
Apple Obliterates Q3 Earnings Estimates: Best Mac Sales Ever, Huge iPad Numbers - ssclafani
http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/20/apple-obliterates-q3-earnings-estimates-on-best-mac-sales-ever-and-huge-ipad-numbers/
======
Groxx
> _iTunes store rev exceeded $1 billion._

For that _quarter_? Wow, if they keep that up for a year, they'll essentially
match revenue of physical music sales[1].

Remind me... _why_ did the music industry think no-DRM would tank them?

[1] 2008-2009 US shipment numbers:
[http://www.riaa.com/keystatistics.php?content_selector=2008-...](http://www.riaa.com/keystatistics.php?content_selector=2008-2009-U.S-Shipment-
Numbers)

~~~
sandipc
I think that includes app store numbers... but yeah, still impressive

~~~
Groxx
Ah, very good point. I don't know if they differentiate... looking at it again
with that in mind, I doubt it.

------
tomerico
It's amazing that the iPad's first full quarter sales nearly matches the
entire mac lineup's best quarter all time.

(In terms of number of units)

~~~
pchristensen
Well, the iPad number is impressive, but they cost a whole lot less than Macs.

~~~
callmeed
Except the mini

~~~
silentOpen
The mini's recent refresh made its base cost $699, actually.

------
stevederico
Listen to the Earnings Call Here:
<http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq310/>

They stated the NC datacenter will be completed and operating by the end of
the year. Streaming iTunes could be announced before we know it.

I found the "halo" effect they described particularly interesting. Data has
shown, customers buying an iPhone as their first apple product come back and
buy more Apple products. They are now seeing this trend in the iPad as well...

Furthermore, they can't make the iphone4/ipad fast enough. The demand streams
are simply insane and unlike any other products available today.

</fanboy>

~~~
adbge
They should call it the all-my-shit-is-locked-into-iTunes effect.

~~~
ubernostrum
Are you also one of those people who believes iPods can only play music
purchased from the iTunes store?

~~~
ora600
But the reverse is true. If you bought music from iTunes you can't play it
elsewhere.

Since iTunes are a convenient way to purchase music, some of us ended up with
large quantities of music tied to Apple's devices.

~~~
DLWormwood
Both the Wii and DSi can play the format iTunes currently uses. I think the
PSP and PS3 can as well. I’m also pretty sure Archos and a couple other of the
high end media players also work with AAC. AFAIK, only the low end stuff, like
SanDisk’s fare, are still using silicon tied to MP3/WMA.

~~~
emehrkay
Isn't AAC an open standard?

~~~
DLWormwood
Yes, although the silicon was slow coming. For a while, the iPod was the only
game in town. The few other devices that used AAC at the time (like a Sony 8cm
CD player I used to use) used the older MP3 style container instead of the
modern MOV/M4A wrapper.

------
ThomPete
I wonder whether Apples ability make the solutions they do and have the
success that they have is based on the fact that they have more or less total
vertical integration.

We know they have the best ecosystem out there, but there must be other things
too.

It does show one thing though.

Google still have a lot to learn outside of advertising. In fact I believe
google will fail building any serious kind of business around their mobile
attempts.

~~~
patrickaljord
<http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/15/android-costs/>

tl;dr the point of Android is so Google can put their ads on it.

To that extend it is already a success given that google mobile ads were
banned on the iphone and probably will be too on BB and windows mobile and
that android phones are already outselling the iphones (all together, which is
all that matters to Google).

~~~
niels_olson
Anything as big as android has more than one purpose.

------
MaysonL
61% year-over-year revenue growth: simply astounding.

~~~
pixelcloud
I find it more astounding how no one can do the same.

Is everyone else really that bad? Or is Apple just that good?

~~~
mixmax
Noone else has a guy at the helm of the ship that's a worldclass salesman, a
true visionary, an amazing product guy and a detail obsessed perfectionist all
rolled into one.

------
xenophanes
I wonder when was the last time any professional analyst overestimated Apple's
upcoming quarterly earnings.

------
tlrobinson
Over a billion dollars of _profit_ per _month_. Holy crap.

------
HSO
I wonder when Apple will take a higher share in the enterprise market, i.e.
when the "halo effect" from use of iphones, later maybe ipads, in big corp.s
will lead to increased use of macs/os x there too. if it happens, i.e. when os
x reaches a certain threshold of trust or viability in enterprise systems, it
will probably be something that happens quite fast. in a sense, there'll be a
network or lemming effect where you'd just need one big firm to switch to make
it "acceptable" for other "orifices" to do so too.

~~~
atlbeer
iPad's (at least in my office Fortune500) are very much the new must have tech
executive toy. Toy is probably the wrong word as they are carried everywhere
to every meeting.

~~~
allenp
This is interesting - do you think a RIM or HP (Palm) tablet would make the
same in-roads if the functionality/aesthetics were good enough? Is the iPad a
social marker or is it filling a functional need?

------
joubert
And without stimulus money.

------
evo_9
I wonder if the various pundits predicting the end of the Mac line are taking
note of this.

~~~
bonaldi
That the Mac, which has a huge product line and a much more complicated OS and
so is harder to develop and support for than the iOS machines, is only just
barely outselling the brand-new rev 1 iPad?

Yeah, I think they're taking note of this.

~~~
scrod
>...and so is harder to develop and support for than the iOS machines...

Harder to develop because you can use the programming language and runtime of
your choosing, including the exact same APIs that are on iOS, or harder
because you don't have to cross-compile your app for an embedded platform and
test it on a remote machine whose internals you aren't allowed to change or
inspect? Maybe you meant harder because there's no convoluted chain of
constantly-expiring certificates needed for testing and deployment, or because
you have far more RAM, disk space, screen space, and CPU cycles available, or
because you can run as root or even in kernel mode to extend the OS in ways
that Apple hadn't imagined instead of playing along as their dancing
promotional puppet app, which they can kick to the curb on a whim?

Or maybe you meant it's harder to support because users have to drag an icon
(which they received from a web site in a single click) into their
applications folder, instead of thumbing through 200 seemingly-identical app
listings with terse descriptions and then fumbling to enter the same iTunes
account password for the 90th time, re-agreeing to yet another slightly
different revision of a 28-page-long terms of service and then going back and
entering the same iTunes account password because iOS forgot you were actually
downloading an app?

Ah, of course, now I see what you mean.

~~~
wtallis
Even if iOS devices completely eclipse the Mac lineup, it can stay around as a
profitable business for quite a while:

All the big new features in Mac OS X recently have been driven by or also
developed for iOS (Core Animation, OpenCL, GCD, Exchange support, etc.), so
clearly it won't cost Apple much to maintain Mac OS X. The desktops and
laptops have been a fairly slow-moving target lately, and particularly for the
laptops they haven't been doing much in the way of revolutionary hardware
design since introducing the unibody enclosures. Apple's relatively high
profit margins also mean that sales can fall to a very low level before a
product line becomes unprofitable. When you also consider how much easier it
is to maintain Mac OS X as an iOS development platform than to make Windows a
good development platform (due to the strong similarities between iOS and Mac
OS X and Apple's control over both), and when you consider that Apple doesn't
have any trouble attracting iOS developers in spite of the Mac-only
development tools, it's pretty clear that the Mac can keep making Apple money,
even if they don't put much work in to it.

------
axod
They seem to be opening lots of Apple stores here (UK, South East).

------
callmeed
For the savvy traders here on HN: would you buy AAPL right now? Did/does this
report change your mind?

~~~
ars
Definitely don't buy now. Buy when no one is thinking about apple - i.e. when
it's not in the news (or at least when the news is bad).

~~~
mrtron
Which won't happen in the next 5 years.

(just so someone can come back and quote at one of us in 6 months...) Now
seems like a reasonable time looking at the fundamentals and ignoring the
antenna issue.

------
yannk
I'm impressed and a little worried... how will they keep up? Sure there have
been some major hiccups - but, great, appealing products and vision easily
compensated for that.

------
etherael
Somewhat interesting in light of [http://communities-
dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/07/iphone-...](http://communities-
dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/07/iphone-second-quarter-2010-in-bloodbath-
market-share-is-declining-where-all-big-rivals-picking-up.html)

------
dman
Wonder what new products they are talking about. mac pro refresh ? apple tv ?
ipad with retina display ?

~~~
thought_alarm
Magic Bluetooth Trackpad, New iPod Touch with FaceTime, new Apple TV, new
iLife and iWork software, and perhaps one other thing no one's expecting.

~~~
wvenable
I suspect there will be a new iPod Nano device before Christmas. A new Touch
seems very likely.

~~~
ido
iPad Nano!

Same as the iPad, but in a small convenient package that fits in your pocket.

~~~
Setsuna
iPad Nano? Isn't that already available? (iPod touch / iPhone)

~~~
ido
Yes, that was the joke.

Apparently it was either not funny enough or not obvious enough.

~~~
wvenable
I voted you up, but jokes are usually off topic on hacker news and get voted
down pretty quickly no matter how funny.

------
mikecane
Did they break out the iPod numbers? That had a decline. I'd like to know if
that was due specifically to the non-Touch iPod. And if Touch sales actually
went up when broken out.

~~~
dmnd
iPod sales down slightly, but iPod Touch up 48% year-over-year. Source:
[http://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/20/apple-reports-profit-
of-...](http://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/20/apple-reports-profit-
of-3-25-billion-in-q3-2010-on-record-15-7-billion-revenue/)

------
sigzero
This isn't the quarter to watch. Next quarter should be interesting to see if
"antennagate" ruptures the Apple containment field.

------
schammy
Can anyone tell me _why this matters_? In the context of "hacker" "news", I
mean.

~~~
sunir
Apple is creating a market around the iPhone and iPad, and therefore changing
the industry of computation, which will change the way startups (NB: this
place used to be called Startup News) and hackers prioritize activities for
the next few years at least.

Why do you think it doesn't matter?

~~~
schammy
And how does Apple's revenue apply to that exactly? Why does it need to be
posted to HN every quarter and make top story? Everyone knows they're doing
well. No one but the fanboys and shareholders care about their actual
revenue/profits.

~~~
Groxx
Q: _Why does it need to be posted to HN every quarter and make top story?_

A: Why does it need to be posted to HN [by HN users] every quarter and make
top story [because HN users have voted it up]?

The community (which is why the site exists) hath spoken!

~~~
derefr
No. This conception of "the democracy makes the rules" is what turns sites
into inane cat-picture/political-argument factories. Tiny democracies can work
as _closed_ systems, but when they're open to people entering/leaving them,
every change will precipitate a change in membership to realign the
community's interests with the change. This causes a positive feedback loop,
where eventually, for example, nobody is left except Apple addicts.

Sites have purposes (otherwise, there would only need to be one website on the
Internet, that served everyone's needs equally.) Letting the community decide
both what, and who, the community is to be composed of, leads inevitably to
every community being composed of "everyone," and having a purpose of "general
interest." I, for one, would rather have a place that just has "Hacker News."

~~~
Groxx
You say this, yet the submitter has been here _over 1000 days_ , and over 100
longer than you. Evidently at least _some_ of the long-timers, from when this
was a _much_ more closed environment, do indeed see this as interesting news.

So the question becomes: what's the definition of "hacker news", if not a
user-submitted aggregator? And where do you define what is and what is not HN-
worthy? It's apparently not age-related, nor precedence, nor community, and I
don't know how you'd define what's hacker-related and what's not, barring
strict, _literal_ "hacks" (and then how about circuit bending to make music?).

