Apple: We’re going to make $LOTS!

Analysts: We predict Apple is going to make $UNICORN!

Apple: Uh…

 

Time passes…

 

Apple: We made $LOTS plus!

Analysts: *NOUNICORNSADFACE*

 

Very little time passes…

 

AAPL down over five per cent.

 

So, Apple is making money hand over fist, and bettered its own guidance, but it fell short of whatever figure analysts dreamed up (MG Siegler provides insight into the main error analysts made), and so Apple’s results are disappointing and its shares have been hit. In case you’re wondering, here’s what disappointment looks like in the world of Apple financials:

  • Quarterly revenue of $28.27 billion (up from $20.34 last year)
  • Quarterly net profit of $6.62 billion (up from $4.31 billion last year)
  • Gross margin was 40.3 percent (up from 36.9)
  • 17.07 million iPhones sold (21 per cent unit increase)
  • 11.12 million iPads sold (166 per cent unit increase)
  • 4.89 million Macs sold (26 per cent unit increase)
  • 6.62 million iPods (27 per cent unit decline)

So, bar the iPod’s inevitable decline (although with half the iPods sold now being the more expensive iPod touch, unit sales aren’t as important as income in that sector), Apple’s doing quite well, unless you’re say, a numbskull analyst or tech hack who believes the words and figures coming from analysts rather than the actual figures.

Meanwhile, in what’s, surprisingly, not another reality altogether, Yahoo! managed to announce a 26 per cent fall in earnings and watch its shares rise, because the fall wasn’t as bad as investors had feared.

In conclusion:

  • Be hugely successful but not as successful as idiot analysts think you might be, with little justification for their idiot figures: SHARES GO BOOM!
  • Be a crap, directionless company without focus, but don’t screw up quite as much as people think you will: SHARES GO FWEEEEE!

*96 headdesks*