Apple crushes Street, reports record earnings; revenue grows 71%, earnings up 78%

Mac Daily News ^ | Tuesday, January 18, 2011 - 04:32 PM EST

[Swordmaker]

Apple blows away Street AGAIN!—PING!

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Apple 1st Quarter Financial Results Ping!

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[babble-on]

Better mousetrap is better

[Westbrook]

Their 2010 gross revenue is about one-fourth the cost of the Department of Education for the same year.

[dayglored]

These guys are on a serious roll. No wonder Jobs feels it is a good time to kick back and concentrate on his health. Wise decision.

If only I'd bought AAPL back in the 90's when I had some scratch... woulda coulda shoulda.... *sigh*

[SamAdams76]

Apple stock was tanking this morning on news that Steve Jobs was taking another medical leave. I bet they timed that announcement so that it would immediately be offset by the news of this afternoon. People who dumped their stock this morning are probably kicking themselves right now.

Jobs or no Jobs, it looks like Apple has a lot of record-shattering quarters ahead of them.

[hinckley buzzard]

AAPL lost 7 bucks and change during regular trading due to Steve Jobs announced medical leave. They made back 4 bucks and change on the earnings report. By weeks end they will probably be back on trend.

[KoRn]

So.... HOW many iPads did they sell last year? lol

[Defiant]

Those kind of earnings put them on track for $500 per share in a few months. Pretty amazing.

[Tim n Texas]

About 14,500,000 iPads since April.

[dayglored]

This is a minor hiccup, and as you say, will be recovered within a week or so.

When Steve announces that he's not returning to Apple, or it is announced that he's gone to the Great Mac in the Sky, THEN there will be a dip that will take a while to level out. But level out it will.

God willing, Jobs will have have enough time to pass the baton successfully, and the transition will be finished while he's alive.

[BunnySlippers]

I can’t believe how many PC people at my office have bought their first Apple product this year ... iPads and iPhones.

[steve86]

Yours is the kind of exuberant talk that emerges at tops.

[comps4spice]

My brother told me on the phone recently that his IT dept had given the green light for him to “go to the dark side” and buy a Mac. My guess is the Enterprise money is only getting started.

[stripes1776]

My brother told me on the phone recently that his IT dept had given the green light for him to “go to the dark side” and buy a Mac. My guess is the Enterprise money is only getting started.

I think you are absolutely correct about that. And when the iPhone and iPad are firmly established in the enterprise, Macs will be next on the purchase list.

[Defiant]

LOL. I'm not in the market at the moment. I got out in summer 2008, right before the crash. I can't bring myself to get back in, because it has become a rigged game. That said, Apple is really generating some amazing profits. If you look at its earnings, margins and growth, you could easily give it a multiple of 20, which puts you well over 500 today. It actually has a lot more upside potential, if its momentum helps it start taking over the space currently occupied by Microsoft. If you think that Apple could double its market share in PCs in the next 10 years (which is something quite attainable) you are looking at a huge upside and sustained growth. Someone who is very pro-Apple could assign a value to Apple of 30 times earnings, taking into account such upside potential. I am not so inclined, but I would give it 20 without batting an eye.

The market as a whole is a chimera, held up by manipulation and borrowed money. But Apple's growth, production and sales are very real, and worth something. There are only a few companies that we can say that about anymore, but when it happens, enjoy it, don't try to knock it down just because you are feeling curmudgeonly.

[Defiant]

That’s the upside potential that I talk about in post 16, which has not fully been factored in yet. The IT guys, and the brass in big companies, are buying iPhones and iPads and are buying into the Apple hype. I think a slow move of Enterprises towards Apple products could well become a torrent over the next 5 years.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

When Steve announces that he's not returning to Apple, or it is announced that he's gone to the Great Mac in the Sky, THEN there will be a dip that will take a while to level out. But level out it will.

Would that be Geek Heaven or the Great Computer Landfill in the Sky?

Because of the barely noticable blip on the stock yesterday and today I have changed my mind about that day in the future. Now I don't think they will be affected at all.

[steve86]

I don't know about "feeling curmudgeonly", but I do feel that the earnings and outlook are fully priced in more than fully priced in. You are seeing a mad fools' rush into Apple and its products this last year and those buying panics never last, regardless of the merits of the company or its products. You are assigning P/E based on some mushy, overly optimistic accounting and the numbers therein are now old news. In fact, so old that the stock price dropped sharply in after hours trading after the initial fools rush. And don't I recall that tech stocks topped about the third week of January last year? LOL

[dayglored]

>> ... it is announced that he's gone to the Great Mac in the Sky...

> Would that be Geek Heaven or the Great Computer Landfill in the Sky?

Not entirely sure, but this much I know... It's really shiny, and has a giant Apple Logo.

> Because of the barely noticable blip on the stock yesterday and today I have changed my mind about that day in the future. Now I don't think they will be affected at all.

In the long term, I agree. I do think there will be a significant drop that lasts maybe a couple months. The recovery will be the next big product announcement, and everybody breaths a sigh of relief and says, "Ok, Apple can still do cool stuff without Jobs in charge."

Well, not quite -everybody-. Ballmer is waiting impatiently for Jobs to die, so that Apple will die (he thinks). The crowning irony of all this would be if Ballmer goes monkeyboy chair-throwing again some day and dies of a heart attack, and Jobs is still around. Jobs is too classy to piss on Ballmer's grave; sadly, the reverse is not true: Ballmer is a classless pig. I don't wish ill of either of them, but I'm a lot sicker of Ballmer's antics than of Jobs'.