Apple Earnings To Be Reported Tuesday -- May 1, 2017

Update: Apple has a quarter-trillion dollars in cash. More cash than Canada and UK combined. 

Update: AAPL now pays out more in dividends that US Steel is worth.

Update: earnings 1Q17

• headline: Apple iPhone sales disappoint
• a beat on earnings, but a miss on sales
• EPS: $2.10 vs $2.02 forecast (huge)
• revenue: $52.9 billion vs $53.02 forecast (hardly a miss)
• iPhone sales: 50.8 million (vs 52 million forecast) -- hardly a miss
• average selling price: $655 vs $666 forecast
• shares down 1.5%
• guidance: $43.5 - $45.5 vs $45.7
• raised dividend 10.5% to $0.63/share
• boosted share buyback authorization to $210 billion
• will return $300 billion to shareholders by March, 2019
• shares outstanding: 5.25 billion 
• $300 / 5.25 = almost $60/share 
• iPhone sales down 1% from same quarter last year
• iPad sales fell 13% to 8.9 million units
• Mac sales rose 4% to 4.2 million units
• services businesses up 18% against last year, $7.04 billion
• other businesses (includes Apple Watch) up 31% against last year, to $2.87 billion 
• hit record cap of $775 billion before dropping back about 1.5% after earnings released 
• Alphabet (Google): $647 billion
• Microsoft: $536 billion
• Amazong: $452 billion

Original Post

Data points:

• US population: 330 million
• one-fourth of the American public -- one out of every four Americans -- acquired an iPhone during the holiday period in 1Q17 -- not during the quarter, but during the holiday period (at least that's what was said at the linked article)
• Apple sold 78.3 million iPhones during the 1Q17 holiday season
• average selling price of each iPhone: $695 (Wall Street forecast: $688)
• Apple's 2nd quarter is generally among its weakest (for obvious reasons)
• 20 - 30% of consumers prefer a more expensive iPhone model to a less expensive iPhone model
• Apple earnings to be reported Tuesday
• forecast: 52 million sold iPhones, an increase of 1 million iPhones from same quarter one year ago
• forecast: 33% of consumers will have preferred a more expensive iPhone model rather than a less expensive iPhone model

So, we'll see.

So,

• if during their best quarter: 80 million phones
• the worst quarter: 50 million phones
• splitting the difference, 65 million phones in each of the two other quarters
• total: 260 iPhones sold in one year
• one has to assume, not every Apple iPhone user bought a new iPhone in 2016

Well, you can do the math.

I don't own a smart phone. Never have. Never will. I probably shouldn't say "never."

But in our older daughter's family, the only member who doesn't have an iPhone is Sophia; she will turn three years old this summer. My wife has an iPhone. The only holdouts, it appears: our older daughter out in Portland, and, me.