Chapter 1: What were Apple's record quarterly sales and forecasts?
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Just want to get to Apple. Let's get to it. First quarter revenue, $143.76 billion. Yes, a big beat. $138.4 billion was what the street was expecting. First quarter EPS, also a big beat. $2.84 a share. The street estimate was for $2.68 a share. Greater China, they've been struggling there. Revenue in Greater China, $25.53 billion. Folks, that is a beat.
$21.82 billion was what the street was expecting. That's a new all-time EPS record, though, overall, and the install base now has more than 2.5 billion active devices. Well, got to say, investors liken this report in the aftermarket. Stock's still up about 2% here in the post-market trade. Hey, let's see what Bloomberg News Managing Editor for Global Tech, Consumer Tech, thinks about this.
He is Mark Gurman, knows everything about this company, lots of exclusives. This feels pretty good.
cook gets to keep his job right at least for now um this is a massive massive massive quarter uh this is a home run their greatest quarter ever by orders of magnitude it's a gigantic beat on overall revenue uh china is back uh you have a big beat on um The iPhone, in particular, $85 billion quarter is just insane. The installed base, $2.5 billion. The numbers are just beyond excellent.
We can ignore the fact they missed on wearables, home and accessories. We can ignore the fact they missed on Macs. We can ignore the fact that they barely crossed expectations on services. I guess none of that matters when the iPhone is selling so well. But still, there's the big existential question of what's next.
It's an important question because of AI, and Apple absolutely needs to figure out its AI strategy. There needs to be an AI reckoning of some sort there. But they just bought themselves a very long time with this just insanely great quarter.
So let's talk about a couple of the areas that you highlighted there. One is China, and another one is the sort of the concerns that people had about memory chips in this quarter and the rising prices of memory chips. How was Apple able to navigate this so it didn't hit its margins like people thought it would?
They buy components and memory components quarters and months in advance.
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Chapter 2: How did Apple perform in Greater China this quarter?
Sometimes years in advance, they have these deals struck. So they're working off of numbers and pricing and materials here that really give them extensive pricing power over competitors. So we'll hear more about that on the call today, but it seems like they're fine.
Mark, I love this. I mean, I'm looking at our live blog. So you must have like kicked this out before you jumped on air with us. But you did mention that the significant things on the call. You've already talked about the AI strategy succession. You've kind of said maybe that's off the table for now because this was such a blowout quarter.
You talk about the long term viability of the business if it doesn't get its AI act together. It's hard to even think about that when you see the numbers here and just what a big company this is and how significant it is, I feel like, in so many different people's lives. Like, I have an Apple household. I think Tim has an Apple household.
Is that really the long-term viability if they don't get AI together?
They call me Tim Apple, in fact.
They do. Yes.
Yes. I said long term. Right. And I'm talking really long. OK. The little the little the really long term here. Right. Like at some point there is going to be a need to fulfill these AI desires. And, you know, they're going to have to figure that out.
Well, Anurag Rana of our BI team, he talked with Tim and I just moments ago, and he talked about, you know, how they're working with Google when it comes to AI, relying on them right now for their models. And so they're not doing the big AI spend. That makes sense for now, too.
So do you agree that that's kind of a smart strategy now and kind of waiting it out a little bit, but at some point they've got to kind of do their own thing? Yeah.
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Chapter 3: What factors contributed to Apple's revenue beat this quarter?
And obviously the judge didn't break up the search deal there. So it made sense and it aligned pretty nicely for them.
OK, do we know yet how Apple was able to beat expectations in China? Once again, for the first quarter, the most recent quarter, greater China revenue came in at twenty five point five three billion dollars. Twenty one point eight two was the estimate. You said it minutes ago. It is back in China. You're holding up an iPhone right now. That's what they did.
I'm answering your question. I'm answering your question.
It was the iPhone 17 orange. Oh, it's the color orange.
It's that easy as the Pro Max. No, it's design. People buy the new designs. This is the first new design in half a decade. It got it done. That's why you do new designs because you're trying to bring in new customers for upgrades and that's the way to do it.
Didn't they know that?
Of course they know that, but it takes time to do these new designs and you kind of want to get it right. And then you can't do it too often because if you do it too often, it doesn't have the power that it has if you do it only every so often.
Hey, I want to roll into this, a story you've got on the Bloomberg that you put out today. And this has to do with Apple buying the Israeli AI startup that interprets facial movements, QAI. Is this important?
I think it's going to enable some features for future AirPods, smart glasses, and mixed reality headsets and all that. But it's not fundamental to the overall AI strategy, which I think they're still trying to figure out. It's just one piece of the puzzle.
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Chapter 4: What challenges does Apple face with rising component costs?
or they've done something smart with the timing of it and it's sold well. The bit that's missing, of course, is that that commentary does not have anything specific to do with Greater China. We know the numbers in Greater China are really good, but how did this iPhone do there?
Yeah. Like, is it just, whoa, just a good quarter? Or was it luck? Or was it really strategy, right, of understanding?
I'm super cautious because sometimes we've relied on third-party data. Like, I won't name it. It would be a bit unfair. But there are various third-party data sets that say, oh, no, Apple's doing really badly in China.
Everyone knows who you're talking about. It's okay.
Okay. I'll stick to my guns. And, you know, and then Apple comes around with earnings and the opposite has been true on more than one occasion. But this occasion, like the third party data, this sort of incremental anecdotal of people queuing up for the iPhone 17 in all markets, but like greater China, it was kind of there. So that's interesting. Where else do you want to go?
I mean, you know, this is Apple. There's anything. We want to go to AI. Yeah. Yes, you want to ask me about the thing that they have nothing to say about right now, sure.
Thanks, Tim. Every analyst has really pointed to that. I mean, we can talk about the relationship that Apple has with Google and for Gemini. We could talk about all the money going to open AI potentially from Amazon and other companies, about a potential $100 billion fundraising round. We could talk about Apple relying on third parties rather than building its own. Is there a risk in doing that?
I go back to basics and I kind of rely on Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who is one of the world's leading journalists when it comes to covering not just Apple, but consumer electronics. And in the context of this earnings print, what he's written is probably true, that Apple has done enough. to mask over or allay the concerns that investors have about a lack of progress in AI as a product.
You know, the reporting's quite clear and it's been announced now officially, right, that at least on the interim, Apple's AI generation of Siri will be underpinned by Gemini. And Mark's reported a lot about the financials around that, right? It's a one billion per annum agreement.
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Chapter 5: How is Apple's AI strategy evolving amidst these changes?
Ian King leads our semiconductor coverage, right, at Bloomberg. And it is correct that Apple's supply chain teams are its secret source. That was Tim Cook's whole thing. He was COO. That's what he was good at. But the reason prices are high is because of scarcity of availability. Because there is such demand for equivalent chips that are going to data centers. And so Mark's answer is appropriate.
Apple has leverage and the ability of scale to say, okay, we have got ahead of this. And one would imagine that their supply chain team is sophisticated enough... to have foreseen some of the things that we're now experiencing in that market.
So the first thing Mark said to us, I know you were blogging, Ed, and you were looking at the results, was Tim Cook just bought himself time. Tim Cook gets to keep his job. I mean, there's been a lot of questions about succession. Mark says that's one of two questions he would ask on the call. The other would be about AI. In your view, was his job, not at risk, but...
You know, there are questions about who leads this company after Tim Cook.
I am not Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. But what I would say, right, is that when Mark did that recent reporting, and it's been over a period of time about which executives are now more at the forefront of Apple's future, he was crystal clear in that reporting that there is no suggestion that Tim Cook being replaced or stepping down or retiring is imminent. that this was a longer term thing.
What I would reflect on is the conversations that I have with people in industry and those that come on the show and talk about it is Tim Cook is the operator that many people would want in an environment like this where we still have trade and tariff considerations. The movement of goods between borders from point A to point B is quite difficult.
And as we just talked about, specifically memory pricing, that's within his range. This is not me speaking, this is how people would relay it to me. Mark, when he goes on air and when he writes, and again, I'm not speaking on his behalf, he would talk a lot more about the product. fresh products, reiterated and renewed products in the product pipeline for the future.
And right now, I don't know that people are necessarily so worried about that, at least in my world, they are worried about when they're going to get the software bit right with AI.
You know, it's interesting. You say AI. It's something we talked about just briefly with Mark Gurman. It's a story that he put out. Apple buys this really AI startup that interprets facial movements. He's like, you know, interesting will help in terms of, I guess, product development, but not necessarily a big, big deal.
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