AAPL Flat In Down Market
The U.S. added the fewest jobs in nine months and well short of expectations, while the unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 9.2%. Needless to say, the markets are off in morning trading to close the holiday week. Shares of AAPL are however holding ground. Catalysts include
second calendar quarter results released on July 19th at 5pm ET; the next
iPhone launch this fall as well as the possible
iPad 3 ahead of the holidays (see below); smartphone push into China and emerging markets;
iCloud rollout and adoption; the continued evolution and next generation of
Apple TV; and new platforms such as books / publishing and social (
Ping). Shares of
Apple trade at
12x Enterprise Value / Trailing Twelve Months Free Cash Flow (including long-term marketable securities), low versus historical standards.
15 Billion Apps Downloaded From App Store In Under Three Years, Impressive (Apple) Apple announced that the
iOS App Store has reached the 15 billion download milestone in just under three years since launch. More than 200 million
iOS device users have installed apps from the store's selection of 425,000 apps, including 100,000 native
iPad apps. The figure blows the 4.5 billion
Android app download milestone away.
For some historical context, it took Apple 9 months to reach the first billion app downloads.
Read » Apple Loses High Profile Advertising Clients Due To Price (Bloomberg) Apple has sliced rates for its iAd mobile advertising platform by as much as 70% as big name clients depart for rival ad platforms, according to sources. Original iAd clients,
JC Penney (where Apple retail guru landed) and
Citigroup, were no longer paying Apple a million dollars for new campaigns, and that Apple itself has reportedly started to offer new iAd packages for as little as $300,000.
No matter how pretty Steve Jobs thinks iAds are, it seems like the next best thing is good enough in the world of advertising.
Read » New iPhone Could Run On Largest Carrier In The World (Cult Of Mac) A photograph of an
iPhone prototype running on China Mobile's network strengthen rumors that Apple is set to launch the device on the world's largest carrier, possibly as early as September. Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White points out the carrier boasts 611 million wireless subscribers, or 68% of the China market.
Read » Sprint iPhone Likely Before The Holidays, Says Analyst (Barron's) Citadel Securities analyst Shing Yin thinks a
Sprint iPhone deal may not be that far off, perhaps as soon as this year, which would likely mean a
CDMA iPhone 5 before the holidays. With lower prices on data plans (unlimited), a
Sprint iPhone “could offer an attractive proposition for more price-conscious users," or the lower-end of the market.
A Sprint iPhone would also help Apple's fight against Android in the U.S. Read » Verizon Represents Home For One Third Of All iPhones (Localytics) After carrying it for only five months,
Verizon is already home to one third of iPhone 4 handsets being used in the U.S., according to Localytics. The
CDMA version represents about 32%, where the
AT&T version (as well as unlocked devices on
T-Mobile) represent 68%. Even after grabbing 20% of the market when
Verizon launched the iPhone in February, many analysts were disappointed with early performance.
Read » Another Day, Another iPhone 5 Rumor (The Wall Street Journal) According to some suppliers of components to Apple, the new version of the iPhone is expected to be thinner and lighter than the iPhone 4 and sport an 8-megapixel camera. Citing sources in Apple's supply chain, the company is gearing up to produce 25 million units by the end of 2011. Sources have indicated that Apple will utilize
Qualcomm's wireless baseband chips, moving away from chips manufactured by Infineon Technologies.
Read » Daily Trader: Why Apple Is Underpriced (AOL's DailyFinance) Apple, the company, is on fire; just posting the most impressive quarter in its history. Apple the stock, however, is decidedly cool with price-to-earnings sinking below its historical average. Why?
It's a big company. Next-generation iPhone was delayed. Uncertainty surrounding Steve Jobs. Like any other stock, Apple still faces a fair amount of risk. However, in terms of buying a company with fantastic growth opportunities trading at a cheap price, it's hard to find a company that is better-positioned.
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