Apple announced its quarterly results this week and it’s like waking up to Sonny and Cher singing “I’ve got you, babe!” Despite selling a ridiculous number of iPhones, Apple didn’t sell enough according to Wall Street because analysts thought they’d sell even more iPhones. 35 percent growth is apparently not enough to feed the maw of the mindless beast that controls our economy.
Let’s go to Bloomberg for the most on-point explanation of the quarterly failure to appease the Gods by jumping into this lava pit of the vanities. To be honest, there are at least a dozen pieces that are about as bad. The only reason the Macalope picked Bloomberg is, well, someone has to pay.
“Apple IPhone [sic] Shipments, Revenue Forecast Miss Estimates”
For the 10,000th time, who missed what again?
Apple Inc.’s iPhone shipments for the fiscal third quarter and the company’s revenue forecast for the current period missed analysts’ projections, raising questions over whether demand for the device has peaked.
Explain to the Macalope how this supposedly works in terms that do not violate the tenets of logic that bind our universe together. First of all, as we point out almost every quarter, Apple didn’t “miss” anything. Analysts missed. The Macalope knows it hurts the tender feelings of the masters of the universe on Wall Street to suggest that they made a mistake of any kind, but when it’s your job to tell your customers in advance how many iPhones Apple sold in a particular quarter, it’s you who’s going to hit or miss, not Apple. Apple ships what they ship. You guessed wrong. You screwed up. Are we clear on that?
No, of course not. We will never be clear on that. We shall forever be locked in this battle, like a parent trying to get an intractable toddler to eat his peas.
Now, onto our second misunderstanding.
Shares fell as much as 8.8 percent in extended trading.
Like they always do. And why do they? Not because “Apple missed” by failing to meet your inflated guesses based on who knows what, but because investors are taking profit. Just like the philosophy that says “Bring a flat amount to the casino and only bet that,” you need to cash out from time to time, and investors buy on the rumor and sell on the news.
Does it seem odd to anyone else that a cartoon of a man/antelope with a Classic Mac for a head has to explain this to a business news organization? Seems weird.
Any indication of slowing demand for iPhones could spark concern that Apple is going to have a hard time selling more smartphones in the final months of the year…
DANGER LURKS AROUND EVERY CORNER. This is the business news equivalent of the TV news “Are spiders literally crawling into your mouth by the hundreds every night as you sleep?” story. Which is actually true, they are crawling into your mouth by the hundreds. You ever see those videos of red crab migrations? It’s just like that except it ends in your mouth instead of the ocean.
“It’s going to be running up against really hard comparisons,” said Abhey Lamba, an analyst at Mizuho Securities USA Inc.
Hard in the sense that they’re hard to make? “Apple is like… uh, the Death Star? Giant but still man-made? That’s not quite right. How about a perpetual motion machine? Wait… cold fusion! No…”
Truth be told, there really aren’t any comparisons to be made anymore. Apple has reached a level of incomparable success. Which is why analysts and pundits consistently call for it to crash and burn because it’s the only ending they understand.
“We looked back at similar periods for iPhone and iPad when they were originally launched, and we’ve actually sold more Apple Watches than we sold iPhone and iPad at the time,” Luca Maestri, Apple’s chief financial officer, said in an interview.
Is it any wonder they don’t want to release specific numbers? No matter what they are, they’ll never be good enough.
Well, the horny one looks forward to doing this again next quarter, Bloomberg. Till death do us part.