John UM
On May 1 this year, Apple announced its second-quarter (first natural quarter) earnings report. The financial report showed that Apple’s net revenue from January to March was 61.137 billion US dollars, up 16% from 52.896 billion US dollars in the same period last year; net profit was 138.22. US$100 million, up 25% from US$11.029 billion in the same period last year. In the past 52 weeks, Apple’s lowest share price was $142.20 and the highest share price was $183.50. Based on the closing price of the day, Apple’s market value is about 858 billion US dollars
Apple’s stock price roller coaster: from the trillions of dollars fell to the altar, giving way to the world’s first.
On August 1, Apple announced its third-quarter (second natural quarter) earnings report. Apple’s net revenue for the quarter was $53.265 billion, up 17% from $45.408 billion in the same period last year; net profit was $11.519 billion. , an increase of 32% over the same period last year of $8.717 billion. Apple CEO Tim Cook said: “This is Apple’s best performing third quarter.”
After the US stock market opened on August 2, Apple’s share price hit a record high of $207.05, and the market value successfully broke through one trillion US dollars, becoming the world’s first single market to break through trillions of dollars
On November 1, Apple released its fourth-quarter (third natural quarter) earnings report. The report showed that the fourth-quarter total revenue was $62.9 billion, up 20% year-on-year. Earnings per share were $2.91, an increase of 41% year-on-year. In terms of sales volume, Apple sold 46.889 million iPhones in the fourth quarter, slightly higher than the 46.677 million units in the same period last year, lower than the market average of 47.5 million units; a total of 9.69 million iPads were sold, compared with 10.326 million in the same period last year. Taiwan fell 6%, lower than market expectations of 10.53 million units; a total of 5.299 million Macs were sold, down 2% from 5.386 million units in the same period last year, exceeding market expectations of 4.87 million units
On the day of the earnings report, Cook announced that the company will no longer announce the sales of all products, he believes that these figures “can not accurately express the potential strength of the business.” This news has become the fuse for Apple’s stock price to continue to decline
On the second day of the earnings’ announcement, Apple’s share price plummeted 6.63%, the biggest one-day drop in nearly four years, and the market value evaporated more than $70 billion a day. November 6 is the second working day after Apple released its quarterly earnings report. On that day, Apple’s share price once fell below $200, closing at $201.59, down 2.84%, and the market value fell to $973.66 billion
Some analysts said that the reason for the stock price decline or its expected company revenue in the first quarter of FY 2019 was lower than Wall Street’s expectations. Apple expects revenue in the first quarter of FY19 to be between $89 billion and $93 billion, slightly lower than analysts’ expectations of $93.02 billion. Some analysts believe that the stock price decline may be caused by Apple’s refusal to announce the sales of hardware products, thus reducing the transparency of business reports
As of the close of the US stock market on November 30, Apple’s market capitalization was overtaken by Microsoft and fell from the world’s first market capital
On December 7, Apple’s share price fell again, falling 3.57%. The market value also fell below 800 billion US dollars for the first time since the break of trillions. The latest market value is 799.552 billion US dollars. In just 2 months, the market value has shrunk by 27%. Back to the November 2017 level
Subsequently, Qualcomm and Apple’s patent disputes have aggravated Apple’s crisis
US local time on December 24, Apple’s stock fell below 150 US dollars, the market value was only 715.3 billion US dollars, lower than Microsoft’s 722.5 billion US dollars. Apple’s decline in the past 60 trading days exceeded 30%, compared with the highest point set on October 3 this year, the market value has evaporated more than 390 billion US dollars
Apple encountered three big problems in 2018.
Apple and Facebook are like two “difficult brothers” in 2018, and the latter has a negative news almost every 12 days, letting it step into the current predicament
For Apple, beyond the dilemma of weak innovation and low sales, the more troublesome troubles should be the battle with Qualcomm in the global lawsuit
The latest development is that Qualcomm strives to make breakthroughs in China and Germany. In Germany, the court sentenced Apple to ban the sale of some iPhones that use Intel chips and another supplier Qorvo parts in Germany. The judge ruled that the phone with Intel and Apple supplier Qorvo chip infringed Qualcomm’s patent around the so-called envelope tracking technology, which is known to help the phone save battery power when sending and receiving wireless signals. The function
In China, on December 10, the Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court issued a lock-up order requiring Apple to immediately stop two patents against Qualcomm, including the import, sale and promise of unauthorized sales of products in China. The ban-related products include all products from iPhone 6S to iPhone X
However, since the ban was issued, Apple has been banned from selling products in domestic e-commerce and all offline stores in Apple, and is still selling normally
On December 25, Qualcomm China Patent Litigation Attorney Jiang Hongyi told Beijing Youth Daily that if Apple still does not ban the ban, Qualcomm has the right to apply for fines, detention, and legal representation of Apple’s legal representative of the four companies in China. Measures such as restrictions on exit and credit reporting systems
The official confrontation between Apple and Qualcomm began in January 2017 when Apple sued Qualcomm in California, accusing the latter of monopolizing the wireless chip market. Apple then stopped paying patencies to Qualcomm
This may be the toughest problem in Apple’s CEO’s office desk, and the “signal door” problem of the new iPhone and the global mobile phone industry’s market growth are weak, and they have to choose “disguised price cuts” in the Chinese market. It is also a headache for Apple
In the “signal gate”, according to the wireless technology website WiWavelength test results of the iPhone XS and XS Max in the laboratory, the signal performance of the iPhone XS and XS Max has not improved, instead of the iPhone X of the previous generation. It’s even worse than the iPhone 8 Plus, which performs well
iPhone8 and iPhoneXS Max signal test data via.WiWavelength.
Although Apple has not yet responded, it is widely believed that the key factor in the signal problem should be that this year’s new iPhone XS and XR phones have switched to Intel’s baseband, which has been Qualcomm’s signal baseband
Of course, the appearance of the iPhone “Liu Haiping” design has also caused a lot of difficulties for the signal design. After that, how does Apple solve the signal problem and make the most basic functions of the mobile phone reassuring? After all, the iPhone signal is hot. The door is something that everyone cares about
In recent days, Apple has started price reduction activities in China. Before January 31, 2019, you can redeem this year’s new machine with the old mobile phone: iPhone XR purchase price is 4399 yuan, iPhone XS is 6599 yuan. The specific discount price depends on the model and condition of the iPhone
According to each report, an iPhone 6s (64G memory) purchased in 2015 can now deduct 735 yuan. But this phone last year in Apple to buy a new machine can only deduct about 500 yuan. After spending another year, the deduction price of mobile phones has increased by nearly 50%. It can be seen that Apple is in the midst of price cuts to stimulate users’ desire to buy
Apple China official website recently launched a promotional campaign.
The Chinese market is close to the year, which may bring a wave of sales to Apple, but how big it is, we still don’t know
The same bad news for Apple is also overtaken by competitors. According to data from US research firm IDC, Huawei’s global share of smartphones in 2017 was 10.4%. Second only to Samsung Electronics (21.6%) and Apple (14.7%), ranked third. But by 2018, Huawei announced that it is expected to break through 200 million in the near future, an increase of 30% from the 153 million in 2017, and will surpass Apple, which has consistently ranked second
Not only that, but foreign media has also recently summarized some of the mistakes Apple made this year, including product positioning errors in HomePod product marketing, failed to announce the overall plan to improve Siri, and become the focus of watches. Selling points, etc..
This year, Apple is still obsessed with music, although it focuses on AI technology but it doesn’t move much.
In 2018, Apple introduced a number of technical talents at the company’s strategic level, and also acquired a number of companies to enhance the strength of the iPhone and other products
Just after the New Year’s Day in 2018, Apple completed the acquisition of Canadian application development service provider Buddybuild. After the acquisition, Buddybuild team joined Apple’s Xcode engineering team. In March, Apple successfully acquired Digital magazine distributor Texture, and it was reported that the new version of Texture will be integrated into Apple News and officially launched in the spring of 2019. In August, Apple was exposed to Aconia, a startup focused on manufacturing AR glasses. In September, Apple announced the official completion of the acquisition of music identification services company Shazam. It is reported that Apple announced in December 2017 to spend $400 million to acquire Shazam. In October, Apple officially confirmed that it has acquired Spektral, a Danish artificial intelligence technology company. The company’s flagship video segmentation technology can be used in applications such as photo, Final Cut Pro and iMovie. In November, it was reported that Apple acquired Silk Labs, a San Francisco-based AI startup that is currently developing an AI-based IoT operating system. But there are also reports that Apple just digs out most of the company’s employees
At the same time, Apple seems to be interested in digging people. In 2018, Apple not only dug a whole team of data scientists from a company in Silicon Valley (including the CEO of this company was also dug by Apple), but also dug To the founder of music analysis company Asaii
In addition, it is worth noting that Apple has long been aware of the chip is subject to Qualcomm, in addition to speeding up cooperation with Intel to develop baseband chips, Apple is quietly in the chip field. In October 2018, Apple signed a multi-year agreement with Dialog, a semiconductor company in the eco-chain. Apple will pay a total of $600 million to hire about 300 employees of Dialog and get the company’s power management technology license
Analysis pointed out that Apple’s acquisitions in 2018 are still small compared to previous years. Milestone transactions include the acquisition of Texture and Shazam, and a $600 million deal with Dialog. However, for Apple, some of the smaller acquisitions also show that the giant company is showing increasing interest in music, data analysis and artificial intelligence
Overall, Apple’s thinking about mergers and acquisitions and digging is still unchanged, that is, using these transactions to enrich product features, or to integrate these technologies into the Apple ecosystem. However, it should be noted that Apple’s move is still too conservative compared to Google’s and Microsoft’s aggressive entry into the AI space
2019, will Apple return to the world’s first company from the quagmire?