet was 10inches. He felt that 7-inch tablets were too big to compete with smartphones & too small to compete with tablets. Now Apple is expected to launch a 7-inch iPad soon.

LEAKED INFORMATION

Jobs was adamant about keeping his products hidden till the actual launch. People working on a project 


weren't even allowed to discuss it with their families. There was limited communication between people working on the same device — they only knew their bit.

Finished prototypes were transported in locked, covered cases — even within Apple headquarters. There were hardly any leaks during his reign at Apple. However, this time around, accurate iPhone 5 images were leaked months before the actual launch.

FATTER iPAD

A design perfectionist, Jobs would have never allowed the new iPad to have a fatter design.

WEIRD iPOD DESIGNS

The new iPod Nano has already received criticism considering its weird design and colour combination. Plus it has a design that resembles Nokia's Lumia 800 phone. Jobs would have never approved of such a design.

PAYING DIVIDENDS

Jobs used all funds for R&D — so Apple had not paid any dividend out since 1995. This year, Tim Cook has announced that Apple will be paying dividend to shareholders.

APPLE TV INTERFACE

Jobs has rejected the current Apple TV user interface almost five years ago (according to an Apple designer). Now that Jobs is gone, the user interface has been released to the users.

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after Steve Jobs, is Apple losing some ‘cool’?

tags: apple,steve jobs ,apple stock,timcook,after apple

One year after Steve Jobs died, the Apple stock has risen 78%. If that was the only yardstick, the question in the headline is meaningless. For its cultish followers, Apple is not just a dollar value flickering on a ticker. A mesmerising 'desirability quotient' and breakthrough technology, design, and intuitiveness of all products are as much a part of the Apple aura as the $620 billion marketcap of the world's most valuable company. 

So, last week, when Apple CEO Tim Cook told customers he was 'extremely sorry' for the frustration its new Maps application had caused them, the stock lost $12 billion, a 2.1% decline. The Apple legend had taken another hit, the fourth such blow in 2012. That's how many missteps Cook has publicly acknowledged this year. Apple has made such admissions only 16 times in 36 years. 

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Apple remains the fastest-growing global brand in the world

apple ,fastest growing brand ,steve jobs,market value of apple ,google vs apple
by vamsi pandranki
Apple remains the fastest-growing global brand a year after its founder Steve Jobs' death. The maker of iPhone and iPadimproved its ranking in the annual Best Global Brands report of Interbrand to No. 2 in 2012 from No. 8 last year and its brand value increased 129 per cent to $76.57 billion (approx Rs 4 lakh crore). 

While Coca-Cola retained the top slot, technology brands occupied half of the top 10 slots. This despite Interbrand considering No. 3 IBM a business service brand rather than a technology brand. Here is a look at some findings of the study: 

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China's Steve Jobs?

tags:len jun ,steve jobs,apple,iphone ,smartphone,china,enterprenuer

There aren’t many American entrepreneurs who would have the nerve to compare themselves to Steve Jobs and Apple. To find a guy crazy enough to do that, you have to go to China.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Lei Jun, the jeans-and-black-shirt-wearing billionaire founder of Xiaomi, China’s hottest smartphone company. And, if you believe Lei, the next Steve Jobs.

Beijing-based Xiaomi sells an An- droid smartphone called the MI-One. It’s a high-powered phone based on a dual-core processor from Qualcomm but with a price far lower than many comparably equipped phones sold in China. That combination of raw power and a reasonable price tag has attracted huge attention from Chinese consumers: When the phone went on sale last fall, Xiaomi received 300,000 preorders in the first 34 hours.

Less than a year after launch the company has sold more than 3 million MI-Ones and counting. The phone is hot. Red hot. Apple hot.

Lei, a 43-year-old investor and serial entrepreneur, is the public face of Xiaomi. Like Jobs, he has intensely loyal fans—mostly young, male gadget hounds. The company launched an annual convention for fans and holds regular user meet-ups that have the feel of religious revivals, where diehard fans sing, cheer and play games. Lei has more than 4 million microblog followers in China and spends hours on MiTalk, the Xiaomi chat site, to solicit feedback from users.

In his first big score, Lei sold the online retailer Joyo.com to Amazon in 2004 for $75 million. Three years later he listed Kingsoft, an antivirus software firm, on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. He’s an investor in both UC Web, which sells a popular mobile browser, and YY.com, which offers a real-time video app.

Lei founded Xiaomi in 2010 with his friend Lin Bin, a former Microsoft and Google engineer who is now Xiaomi’s president. The two men, both 43, both married with daughters (Lin has three, Lei two), had spent the previous months dreaming of a high-spec, low-price phone.

Their big idea is to subsidise the cost of the handset by getting buyers to pay more for various services—not unlike the way that Apple iPhone users pay for software from the App Store.

It’s just one more way the com- pany keeps inviting comparisons with Apple. Lei has a love-hate relationship when it comes to the comparison. He says Jobs is an inspiration but specifically denies, for instance, copying his dress code, asserting that his casual attire for product launches is simply a plug for his Vancl fashion e-commerce site.

“I was annoyed in the beginning, very annoyed. But I don’t mind any- more,” he says of the comparisons.

Rather remarkably, Lei risks the wrath of Apple fans everywhere by asserting that he can succeed in China in ways Jobs couldn’t have matched.

“If Jobs had lived in China, I think he could not have succeeded,” Lei said in an interview with Forbes. “Jobs was a scrupulous perfectionist, while Chinese culture emphasises the middle path.” In China, he says, “you also need to make compro- mises.” That’s a lesson that American companies have had trouble learning: Witness Google’s departure from mainland China in the face of persist- ent censorship of search results.

One thing is for sure: In  China the guy produces Jobs-like buzz. The rapid early sales of the phone came largely through word of mouth, with no spending on print or TV ads. And the buzz continues: After selling 3 million phones to date, Xiaomi is on track to hit 5 million to 6 million units by year-end.

Part of the mythology around Lei involves a highly public spat he’s having with Zhou Hongyi, the CEO of Nasdaq-listed Qihoo 360 Technology, a $1.9 billion market cap security software firm. For one thing, Zhou claims that Xiaomi makes a profit of nearly $100 per phone, disputing Lei’s assertion that it sells the phone cheaply and will make up the difference with services. Zhou thinks Xiaomi’s customers are suckers if they believe Lei.

Another source of friction: Zhou leaked the news that Xiaomi’s latest round gave the company a $4 billion valuation. While the number was accurate, Lei says, the leak made it harder to close the deal with privacy-sensitive investors.

Tied into the feud is the fact that Qihoo competes with Lei’s Kingsoft in the antivirus PC software market. Qihoo has been giving away a free version of its antivirus software for users who download the company’s browser, a move that creates issues for Kingsoft.

Iphone: Simon Edwards / Future Publishing Via Getty Images

Even Lei’s detractors would concede that the opportunity here is enormous.

China Mobile is the largest mobile carrier in the world, with 677 million users as of the end of May; compare that with AT&T with a little over 100 million as of the end of March. The number two and three carriers in China—China Telecom and China Unicom—also are bigger than any US carrier.

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Apple without Steve Jobs

tags:apple ,stevejobs,iphone5,timcook,macintosh,


FREMONT: Apple's new maps app came out the day I started a 2,243-mile road trip through four states. As complaints about it trickled in and Apple's CEO apologized, I was left wondering whether people were using the same app I was. 

Although it's not flawless or as good as Google's maps app on Android phones, Apple's new offering on the iPhone got me where I needed to go - for the most part. I know many people will disagree with me, but I even find it an improvement over the old app on iPhones because I now get voice navigation and automatic re-routing. 

I've used Google's Android app since it was released three years ago. I don't own a car, but I travel a lot. The app has proven crucial in getting me to unfamiliar territories in New England and various Southern states from Arizona to South Carolina. 

Google brought to the phone the spoken-aloud, turn-by-turn directions once limited to GPS navigational devices from Garmin, TomTom and others. Make a wrong turn, and the app automatically updates with new directions. Best of all, it's always been free. 

Until last month, Google was also behind the free, main maps app on iPhones. 

But that one didn't have voice navigation or automatic re-routing. Driving with it meant swiping through pages of on-screen directions. A friend missed a train in May as we overlooked a step and went the wrong way on a highway, ending up back where we came from. A drive from Ann Arbor to Lansing, Mich., took 17 steps, each with its own page. After Step 9, I had to pull into a rest stop to memorize subsequent steps and avoid an accident. 

Apple wanted voice directions, too, and figured the only way to get it was to build its own maps app and bump Google from its perch as the default offering. It partnered with TomTom and shipped the iPhone 5 with the new app. A software update out September 19 made it available on the iPhone 4S and the cellular versions of the latest two iPad models. 

I updated an iPhone 4S in a hotel room in Grand Rapids, Mich., that night and was immediately impressed. It was a nice touch to have turn-by-turn directions narrated by Siri, the familiar female voice from Apple's virtual-assistant feature. 

Then I started hearing the complaints. 

I agree with many of them. The Apple app didn't show as many businesses and landmarks as Google's. Some appeared in the wrong location or were mislabeled. The Apple app didn't offer public transit directions, something crucial for New Yorkers like me. A friend I was visiting toward the end of the two-week trip immediately complained that the app looked different as she pulled it out for the first time. 

Head to head, the Google app for Android, which I used on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus and a Galaxy S III, outperformed Apple's version in many respects: 

- Google's app typically told me about turns a second or two quicker. Sometimes, I didn't hear from Siri until I got to the intersection, two lanes away from where I needed to be to make a right turn. 

- I got better navigation on private roads with Google. At a shopping mall, Google guided me along the right driveways to get to JC Penney, while Apple got me to the general vicinity. Google also got me to the front door of my hotel in Ann Arbor, while Apple got me to the entrance of a complex that included other hotels, a gas station and retail stores. 

- In Akron, Ohio, Siri had me turn left to get on a highway, while Google's app properly instructed me to take a ramp on the left. In Indianapolis, Google knew about a service road alongside Michigan Road, while Siri assumed I was on the main road and would have had me crash into a Chinese restaurant. In Charleston, W.Va., Siri told me to head northeast, as if I had a compass, while Google just told me to turn left. 

- Besides public transit directions, Google offered options for avoiding tolls or highways while driving. It allowed me to choose continuous satellite images instead of animated maps, while Apple's app offered them only for route overviews, not for live navigation. 

- While Siri's voice sounds much more human than the one Google used in its early mapping apps, Google now has a voice that makes Siri sound robotic by comparison. Google also was more sparing with words, which was good as long as I didn't get lost for lack of detail. 

That said, Apple's map offers 3-D views. That may sound like a gimmick, but it presents the map in a way that mirrors what you're seeing through the windshield. On Apple's map, the direction you're going is on top in the regular view or toward the back in 3-D. Outside of big cities, Google often has north on top, which can be confusing when driving east or south. 

Apple's maps are also more pleasant to view. Instructions such as "turn right onto Pearl St." are in white against a green background, similar to the signs you see on highways. Street names at intersections are in a green rectangle, similar to actual street signs at corners. Unlike Google's, Apple's app showed me the distance and time remaining and an estimated time of arrival all at once, though I would have appreciated larger text. 

Apple's app was mostly dead-on in getting me to my destination. The one big miss was when it had a winery I was looking for about a half-mile east of its actual location. I went to another instead. 

But Google has made mistakes, too. It told me to turn left to get to a lighthouse along the Straits of Mackinac connecting two Great Lakes, even as the road sign in front of me pointed to the right. Then again, Apple's app didn't even find that lighthouse in a search. 

Both apps gave me other questionable directions, even though they got me there, which was what mattered most. At one point, Google had me on a curvy one-lane residential street with little visibility, even though a faster, safer road ran parallel to it. Apple's directions to a roadside tourist trap had me take an exit four miles to the south, only to return four miles north on smaller roads. 

Bottom line is no app is perfect. After all the complaints about Apple's app, I downloaded a 99-cent iPhone app called MotionX GPS Drive. It got good reviews and offered more features than either Apple or Google. But it tried to lead me off the wrong exit in Ohio. Plus, all the extra features diverted my eyes to the settings menu when I should've been paying attention to trucks and, ahem, police cars around me. 

One of my favorite scenes from " The Office" television show is when clueless boss Michael Scott drives into Lake Scranton because he was blindly following GPS directions. 

There will be mistakes, but it beats driving in a new place with nothing. You just need to use your common sense. 

Apple's app is far better than the one Google had when it first came out in late 2009. In apologizing for an app he says "fell short" of Apple's own expectations, CEO Tim Cook says the company will keep working to improve it. 

It's true Apple's app falls short of what Google now offers for Android, but if all you have is an iPhone or an iPad, Apple's new app will get you there just fine. 

Clinging to the old, voiceless app is like hanging on to your cassette tapes while the world has moved on to CDs and digital downloads. I can't imagine driving without hearing voices.

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