Apple has just announced its financial results for its fiscal 2012 third quarter ended 30 June, 2012. Profits missed analysts’ predictions.
Major news agencies reacted negatively towards Apple’s quarterly results.
Compared to analysts’ predictions for a profit of $10.37 a share on revenue of $37.2 billion, net income was reported as $9.32 a share on sales of $35 billion.
The major news agencies don’t seem to have taken the results in positive light.
The consensus seems to be that customers are holding off on iPhone purchases in anticipation of a new model, which is expected to be introduced later this year.
Shares fell some 6 percent in late trading.
This is the first full quarter of sales for Apple’s latest iPad, which was released in March.
Note the 84% growth in iPad sales over the same quarter last year.
Some 17 million iPads were sold in the quarter alone!
| Sales growth this quarter | ||
| Device | Number of units sold | Compared to year-ago quarter |
| iPhone | 26 m | 28% |
| iPad | 17 m | 84% |
| Mac | 4 m | 2% |
| iPod | 6.8 m | -10% |
It’s interesting to note the 10% decline in iPod sales.
It is an indication that it may be made redundant by the proliferation of smartphones which can fulfil the functions of a mobile personal music player cum entertainment device.
On the other hand, Sony is still launching new models in its rejuvenated Walkman media players cum entertainment devices.
Apple’s Board of Directors has declared a cash dividend of $2.65 per share of the Company’s common stock.
The dividend is payable on August 16, 2012, to stockholders of record as of the close of business on August 13, 2012.
This continues Tim Cook’s announcement in March to pay dividends – something that Apple had not done in 17 years until then.
The dividends are estimated to cost Apple about $10 billion a year.
Apple has around $100 billion in cash which many investors have called over the years to be returned to investors.
Boosting developer confidence through BlackBerry 10 Jam
Monday, July 9th, 2012The BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour rolled into town today as more than 300 developers from Singapore and surrounding countries packed the Grand Ballroom at Hilton Hotel to be briefed on why they should develop apps on BlackBerry 10.
Wvygen Wong (right), local developer, talk about the BlackBerry 10 experience. To his right is Justin Lee, Application Development Consultant, Developer Relations, APAC, RIM.
“We are fully committed to BlackBerry 10,” says Charles Dufourcq, Director for Singapore at Research In Motion (RIM).
And that is the message that RIM wants to get through to developers.
“Research In Motion customers from GoDaddy Group Inc. to asset manager Thames River Capital UK Ltd. are preparing for the worst: the loss of the BlackBerry service their employees depend on to communicate.
RIM’s stock has slumped more than 70 percent in the past year, and tumbled 19 percent on June 29 after the company posted a quarterly loss and delayed the BlackBerry 10 operating system, increasing the pressure on RIM to find a buyer or sell assets.
While RIM has built infrastructure to ensure continued service, some customers are devising backup plans as RIM prepares to face shareholders at its annual meeting tomorrow.”
– “RIM’s Customers Working on Contingency Plans: Corporate Canada” dated 9 July (today) on Bloomberg, by Scott Moritz and Olga Kharif.
The rollout of BlackBerry 10 has been further pushed back to the first quarter of next year.
Developers need to be convinced that BlackBerry 10 will come into being if they are to be persuaded to invest time and effort into developing on the new platform.
I believe Dufourcq when he says RIM is committed to BlackBerry 10.
But it is not a secret that RIM may not even be in its current form after it considers the findings of an evaluation study of its strategic options by JP Morgan and RBC, which includes – as a least favoured option – a sale of the company.
It is anybody’s guess how a re-structured/acquired RIM positions BlackBerry 10.
But let’s not speculate too much.
The full-day BlackBerry 10 Jam today aims to provide the developer community with insights on the BlackBerry 10 platform.
“We are fully committed to BlackBerry 10,” says Charles Dufourcq, Director for Singapore at RIM.To help developers get started on the BlackBerry 10 platform, attendees were provided with a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device in order to test their apps and to help ensure their apps are ready and available for customers.
Applications created with any of the BlackBerry 10 tools will run on BlackBerry 10 smartphones as well as BlackBerry PlayBook tablets when the new platform becomes available for the PlayBook.
Tags:BlackBerry 10 Jam, Bloomberg, developers, Research In Motion, RIM, Singapore
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