pats

10 Reasons Not to Buy Apple

Hao Jin
If I follow your wisdom who should I invest in? Point 1. The fact that a market is competitive doesn't mean there are not winners and losers. # 2 If you can read a financial statement. Go to Apple's investor web site and calculate the actual margin on the Iphone using the data provided by Apple. If you can't do a basic calculation like that you don't deserve to publish your article on a financial web site. The margin on the Iphone is about 55%. #3 is so what. They were new to the business and did exclusive deals for a few years with a number of carriers. Did this slow sales for the first couple years probably, but they are quite capable of adding these other carriers in the future so I don't get your point. The exclusive deals allowed them to bring a new device to market with great margins provided by the carrier subsidy.

#4 Gartner projects the smart phone market to grow 26% in 2009 which is the segment the Iphone would be included in. I think you should look at the correct statistics. How fast did the Iphone grow YOY or model over model. If you run those numbers then your picture might look different. Don't forget your deferred revenue accounting which means Apple is still recognizing revenue for every single Iphone sold and only this qtr will have two years of sale.
#5 Can you tell me how many handhelds Nitendo or Sony sold in the gaming market? Because until the App store opened Apple sold zero Itouches for gaming, but today they probably capture some of the handheld gaming market a new growth area, and what if this year they add a camera/video capability to the touch or a gps will they capture any of the dedicated point and shoot camera sales or PND sales.

#6 I love your statistics and your short term view of the world. If you expand your horizons past the current recession Apple's MAC growth has been phenomenal but it would ruin the story. By the way how has the rest of the PC world been doing this year? I guess it will never recover and Apple will never grow again.
#7
Will not argue that the Apple store was a huge investment, but have you ever compared the revenue per square foot of retail space to any other retailer in any market? You might find that Apple has the most profitable retail operation bar none in any business. Do the research and then tell me Apple made a mistake building their own stores
#8
Is a joke. Steve was on medical leave and he is doing great along with the company. As a great leader he has a strong bench and some are more then capable of filling his shoes

#9
Where did you read about Apple's future strategy. Do you have a published white paper or something because I follow Apple daily and I have never seen a published strategy but as far as execution they seem to be doing well

#10
The SEC investigation was terminated and pretty much any large company battles litigation on a continuous basis.

Good luck with your investments because with this kind of analysis you are not ready to invest in individual stocks. The QQQQ are probably a wise bet for you because you can't figure out good well run companies with great growth potential.