Apple Inc. (AAPL) is engaged in designing, manufacturing and marketing mobile communication and media devices, personal computers, and portable digital music players. The Company's products and services include iPhone, ipad, Mac, iPod, Apple TV, a portfolio of consumer and professional software applications, the iOS and Mac OS X operating systems, iCloud, and a range of accessory, service and support offerings. It sells its products worldwide through its online stores, its retail stores, its direct sales force, third-party wholesalers, and resellers. Apple Inc. is headquartered in Cupertino, California.
It is rare to talk poorly of Apple shares, in fact, most of our discussions of the company are typically of the “fanboy” variety. We know about the category-leading products–indeed, Apple invented many of the categories! We know about the massive market cap–and the stock's resultant ability to move whole indices, the design wizards led by Jony Ive, the “can do no wrong” juggernaut of Cupertino, untouched by rumours of Asian sweatshops, bad wifi antennae, bendable cases, etc.
And yet here we are: over the past few weeks the stock has shed lots of value, and is now down more than 10% since it released quarterly earnings in July. It is now pretty much flat for 2015. Sales of the “killer app” for Apple, as it were, the iPhone–responsible for more than 60% of the company's revenue, have not been quite as impressive as investors have come to expect.
In addition, the jury is still out on the company's latest “must have” product– that consumers did not even know they needed to have until Apple made it–the Apple Watch. Without mega growth in iPhones and a success with the Apple Watch, it is pretty much a given that the company will not be able to keep up its impressive record of growth and dominance.
As we have noted in the past, Apple simply cannot continue to perform as it has because it is now far too large. The numbers just don't make sense when they get so big. How much cash can they keep on hand? How much of the market can they dominate in the face of cheaper Android phones, and–GASP– a resurgent Microsoft with its latest OS release Windows 10?
But, shares are not quite as expensive as they were the last time we saw a dip like this. They certainly have more room to fall but the company remains the one, the only, Apple after all. This may be just a temporary glitch. In the past, the stock has shed 10% or more on numerous occasions only to come roaring back stronger than ever–the last time this happened, in 2012, the shares lost almost half their value only to come back 200%.
