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Technology Stocks : Apple Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (148915)	1/23/2013 4:48:09 PM
From: slacker711	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213176

I think we'd need to look at gross margins at the same point in the iPhone 4 life cycle. The assumption is that gross margins will return to trend as the product portfolio matures. Slacker

To: Road Walker who wrote (148915)	1/23/2013 4:50:17 PM
From: Cogito	1 Recommendation Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 213176

They're selling cheaper or manufacturing more expensive, period. Either way, they're delivering more to the customer for the same amount of money. Sounds like a winning plan to me. Margins have been in ridiculous territories for a company making electronics in the 21st century. The high 30s is still pretty great, as far as I'm concerned. This report is actually pretty good, I think, despite the near misses here and there. Though I can't say I like the way a year over year EPS decline looks. We do still have to remember the extra week last year, but I don't like it anyway.

To: Road Walker who wrote (148915)	1/23/2013 7:48:15 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Respond to of 213176

China's taste for cheap phones doesn't bode well for Apple by: Emily Ford From: The Times January 24, 2013 11:09AM THE rise of ultra-cheap smartphones costing as little as £40 ($60) is eating away at Apple's business in China, as the American giant makes an aggressive play for the world's biggest mobile phone market. With an iPhone costing more than the average monthly salary in China, low-cost handsets from upstart local manufacturers are exploding in popularity, with smartphones priced at below 1000 yuan ($152) taking 40 per cent of the market last year and growing rapidly, according to researcher Gartner. Although clunky and not terribly sleek, this new breed of low-cost smartphones, most of which run on the Android operating system, browse the internet and download apps in the same way as rivals costing 10 times the price. These include the Coolpad, a £60 phone from China Wireless, a business that although only 1 per cent of the size of Apple already outflanks it and expects to sell 28 million phones this year. The success of the other domestic brands Lenovo and Huawei in targeting the low end of the market have also conspired to send the iPhone into sixth place in the third quarter of last year, down from fourth, while China Wireless shot up to third, according to IDC, another research company. "I think this year will be the year of the low-cost phone ... That doesn't bode well for the fast expansion of Apple in China," Michael Clendenin, the founder of RedTech Advisors in Shanghai, said. "The first wave always happens among those who can afford the device when it comes out. The others wait until more competition comes to the market and that's what's happened this year." A Bloomberg report this week suggested that Apple is planning to introduce a cheaper iPhone for emerging markets by the end of the year, although analysts said it would be unlikely to cost less than £200. "I don't think the international brands are going to compete at the low end; they don't have the corporate structure to be cost-competitive against the local players," Sandy Shen, an analyst at Gartner in Shanghai, said. theaustralian.com.au