[Geeoff]

Well the news is in that Apple missed its holiday sales estimates and revenue came in below expectations. I wanted to post a couple thought relating this to RIM. The news is all over the web, but one sample link is here:
Apple Sales Gain Slowest Since

1. The fact that they missed holiday sales predictions means that Thor may have been correct in waiting till January to launch BB10. His strategic decision appears to have been exactly the right thing to do because releasing before Christmas did not garuntee Apple high sales.

2. The fact that iphone sales were below estimates can be seen as a negative or a positive for RIM. The negative is that perhaps the smart phone market is getting saturated and there are fewer smart phone sales available for everyone. The positive is that Apple's growth has peaked which opens the door for other smart phones. Only time will tell which one is correct.

At least Apple does not appear as unassailable as it did last year. Soon the attention will be on RIM to see if BB10 meets expectations. Can't wait for Jan 30!

[FSeverino]

funny thing is... if RIMM drops 1 million subs its the end of the company (even at the number they have), but if Apple drops 1 million macs out of 5 million its just because of bad timing.

[schmeat]

funny thing is... if RIMM drops 1 million subs its the end of the company (even at the number they have), but if Apple drops 1 million macs out of 5 million its just because of bad timing.

They make most of their money off iphones though. So the equivalent would be if their iphone user base went down a million.

[bigbadben10]

A bit of a bloodbath tomorrow when markets open....after hours $463!

[FSeverino]

thats true... but decreases are decreases.

they are losing on macs and ipods. iphones are selling now, but that can be because the 5 was just released... we will see next quarter when it is 'old' and there are more phones to compete against it.

I dont want apple to fail. competition is what makes everyone innovate, and we can clearly see that the LACK of competition that apple had has led to them slacking hard.

[GTiLeo]

They make most of their money off iphones though. So the equivalent would be if their iphone user base went down a million.

I doubt this is true I think all their products make the same profits as now that the Apple craze is here more and more macs are being sold. And since they use the same parts as normal PCs and they charge twice as much their actual profits on macs are extremely high iwould think more so then the iPhone, iPad and iPod

[whitbags]

47.8 million iPhones. Like, wow.

And yet Samsung sell more?? Dear Lord.

[sydsam]

47.8 million iPhones. Like, wow.

I wish RIM sold that many per 2013... Oh well

[Zarpan]

I think it points out that Apple's new iPhone models have only had incremental improvements, and that does open the door some for competitors. I'll have to check the conference call notes after, but there were some earlier data points that suggested that Apple was selling a higher proportion of older iPhones since people weren't seeing the value proposition in shelling out for the iPhone 5 over a cheaper 4S.

Thinking about the stock - Apple did do pretty well overall, but couldn't meet the high expectations that some had for this quarter. One advantage RIM has is low expectations. It is a lot easier to try and beat 10 million BB10 sales in a year (which one analyst predicted) than 50 million iPhones in a quarter.

[FSeverino]

I doubt this is true I think all their products make the same profits as now that the Apple craze is here more and more macs are being sold. And since they use the same parts as normal PCs and they charge twice as much their actual profits on macs are extremely high iwould think more so then the iPhone, iPad and iPod

although I agree with the macs making more money per unit I think that SCHMEAT was going with the fact that there just SO MANY more iphone sales. If apple makes 10x the profit on a mac as an iphone but sell 10x the number of iphones then the total profit is the same. At the selling prices I would think that the iphone would at least make a similar profit as macs... and considering that they sell about 10x more, the iphone line would make more profit easily

[silversun10]

i doubt the smart phone market is getting saturated, so a little bit weaker competition from Apple
should be considered a positive for RIM, RIM only needs a small share of Apple customers to do
extremely well...

[hoopitz]

Well the news is in that Apple missed its holiday sales estimates and revenue came in below expectations. I wanted to post a couple thought relating this to RIM. The news is all over the web, but one sample link is here:
Apple Sales Gain Slowest Since

1. The fact that they missed holiday sales predictions means that Thor may have been correct in waiting till January to launch BB10. His strategic decision appears to have been exactly the right thing to do because releasing before Christmas did not garuntee Apple high sales.

2. The fact that iphone sales were below estimates can be seen as a negative or a positive for RIM. The negative is that perhaps the smart phone market is getting saturated and there are fewer smart phone sales available for everyone. The positive is that Apple's growth has peaked which opens the door for other smart phones. Only time will tell which one is correct.

At least Apple does not appear as unassailable as it did last year. Soon the attention will be on RIM to see if BB10 meets expectations. Can't wait for Jan 30!

1. Although Apple missed the sales predictions on iPhone sales, they still sold a sh#t ton of iPhones. That said, i agree it was smart to wait for a January release for many reasons-they didn't have to compete with all other holiday smartphone craziness, it gave them time to make a really solid OS, they took time to attract developers, etc...

2. I think I read that by the end of 2013, the smartphone penetration in North America only will be up to 50%, so there is definitely a lot of room for RIM to make a splash. I also think that smartphone users (except us BlackBerry folk) aren't as loyal as they used to be and are more willing to try something new-hopefully this will bring a lot of people back to BlackBerry. I think it's your latter point that is the most important...there's a good chance that Apple just isn't as cool as it used to be and people are finally over the hype. That's great news for RIM!

At the end of the day, I think that any doubts by wall street about the world's most valuable company opens up great opportunities for RIM to show the world that they're not out of the smartphone game, they invented it!

Counting down the days until the 30th!!

[kevinnugent]

Is it any wonder guys like Michael Dell want to take their companies private? Apple sells a gaszillion phones, and its still not enough. You're only as good as your last result.

RIM's been on the receiving end of this for a while. Does Samsung even trade on the NASDAQ?

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

Well, well, well.....what do we have here?????

The beginning of the decline. I expect some usual suspects to skip over this thread and not post on it as if it doesn't exist.

[cjcampbell]

Is it any wonder guys like Michael Dell want to take their companies private? Apple sells a gaszillion phones, and its still not enough. You're only as good as your last result.

RIM's been on the receiving end of this for a while. Does Samsung even trade on the NASDAQ?

No kidding... Record sales and more cash that some countries GDP, but since it fell 200 million below expectations, the stock plumets over 10%, and with the price of AAPL, that's a lot!! Although, their year over year EPS was down a little and that's the first time that's happened in 10 years. Will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow with it.

[bluetroll]

it was to be expected....

although apple smashed their record for ipad sales... majority of them were probably ipad minis. ipad minis have a lower margin so it basically means the competition is hurting apple.

[cjcampbell]

it was to be expected....

although apple smashed their record for ipad sales... majority of them were probably ipad minis. ipad minis have a lower margin so it basically means the competition is hurting apple.

The iPad Mini is the one thing they didn't give actual numbers on... they just said it was a "hit"

[Shanerredflag]

I think it bodes well for RIM stock...AAPL is now down 10% in after market...the talking heads on the tube are all saying don't confuse a good company with a good investment, callers are all "retail" investers who just took a s_it kicking..they are going to bail and one has to think some of that icash is going to come on over to RIM...just my 2 cents.

[Nindia]

Apple will pop back up. The market is over reacting.

The company has 130+ BILLION dollars in cash. Right now with it's afterhours price, if you subtract the cash, Apple is being valued at 300 billion dollars almost exactly.

At its current pace it's making $50 BILLION per year. I'm expecting it to close in the high 400s tomorrow after the weaker folk get shaken out.

[dbmalloy]

What it will come down to is margins..... As changes with carriers and more stiff competition on prices it will eventually erode Apple's bottom line. What I found interesting is Apple never broke down IPhone sales. Many reports show consumers going for Iphone 4s instead of 5 because of the discounted price... should be interesting year ahead... Maybe the lack of innovation on IOS is staring to come home to roost... customers must be wondering why upgrade or buy a new iphone when the Iphone 5 really has not competitive advantages over 4......

[infamyx]

Traders have quite the love affair with Apple, if it skips a single beat on anything the stock takes the most massive hits. Sell less phones but still rake in more cash, and yet the stock drops (although guidance for the next quarter is well below Wall Streets expectations, but by a couple billion) is pretty absurd.

Between these conference calls and Apple keynotes where investors believe the wildest stories that analysts with zero clue write i'm surprised the stock ever hit 700 bucks a share.

EDIT: Just to touch on something, the average sale price of the iPhone for this past quarter was $641.00...so much for people mostly buying iPhone 4 and 4S as the ASP for iPhone would have plummeted if this were the case.

[world traveler and former ceo]

APPL Down over 10 percent in after hours trading ... the door has opened wide open for BB10 and RIM! Perfect time for RIM to showcase its new innovations!

[derpOverflow]

Apple will pop back up. The market is over reacting.

The company has 130+ BILLION dollars in cash. Right now with it's afterhours price, if you subtract the cash, Apple is being valued at 300 billion dollars almost exactly.

At its current pace it's making $50 BILLION per year. I'm expecting it to close in the high 400s tomorrow after the weaker folk get shaken out.

Like a guest on CNBC said "a ton of cash doesn't exactly argue for a high multiple..."

[brmiller1976]

People are bored with Apple.

Mac sales collapsed 21%. iPad sales were okay, but most of those sales came at the expense of Mac sales. iPhone sales are below expectations and trending worse, and it's unlikely that Apple has anything as new and cool as what RIM and Microsoft have coming in the next six months.

Margins are COLLAPSING. Turns out that the move to iPads was at the expense of high-margin Mac sales, so even though sales are 17% higher, profits are unchanged. Once Samsung and the Chinese kick off The Great Smartphone And Tablet Price War, Apple will be in serious trouble margin-wise.

In short, people are looking for something new -- it's a good time to have something new like BB 10 for people to consider and buy. People will pay a premium in the short term for "new and cool," and RIM can license BB 10 to the Chinese and others if hardware pricing becomes too aggressive to sustain. Apple doesn't really have that option.

[sf49ers]

Apple will pop back up. The market is over reacting.

The company has 130+ BILLION dollars in cash. Right now with it's afterhours price, if you subtract the cash, Apple is being valued at 300 billion dollars almost exactly.

At its current pace it's making $50 BILLION per year. I'm expecting it to close in the high 400s tomorrow after the weaker folk get shaken out.

Share price is forward looking, investors are worried because the margins have come down, infact they made same $13 billion sametime last year by selling 10 million fewer iphones, as competition steps Apple is susceptible like RIM was back then. Apple needs something new ...otherwise it will hover around $400 mark like Microsft has been hoovering in the $20's territory for the past decade in-spite of it's record breaking profits. Android is doing the most damage as of now but you cannot rule out MSFT, RIM in future as they seem determined and coming after strongly