Apple's earnings call began with new CEO Tim Cook offering homage to Steve Jobs. He went on to note it set new records, sold a fuckton of phones, tablets, and computers, and made a huge pile of money.
And yet it still got dinged for not selling enough iPhones.
Apple's iPhone remains the phone ranked with the highest customer satisfaction. Its iPad is storming into the enterprise market. The iPhone 4S is its best selling iPhone ever. The Mac had its best quarter ever. It opened a ton of new stores. It's making huge strides overseas, especially in Russia, Brazil, the middle east and China, now the number two country in terms of Apple revenue. It made $26 billion in net revenue. With a "b," dude, with a "b."
Despite all that, it still didn't beat analyst expectations. And why is that? Well, because Wall Street was looking for more iPhone sales last quarter. And for that, you can blame the iPhone 5 rumors that led people to hold off on buying a new phone last quarter. Or as Tim Cook politely said, "the reduction happened largely in the back half of the quarter as the speculation hit extreme highs."
It also sold a mere 6.6 million iPods, its fewest in six years. Not really surprising, given how many people now use their phones as portable music players.
There was no similar slowdown on the iPad, which still sells like gangbusters. When asked about the Kindle Fire, Cook batted the question aside, noting that "we were responsible for three out of every four tablets sold." Bang. That's an intimidating stat to offer up to potential competitors (like you, Jeff Bezos). Later in the call he noted that "I think we've got a pretty good handle on what to do next." I bet!
You can hear replays of the call starting at 5 PM pacific today, and for the next two weeks, on Apple's investor page.
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