Comments on: Big Tech Q3 2020 – Pandemic powered.

By: Colin

Colin — Wed, 04 Nov 2020 11:57:12 +0000

Apple isn’t “pinning its hopes on services”.
An Apple mantra of the 80s is “Software Sells Hardware”. Apple’s services are software for that purpose. Integrated services with the uniformity, privacy and security of Apple’s user environment are a key part of the customer experience mentioned above.
Apple sells the whole stack, competing with numerous other vendors, who each sell bits of it. Apple has unlimited headroom for development and growth into new applications, limited the appeal of commodity hardware to a declining proportion of price driven buyers.

By: RICHARD WINDSOR

RICHARD WINDSOR — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 05:28:44 +0000

Thats where we disagree. I am not convinced that Apple will be able to see much growth in the coming few years. Apple seems to pinning its hopes on services and this will take a while to become large enough to take over from hardware. In the meantime there will be a pause which a high PER rated share cannot afford.

By: RICHARD WINDSOR

RICHARD WINDSOR — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 05:28:31 +0000

By: Colin

Colin — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 14:23:23 +0000

Apple’s immediate value is in the scale of its growth in the next few years.
The Apple silicon Macs and other new products will complete a compellingly integrated customer experience, across a wide range of products and prices points for different use cases. It will drive Apple’s market share strongly and re-shape the market back towards vertically integrated product families.
Apple was created as an innovative, integrated systems company, to compete with the IBM of the 1970s. Unbundling, led by Microsoft, upset the Apple cart for a few years, but it also limited innovation for customers. The iPhone and iPad ended that era and paved the way for Apple to re-assert its unique DNA.
Apple’s long term value value is in its business model, its management, its technologies, a strong brand, and its extraordinary world-changing innovations.
Long term investors in Apple do very well.

By: RICHARD WINDSOR

RICHARD WINDSOR — Sun, 01 Nov 2020 05:50:22 +0000

agree with everything here except one word – VALUE. When I mention value I am referring to how much an investor has to pay to buy a share of Apple relative to what he gets in return. Even the share price of best company in the world can be too expensive. This is the good company bad stock problem which is what I see at Apple. Its a great company but the shares are too expensive. Thats all.

By: RICHARD WINDSOR

RICHARD WINDSOR — Sun, 01 Nov 2020 05:43:19 +0000

sorry about that….next time

By: Colin

Colin — Sat, 31 Oct 2020 13:41:32 +0000

Apple’s Y-o-Y revenue:
iPhone – down 21%
iPad – up 46%
Mac – up 29%
Services – up 16%
Wearables / home / accessories – up 21%
Total revenue – up 1%
Last year’s September quarter included about 10 days revenue for all iPhone 11 models. This year’s September quarter is affected by the pandemic. It included zero revenue for iPhone 12, and 2 of the 4 models still aren’t shipping.
China is considered to be particularly volatile around new model introductions. So the Y-o-Y revenue reduction in China could (or couldn’t) be accounted for by postponed iPhone upgrades.
There are signs that Apple is working hard to catch up in the December quarter. The quarter is also expected to include the announcement of the first Apple silicon Macs.
Apple’s iPhone users are changing from a 2 year to a 3 year upgrade cycle. That, plus 5G, will account for strong iPhone 12 upgrading.
Apple has bought all the TSMC 5nm capacity and is clearly feeling unusually bullish.
So, there really are quite a lot of places find value in Apple.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 18:21:18 +0000

A bit surprised (and sad) to see Microsoft omitted from a review of “big tech” – was looking forward to your thoughts, especially contrasted against the others you have listed.