Understated Breathlessness
Back to Henry Blodget, and Apple’s Q1 earnings report conference call, where we learned that the company’s year-over-year revenue grew by 71%:
Companies Apple’s size just don’t grow 70% year over year. In fact, we would not be surprised if this were the first time in history that a company this big grew this fast (if you find another example, please let us know).
Apple is now on a revenue run-rate of more than $100 billion a year. Just as amazing, it is expecting to grow another 60%+ in the first quarter of this year. This is, in a word, staggering.
The closest thing to a downer in the report was that iPod sales shrank 7% compared to a year ago. However, when you consider that every iPhone (16.2 million sold in Q1) and every iPad (7.3 million sold in Q1) is also an iPod, I think you’ll find that iPod+iTunes market penetration is just fine.
And to put a slightly different spin on this: over half of all iPods sold were iPod touches. Thus, somewhere around 10 million of the 19+ million iPods were iOS devices.
This means:
10 million iPod touches
16.2 million iPhones
7.3 million iPads
Almost 34 million iOS devices were sold last quarter. That’s ridiculous.
I’ve been scouring the ‘net, trying to find total sales figures for Android devices for last quarter, and forecasts for CY2011. Haven’t really been able to pin it down yet. We’re definitely in for a donnybrook in the iOS/Android turf wars. I think the Verizon deal starts moving the momentum back towards iOS, though.
And there is a Chinese telecom company with 150 million subscribers that is CDMA-based. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. Given how constrained order fulfillment is for iPhones currently, I’m not sure Apple’s going to be able to keep up for at least two more quarters, if at all this year. Let alone being able to add significant new markets.
We’ll see. Does Apple actually dare to raise prices on their devices? Or do they start throwing massive amounts of money at new manufacturing partners, in an attempt to absolutely torch the market? Cook hinted at significant capital expenditures for the next couple of years (something around $3.2 Billion). The speculation has been for screen technologies. I’m wondering if it might be the whole kit. I know that screen manufacturing has been one of the bottlenecks, but not the only one. If Apple ramped up on the whole new partnerships, they’d be in a great position for the next several years.
Fun times. The Android-droids need to be paying attention. Apple’s a juggernaut. The only real concern they should have is anti-trust issues with any attempts to corner raw materials.
Now that is one of the best comments I have read in a while, from an analytical point of view.
Awe, shucks!
Here’s an article at MacRumors that digs a little deeper into the investment question. Looks like it’s all about LCD displays. If the displays are the only real constraint (thought I’d heard differently, but I certainly don’t claim to be an authority), then this is a great way to spend some capital.
It does mean that iPhone/iPod touch/iPad sales will be constrained through this year, though. The plants won’t be online until 2012.
Hmm. Maybe Apple should ask George Lucas to invest. He’s got tons of money, and apparently won’t have any need for it after next year!
I have heard rumors for years abut Apple addressing thier supply side/manufacture issues. This is. the first time however I have heard this rumor that large capital investments are also at play. Apple has been pretty good at holding thier cards to thier collective vests and it would not be surprising if Apple tried to also be the supplier of thier own components.
Well, let’s separate rumor from fact. The $3.2 billion is a fact. It was addressed in the conference call on Tuesday by Tim Cook. They are spending the money. The what is where all the speculation is happening.