
Apple Reports Third Quarter Results - antr
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/07/24Apple-Reports-Third-Quarter-Results.html
======
antr
The truly amazing number from this Q3 results, is not that it has missed most
analyst estimates (and that's what the tech press will focus on), but that it
has generated $41.7bn of accumulated cash flow during the first 9 months.
That's +54% jump from the previous year's 9 months accumulated cash flow
($27.1bn).

That is record breaking, whatever the benchmark.

------
Steko
Crossposting from the other thread, I thought this was the best part of the
earnings call...

From Jacqui Cheng's liveblog of the call on ars:

Q: Can you talk about what your conversations are like with carriers in terms
of pricing, subsidies, etc.?

Tim Cook: (laughing out loud)

I don't want to talk about specifics with carriers, but generally I'd say our
role is to make the very best smartphone in the world that has an incredible
user experience that's far superior than anything else, that customers want to
use every day at the end of the day, carriers want to provide what customers
want to buy the most important thing for Apple is to continue making the best
products in the world. we are maniacally focused on it

------
rmckayfleming
Mountain Lion tomorrow eh?

~~~
ctdonath
And maybe new iMacs? Need more than one sub-model to show off that OS X
"retina" support.

(please please please...)

~~~
taligent
Well if the rumored plans are true new iMacs will be coming out towards the
end of the year. The 13inch MacBook Pro is the next Retina in line.

------
mckilljoy
As impressive as this is, it is below analyst consensus, and the stock is down
5% afterhours :-(

~~~
elithrar
> As impressive as this is, it is below analyst consensus, and the stock is
> down 5% afterhours :-(

This happens _every_ time. Apple exceeds their own guidance; grows at a rate
faster than nearly anyone else in the Fortune 500, and yet still fall short of
the (insane) analyst guesses (predictions would be unsuitable).

I believe Horace Dediu did an article some time ago on amateur vs professional
analysts and their track records against Apple's earnings calls. I can't seem
to find the link but the degree at which some were off (with regularity) would
be concerning if I were paying them for the advice.

~~~
mckilljoy
I remember that as well -- bloggers got it right, analysts got it wrong. This
morning I read "somewhere on the internet" that bloggers were predicting ~$10
while analysts where predicting ~$12. If I didn't just imagine that, this
would remarkable in that even the bloggers overestimated.

~~~
hkmurakami
This reminds me of "The Wisdom of Crowds"[1]. Could it be a case of the masses
collectively being more intelligent than the so called experts?

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds>

~~~
Steko
The experts are generally over-conservative for a reason. The tldr reason is
that they get fired for losing people's money so absolute accuracy (where
misses are 50% high and 50% low) is not their incentive.

