苹果Q4财报超预期但大中华区营收不及预期

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Apple just a little bit lower uh there. Um and we're going to be of course breaking their earnings down in just about 7 minutes. So we'll have full analysis and that includes with our next guest. He's really a member of the family.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean you know we talk about the instant insight analysis that we get from our Bloomberg team and he is certainly crucial for it. Ron Ragana is Bloommer Intelligence senior tech analyst. He joins us from Chicago. Okay, we're going to talk to you about Apple in a few minutes. I mean, we still got 6 minutes until these earnings cross. But Carol, there's some other stuff on our radar that we want to talk about, including the correction that NASDAQ [snorts] 100 is officially in.

Third one this year.

Yeah, third one.

Third three is what do they say?

Third time's a charm.

Third time's a charm. Yeah.

Anorog, is it third times a charm? I mean, I like to see markets go up, pull back, you know, get some of the excess out, but you are the expert here. And when you see an index um three times hitting a official 10% correction, I don't know, is that a healthy market? Is that a market that's a little bit troubled? So one one of the things we would talk about is there is certainly a lot more um you could say ups and downs right in this time than the last few years.

You know we all know a few things for sure which is there is no shortage of uh demand for AI compute which means everybody wants it. There is very difficult for people to come up with their ability to deliver it. So there is no doubt in that mind. Now there are certain things that are emerging. First it started with higher memory prices the beginning of the year and we'll find out from Apple as to how they are dealing with this.

So that was one. So the component costs go up the price to come up with a new data center goes up. The second thing was this whole notion around data center scrutiny which is you're having a difficult time coming up and um creating new data centers them going live um and that has a trickle down effect on that. So that's the second thing. Third thing is rates have gone up from the you know a year ago till now we've seen a massive change in that and I would say the last thing the question is those same people who were giving a lot of credit to AI infrastructure build are just I wouldn't say pausing because you know the Oracle did fine today in terms of their demand for their bonds but people are questioning how long can it go through so there is a lot more uncertaintity right right now on some of these other factors That was not the case a year ago.

How Okay. So, I mean, how long does this go on? Like, where are we in this this cycle? Because one thing that we've noticed this year, and you've pointed it out to us, is that sometimes you're you're punished for spending money, and sometimes you're rewarded for spending the money. Sometimes you're punished for not spending enough money.

Sometimes you're rewarded for not spending too much money like Apple in in recent months. Like, I you know, what's going on? So, one of the things I think is, you know, maybe it's a blessing in disguise for some of these vendors if we do see some kind of delay in their ability to get some capacity up online. And I and I know it's controversial, but the reason I say that is because a lot of these large companies that are seeing their free cash flow go negative very quickly may not see that.

So, for example, Microsoft in the most recent quarter had guided for capex of about 50 billion. M one of their third party data center companies decided that or not decided that got a delay in their ability to give that capacity to Microsoft. So they only spent 45 billion. So instead of 50 billion they spent 45. Now that actually gets added up to free cash flow. Now the question is how soon will the demand be uh realized?

Even if we extend it out by a couple of years, one year, two years, I don't think that's going to change the story. I think it just gives you a little bit of breathing room. But the big question is if you are a trader that's really trading these things in and out, do you have the patience to stay out of the market for that long?

You know, there's appreciating a company um because of what we'll see in their numbers because whenever Apple reports and you know this, it just feels like their numbers, their sales numbers and everything is just just massive. Having said that, this is a stock that has had quite a run and added about a trillion dollars to its market cap since late June. you know, you look at a valuation that's roughly about, you know, if you just use the PE about 40 compared to some of the other big tech names.

Um, it's getting a little pricey. Is so much of the good news already priced in when it comes to Apple?

You know, I think there could be an argument uh that that does make sense with that statement. Um, and the only reason is if you go back a year ago, um, you know, we talked about that their their lack of capex spending is probably going to be one of the bigger highlights in this year. And as things have gotten nervous for the others, I think this is an area where everybody is trying to find uh some refuge and then you know that's but if you look at the catalyst for Apple the model which is they're getting uh the the LLM technology from Google that's already played out.

The Duo is already out and it's doing so well. So, you know, one could argue that, you know, all the good things you could think about an Apple um is probably out there and we just have to see what these guys say in terms of uh their next you know fiscal year. We are already seeing services being slowed down a little. We are seeing margins being impacted by memory prices. So, I think it's a question is you know where do investors focus on?

Do they still stay in this name as a margin of safety or they find you know other areas to go in? As you rightly mentioned, there are certain companies that are not at all I mean in terms of valuations trading at that same level as Apple is.

Why are services slowing down? And I asked this last Saturday. I sat at my daughter's swimming lesson and I went through and quit all the streaming services that we don't watch right now. [laughter] And in fact, I quit a couple memberships through Apple for for apps or services that I don't use. Like I ended up quitting a lot of stuff through Apple a couple weeks ago. Are a lot of people doing what I'm doing or is there something else that's going on?

Yeah, I think there are two differences. Remember services over the last few quarters has had a very good run? You know, I mean, not even the first few quarters, I can extend that to many years. If a company is growing product revenue by 5 to 7%. Services revenue cannot be 15% all the time. That's just where the size of these business is so large you know sooner or later you get into that law of large numbers. I think that's one.

Second they do have certain areas such as in the US they you know they have some um regulatory issues or where they are not allowed to charge for certain things.

I'm going to jump in just because Apple just crossed the Bloomberg terminal. So let's get to it folks. Uh fourth quarter revenue 114.48 billion. That is a beat, folks. Uh 113.47 billion was the street estimate. Fourth quarter EPS $210 a share. That's a dime better than what the street was expecting. Greater China revenue um a bit of a disappointment. Again, 17.54 billion versus the street estimate of 18.75 billion.

We've seen um