Apple Plans to Grow to $10 Billion 244
mattmcal writes "Fred Anderson, CFO of Apple, this week outlined Apple's strategy for returning to its former self as a $10 billion company. He cited portability, digital lifestyle, and music as the three pimary drivers of this new strategy. Anderson announced last month that he plans to retire June 1 of this year."
Shouldn't that be CFO? (Score:5, Informative)
Current Market Cap: 8.87B (Score:5, Informative)
The excitement that has been surrounding Apple the last couple of years reminds me of the Macintosh during the System 7 or PowerPC transitions.
Also, it should be noted that Fred Anderson is the C*F*O of Apple, not the CTO
Re:Current earnings? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/jan/14resu
Apple Reports First Quarter Results
Revenue Increases 36 Percent Year-Over-Year
CUPERTINO, California--January 14, 2004--Apple(R) today announced financial results for its fiscal 2004 first quarter ended December 27, 2003. For the quarter, the Company posted a net profit of $63 million, or $.17 per diluted share. These results compare to a net loss of $8 million, or $.02 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Revenue for the quarter reached a four-year high of $2.006 billion, up 36 percent from the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 26.7 percent, down from 27.6 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 44 percent of the quarter's revenue.
Re:Current earnings? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Current Market Cap: 8.87B (Score:5, Informative)
Mac users and stockholders owe Fred a LOT (Score:5, Informative)
Good job, Fred! Good luck with retirement.
Re:iPod battery crisis (Score:2, Informative)
First of all, there is no such company as Mac... (its Apple) and there is no battery problem within the iPod... as has been pointed out time and time again in these threads.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:hopefully by increasing volume not margins (Score:5, Informative)
Technically, all the current iBooks can drive an external display at a resolution above 1024 x 768. Apple just turns it off in software (the open firmware). For information on how to easily (without risk of losing warranty) turning this back on, look here:
Rute Moeller's spanning hack for the iBook [rutemoeller.com]
And yes, I fully agree that we shouldn't have to resort to this kind of solution, but it is a solution nonetheless, and one that has worked very well for me for the past two years on my 600 Mhz iBook. In fact, I wouldn't have bought my iBook had I not known about this.
Cheers.
Re:There is no problem (Score:4, Informative)
"The ludicrously high price of the replacement battery is also also well-documented."
And it is also well documented that you can get a cheaper battery from a different supplier for a fraction of the cost.
"Before there were complaints. Apple's semi-official position was "just throw the iPod away" when the battery died."
That'd not true at all. Before there was a battery replacement program, Apple's semi-official provision was to buy an extended warrenty if your iPod was not already covered under its 1-year warrenty.
Re:iTunes for europe? (Score:3, Informative)
We don't even have it in Canada yet!
And, no, it certainly hasn't been "YEARS" as you complain, it was launched last April, not even 11 months yet.
Re:It is no joke (Score:5, Informative)
Again, there is no battery "problem".
The iPod battery lasts as long as any bettery of that type is supposed to last. I forget what the exact specs are... but they are very liberal (although it does vary depending on the number of times you charge the device).
As is to be expected, not all things work as planned... hence the reason for Apple's warenty, Apple's extended warrenty as well as its more recent battery replacement programs. Additionally, iPod batters can be purchased from theird part manufacturers for less than even Apple sells.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Margins to end? (Score:4, Informative)
Uberblogger Stephen Den Beste has a post [denbeste.nu] in which he raises doubts that Apple's high margins on hardware (thus, high profits) can continue. He thinks there will be a WinIBM platform in the near future. (WinNT is already running on G5s as an XBox dev platform.) Apple, in his estimation, will be forced to cut margins to compete.
I don't entirely agree with him. Apple has always commanded a premium because its software was good, not its hardware. Plus, I think he underappreciates OSX's BSD underbelly (odd, for an engineer.) But a WinG5 computer would provide an alternative to people who might otherwise make the switch.
(I thought I posted this earlier, but it doesn't seem to be showing up. Sorry if this winds up being a repeat post.)
Random market caps (Score:5, Informative)
Some random market caps for your amusement, all in 10^9 US$
- General Electric 329
- Microsoft: 284
- Exxon-Mobile: 277
- Wal-Mart: 261
- Intel: 189
- IBM: 166
- Cisco: 156
- Coca-Cola: 120
- Dell: 84
- HP: 70
- Time-Warner: 77
- Disney: 55
- Ebay: 44
- Yahoo: 29
- GM: 27
- Ford: 26
- Amazon: 17
- Sun: 17
- Apple: 8.9
- RedHat: 3.2
- McDonalds: 2.2
- Gateway: 1.9
- SCO: 0.17
Re:iPods not intended to last long at all? (Score:5, Informative)
Apple recommends recharging the battery every 14-18days, which would extend 500 full recharges even longer. Really for what the Neistat brothers went through, they either had faulty batteries, or were draining their batteries daily, for over a year.
I consider myself a mid-range user of the iPod, but that's only because their are so many who use their iPods only for trips, etc. I use mine daily, for 4-8hrs a day. When i purchased, I thought the battery might last 3-5years, and so far it's on target.
Re:Microsoft bailed out Apple (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The word from Apple (Score:4, Informative)
If your iPod is out-of-warranty and the battery's ability to hold an electrical charge has diminished 50% or more from its original condition, you can receive a replacement iPod for $99, plus $6.95 shipping. Be sure to follow all of the battery troubleshooting steps before submitting your iPod for battery replacement.
Re:No problem...... (Score:1, Informative)
if it is under warranty, Apple will do it for free.
Re:iPod (Score:3, Informative)
Also, my co-workers mock me for having to go to the Apple Support page, because I was saying how great the build quality on Apple kit is.
Re:Microsoft bailed out Apple (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not so sure on this. The Mac version had languished behind at 6.0 (remember how much that sucked? I claim the last good version of MS Word was 5.1a) and MS had made no noise about updating it for a long time when that deal was made.
That said, what Apple primarily got was a public acknowledgment that they were going to be there in 3 years and a new version of office that was *much* improved. It gave the public confidence in Apple, something that isn't precisely measurable in price.
Re:Current Market Cap: 8.87B (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry but you are. Doubling revenue to $13.4 billion would be 100% growth not 50% growth. Growing by 50% from $6.7 billion would be $10.05 billion.
Re:Build quality has to improve. (Score:2, Informative)
A customer isn't always dissatisfied when there is a problem, but is always royally pissed off when the company does nothing to solve his problem. Despite my loud G4, I still purchased a new iBook 4 days ago, and it's a terrific machine.