In All The Noise: Record-Breaking Quarter for AAPL; One Half Billion iTunes Subscribers; Picking Up The Pieces -- AAPL -- Apple, Inc -- Nothing About the Bakken

This is just idle chatter. I don't invest in AAPL, never have, never will (actually, I'm beginning to think different on that).

Record-breaking quarterly revenue and profit.

Apple shares tumbled: Apple's losses in market cap today were roughly equal the value of two Research in Motions and two Nokias (at the link).

Overall revenue in China is up almost 70%.

iPhone sales came in line with expectations; if anything, on the high end. Apple sold 47 million iPhones in most recent quarter compared to 37 million in the year-ago quarter, but Apple saw the most significant growth in China, which is said to be up more than 100% year over year -- and that was despite a "late" launch. Apple opened four new stores in "Greater" China in 2012 and plans to add "many, many more stores to the elven it currently has in China.

iPad sales came in line with expectations.

Apple TV sold more than 2 million units in the past quarter, an increase of 60% year over year.

1Q13 numbers for Apple: another record-breaking earnings report; sold over 75 million iOS devices i that holiday quarter

Services are being overlooked by folks. In 2012, the number of iCloud users grew from 85 million to over 250 million.

iTunes subscribers have topped 500 million. The population of the US is 312 million. [The more important number is "active subscribers. I am a subscriber but haven't spent a dollar on iTunes in two years. I have $1.76 credit in my iTunes account. I also have a Facebook account but haven't visited the page in days, weeks; I've certainly never looked at any ads on Facebook.]

This was one comment regarding iCloud:

Cloud works perfectly for me. My household runs four (4) iPhones, two (2) iPads, one (1) iPad Mini, three (3) Apple TV's, an iMac, Macbook Pro, and three (3) PC's. Four (4) iCloud email accounts (were .Mac, then MobileMe) and iTunes Match. All cabling is gigabit and connected to an Airport extreme and Airport Express linked to a 100Mb cable service. 

This may be somewhat out of the norm now, but it will become the norm going forward.

The Yahoo!Finance numbers are probably delayed, but:

• AAPL: $137 billion in cash; XOM: $13 billion in cash
• p/e of 10 for AAPL (a utility stock in CA has a p/e of 20 today and is setting new highs
• AAPL market cap still exceeds XOM's
• AAPL pays 2.1%
• XOM pays 2.5%
• profit/operating margin around 30% for AAPL; around 10% for XOM
• AAPL debt: 0; $12 billion for XOM
• operating cash flow for AAPL: $50 billion; XOM - $50 billion

As noted, this is not an investment site; I don't invest in AAPL (never have, never will, but reconsidering)....but in idle chatter:

• Tim Cook should be very, very happy with what he sees for the company
• the retail investors are being played like a fiddle by the pros

Apple may or may not be a growth company any more; but certainly in terms of volume, I don't see XOM as a growth company either. That California utility hitting new highs today, with a p/e of 20 is no growth company either in the "usual" sense of the word.

It certainly is a topsy-turvy world.