Posted on 10/18/2010 6:58:23 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Related Quotes Symbol Price Change AAPL 318.00
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs went on the offensive on Monday after a rare disappointment in sales by the iPad maker sent its shares tumbling, but even his biting words failed to reverse market sentiment.
Jobs, who has not addressed investors on an earnings call for two years, lashed out at competitors Google Inc and Research in Motion and dismissed the smaller tablets made by rivals such including Samsung and Dell .
"The current crop of 7-inch tablets are going to be DOA, dead on arrival," Jobs told analysts on the conference call. "Their manufacturers will learn the painful lesson that their tablets are too small."
Shares of Apple -- the second-largest corporation on the Standard & Poor's 500 index, after Exxon Mobil -- slid 6 percent in after-hours trading, which would be their biggest single-day loss since 2008.
Supply and production bottlenecks kept iPads, which have a 9.7-inch touch screen, from store shelves and buyers waiting weeks sometimes for their gadget. The company sold 4.19 million iPads in the fiscal fourth quarter.
"A little bit disappointing there. Street was expecting closer to 5 million units. The problem is supply, they can't make enough of them," said Gleacher & Co analyst Brian Marshall.
...
Gross margins fell short of target as iPads, whose profit margin is lower than it is for iPhones, made up a larger proportion of Apple's sales. Investors had expected more from a company that had smashed Wall Street's targets in each of the past eight quarters.
Gross margins came to 36.9 percent, below Wall Street's average forecast of 38.2 percent, despite better-than-expected components costs in the period.
"The one surprise is on the margin side. Everything else is pretty spectacular," said Gartner analyst Van Baker.
(Excerpt) Read more at sg.finance.yahoo.com ...
Maybe the closed platform and lack of removable storage weren’t the most desirable features after all.
It’s a weird article.
Basically apple is doing awesome so it is horrible.
It’s not the size of the screen. I still think the iPad is overpriced, plus you’re stuck with AT&T, right?
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
iPad is with Verison now too.
the problem with tech stocks is that the competition is so fast they pass you up. Laptops, cell phones, and mp3 players are being replaced by hand helds that have the power to do all in one.
The real money will be in the phone/data service and in the selling of applications, tunes and movies/video and other content.
“”The current crop of 7-inch tablets are going to be DOA, dead on arrival,” Jobs told analysts on the conference call. “Their manufacturers will learn the painful lesson that their tablets are too small.””
I have to agree with Jobs on that part. Same with phones. You can make them so dang small that these old Mark I Eyeballs just can’t see it.
Big deal.
I wouldn’t mind owning one. But it’s overpriced.
Man, screw the analysts. Days like today I wish I had Apple stock.
Cry me a river, Steve
I don’t think the Verizon version will be 3G though.
I guess that must be why Verizon will be selling iPads starting October 28th.
Possibly.
http://www.phonenews.com/verizon-to-debut-new-data-plans-on-october-28th-13238/
So far my unlimited data plan from AT&T has been great. I think it was discontinued after only a few days. Luckily I bought it on day one after I stood in line to buy my iPad.
I’m looking forward to the second one.
This is in after hours trading. It means little. No information on how many shares or anything else. I suspect shenanigans. . . stock manipulations. Someone could have offered and bought ten shares at that price and reported it.
Apple products are needlessly expensive, not upgradeable and become obsolete, plus Apple controls what you have from the moment you buy it, and keep paying for it.
I’ll take my home built machines that run on Windows 7, or, if I like, Linux. I can buy parts, tinker with it, replace parts, and do what I want, and it costs sooo much less.
But, I don’t get to look trendy.........
Didn’t read, eh?
“The problem is supply, they can’t make enough of them,”
It’s simply not flexible enough.
Yet.
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