Five easy Apple charts
If a picture is worth a thousand words, here's five grand worth of Apple (AAPL) news in charts and lists released over the past couple of days.
1. Web Brands. Apple scored No. 10 in Nielson Online's ranking of the top Web brands based on the number of unique visitors each site drew in December 2008 — which isn't bad considering Apple.com's focus is so much narrower than the brands it's up against, like Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO) and Amazon (AMZN). (link)
2. Social Brands. The iPhone scored No. 1 — ahead even of its parent company at No. 3 — in the Vitrue 100, a new ranking launched this week by an Atlanta-based marketing company with a deliberately misspelled name. Vitrue's list ranks blue chip brands by how often they get mentioned in blogs, photo-sharing sites and such social media entities as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter — presumably a measure of how large these names loom in the minds of an emerging category of early adopters.
3. Days to 1 Million. This comes from an Engadget reader named Noel F. who used published sales data to compare the rate at which the leading smartphones achieved the market penetration milestone of 1 million units. However, as Engadget's Tom Ricker notes, this leaves out the important factor of geographical footprint at launch. The Google Android G1, for example, launched only in the United States. The iPhone 3G was released simultaneously in 21 countries. (link)
4. Volume vs. Revenue. CounterNotions's Kontra uses data from GigaOm's Jose Fermoso to demonstrate that what matters is not how many smartphones you sell, but how much you make on each sale. Unfortunately, both writers' comparisons are a bit off since Apple's Q1 numbers include revenue and earnings not just from iPhones, but also from Macs, iPods and other goodies.
5. Stock Price. Finally, a glance at Apple's share price, which having suffered a thousand cuts in the past year finally picked up a little traction in the past two weeks.
Poor Philip … If he publishes something unflattering for Apple, all the Apple customers bite back. If he reports something that casts Apple in a positive light as a company or as innovators a host of people who hate Apple are outraged and bite back.
Talk about a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario.
Kontra's chart is a bit of a mixed bag. Clearly, Apple revenues include iPods and Macs, not just iPhones. However, they only show GAAP figures, and don't include deferred revenues. Let's look at their real numbers:
iPhones Shipped = 4.4M
iPhones SOLD = 4.65M (they ran down inventories 250k, according to Oppenheimer in the conference call. The actual sell-thru was 250k higher, thus 4.65M)
Avg revenue per phone = $600
Total revs = $2.8B
Gross Margin on iPhone = 60%
Gross Income on iPhone = $1.7B
Apple's tax rate = 30%
Net Income on iPhone = $1.2B
"I am sorry but these graphics read more like a fairytale than anything else."
Right, unless you make up numbers, they cannot be trusted.
Apple sells tons of hardware, 8.5 % of laptops in USA currently.
Apple is running very satisfied ratings of over 85% across the board.
Yep, Apple cannot be doing anything right.
Just a thought.
en
Jack,
Chart 1: If you combined sites (I'm guessing you mean Microsoft.com and MSN, which are truthfully two completely different sites) then Apple would be even higher up the list.
Chart 2: The list is what it is, and we have no reason to believe that Vitrue is making up numbers. 'iphone' is higher than everything else. That's the point.
Chart 3: If you want fairness, then you must concede that the iPhone (regular) sold 1 million devices within twenty days of it competition with much higher selling prices. iphone min price $499. Also, the 5800 was available to 12 countries prior to reaching 1 million sales.
Chart 4: 4.36 million iphones with an assumed average selling price of $250/per is $1.09 billion in revenue. This doesn't include the amount given to Apple from AT&T as a subsidy.
Also, the charted numbers don't include mention that Apple defers iphone revenue over 2 years.
Apple stock is a long-term play. It has SO much going for it long term, but very little appreciation of that potential. That means that short term (i.e., until its earnings blow away the average expectations, like happened this Xmas), the stock is going to be volatile, along with the rest of the market.
I am sorry but these graphics read more like a fairytale than anything else.
They are almost completely meaningless, and rely on the data being skewed to favor apple.
Try combining the sites in the first chart and apple would not even be there. Using a single site is like counting how many red cars were sold and then drawing a conclusion about ford.
the "Social Brands" chart is just a driver to Vitrue, who seem to be avoiding showing us the metrics.
"day to million" meaningless rubbish. break down the number with apple or trash the chart.
For volume , view what I said about days.
Chart Five, fine. two weeks of market action.
Apple is the one spot of sunlight in this recession.
Even if you can't afford a Farrari, an iPhone is world-class coolness.
With respect to Social Brands, I see the XBox and Playstation, but where is the Wii?