“So the story is still playing out. Starting in December, there was an unproven claim that demand for the iPhone 5 had taken a nosedive. Why? Because of one unconfirmed report claiming that Apple had cut back on orders for the latest iPhone’s displays,” Gene Steinberg writes for TechNightOwl. “Apple’s stock price took a dip, but things got real bad in January when no less than the Wall Street Journal published a similar report evidently based on the same unproven claim.”
“Even though Apple reported record sales for the December quarter, which lasted a week less than the December quarter for 2011, Apple couldn’t catch a break. Profits were flat, even though, after introducing so many new products in the previous few months, you’d expect exactly that result. And don’t forget Apple did caution against lower profits for the quarter,” Steinberg writes. “Despite the flat profits, they still totaled over 50% more than Samsung, and many times more than Amazon, which seldom reports much of a profit. The stock market responded by tanking Apple’s stock price, but keeping Amazon relatively high. Does that make sense? Well, I suppose it does if profits aren’t important.”
Steinberg writes, “Consider, also, that Apple managed to sell 47.8 million iPhones, despite the fact that the newest model was in short supply for much of the quarter. And, once again, it was a 13 week quarter, compared to 14 weeks last year. Had there been another week, assuming the same sales rate for that extra seven days, Apple would have sold nearly 3.68 million more iPhones, a total that would have comfortably exceeded analyst estimates. And don’t forget the impact to profit margins.”
Much more in the full article here.
New iPhone Geeks 