Pravi problem
U zadnje vrijeme puno je raznih osobnih stavova, prenesenih vijesti i tome slično. I nije problem u tome, nego li u parcijalnim i manje bitnim, pa čak i marginalnim problemima koji se opisuju ne razlikujući još k tome uzroke i posljedice. Čak se stječe dojam tendencioznog pristupa prema jednim proizvodima u odnosu na neke druge, a o trećima se čak i šuti. Na to se po običaju zalijepe neki, iz emotivnih a ne razumskih razloga, pa sve skupa postave krajnje neozbiljno.
Pa, gdje je suštinski problem? U nastavku je dio razgovora Christoph Gisiger sa Fred Hickey objavljeno na Finanz Und Wirtschaft:
Q) What’s the impact on earnings? As of now, most big tech companies have reported their results for the fourth quarter.
A) I’m not surprised that there have been a lot of warnings from the Apple world. You have to understand, Apple is a giant with $235 bn. in revenue last year and the tentacles are wide. It’s mostly a hardware company and two times the size of Hewlett-Packard, the largest computer company in the world. So when Apple is in trouble, it’s a huge drag on all of the suppliers. I call them the “Apple Dumplings” and there are many of them.
Q) In fact, Apple’s numbers were one of the big disappointments in this earnings season.
A) The bad news has only just begun. People wanted iPhones with a bigger screen and Apple was very slow to bring those out. But when they did, there was a great hunger in their customer base for the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus. At the same time Apple was rolling out those phones, it brought in the last major carrier that hadn’t been carrying iPhones. That was China Mobile with 800 to 900 million subscribers. So that led to the mother of all upgrade cycles and Apple’s numbers were enormously inflated. Now, here we are a year later and Apple is going to have extremely difficult comparisons. The fourth quarter numbers were disappointing, but the first quarter numbers are going to fall apart.
Q) And what about the long term outlook?
A) Apple hasn’t brought out a really new product in years. They had some failures: Apple TV hasn’t gone anywhere and Apple Pay has been very slow. The Apple Watch has been a huge disappointment. There is tremendous amount of competition and they have overpriced the product. They want to bring out an Apple car in 2019 but there is no chance of that happening. Maybe they can bring it out many years later at best. The company has become primarily a smart phone company and that even more so over the past few years. That’s a problem because the smartphone market has matured. Even in China, the market has grown only 1% last year. And when a market in technology products gets saturated, prices start to drop and margins contract. That’s a permanent slowdown which the analysts haven’t really accounted for yet. The smartphone market becomes essentially another PC market – and that’s not a good thing as we have witnessed over the last ten years or more.
Q) What does that mean for Apple shares. The stock has already lost more than 20% in the past twelve months.
A) I think Apple will fall, but it has the support of its dividend. So its decline will be limited. It’s the suppliers that are going to get killed. Stocks like Skyworks Solutions, Cirrus Logic, Qorvo, Avago and NXP Semiconductors that doubled, tripled or quadrupled in the prior year leading up to the introduction of the iPhone 6. Those stocks have all broken down and they will continue to fall since I think that even when the iPhone 7 is introduced, it won’t be a leap in technology. There won’t be the kind of pent up demand like there was for the iPhone 6.
Pa, gdje je suštinski problem? U nastavku je dio razgovora Christoph Gisiger sa Fred Hickey objavljeno na Finanz Und Wirtschaft:
Q) What’s the impact on earnings? As of now, most big tech companies have reported their results for the fourth quarter.
A) I’m not surprised that there have been a lot of warnings from the Apple world. You have to understand, Apple is a giant with $235 bn. in revenue last year and the tentacles are wide. It’s mostly a hardware company and two times the size of Hewlett-Packard, the largest computer company in the world. So when Apple is in trouble, it’s a huge drag on all of the suppliers. I call them the “Apple Dumplings” and there are many of them.
Q) In fact, Apple’s numbers were one of the big disappointments in this earnings season.
A) The bad news has only just begun. People wanted iPhones with a bigger screen and Apple was very slow to bring those out. But when they did, there was a great hunger in their customer base for the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus. At the same time Apple was rolling out those phones, it brought in the last major carrier that hadn’t been carrying iPhones. That was China Mobile with 800 to 900 million subscribers. So that led to the mother of all upgrade cycles and Apple’s numbers were enormously inflated. Now, here we are a year later and Apple is going to have extremely difficult comparisons. The fourth quarter numbers were disappointing, but the first quarter numbers are going to fall apart.
Q) And what about the long term outlook?
A) Apple hasn’t brought out a really new product in years. They had some failures: Apple TV hasn’t gone anywhere and Apple Pay has been very slow. The Apple Watch has been a huge disappointment. There is tremendous amount of competition and they have overpriced the product. They want to bring out an Apple car in 2019 but there is no chance of that happening. Maybe they can bring it out many years later at best. The company has become primarily a smart phone company and that even more so over the past few years. That’s a problem because the smartphone market has matured. Even in China, the market has grown only 1% last year. And when a market in technology products gets saturated, prices start to drop and margins contract. That’s a permanent slowdown which the analysts haven’t really accounted for yet. The smartphone market becomes essentially another PC market – and that’s not a good thing as we have witnessed over the last ten years or more.
Q) What does that mean for Apple shares. The stock has already lost more than 20% in the past twelve months.
A) I think Apple will fall, but it has the support of its dividend. So its decline will be limited. It’s the suppliers that are going to get killed. Stocks like Skyworks Solutions, Cirrus Logic, Qorvo, Avago and NXP Semiconductors that doubled, tripled or quadrupled in the prior year leading up to the introduction of the iPhone 6. Those stocks have all broken down and they will continue to fall since I think that even when the iPhone 7 is introduced, it won’t be a leap in technology. There won’t be the kind of pent up demand like there was for the iPhone 6.