Oh, would you look at that. With blockbuster iPhone sales and more than $20 billion revenue in the last quarter, you would expect Apple to be happy about its latest product line. But the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad to represent 60 percent of Apple’s sales?
As Horace Dediu of Asymco noticed, 60 percent of Apple’s sales come from products that did not exist three years ago. I guess that’s a good definition of “reinventing a company”.
In case you missed it, Steve Jobs made a surprise appearance at today’s Apple Q4 earnings call. What he had to say about 7-inch tablets, Android, Nokia, RIM and Apple’s philosophy is all over the internet. You can read a full transcript here.
Reading between the lines, what strikes me is the focus Steve put on the word “integrated”. The iOS platform is integrated, Android is fragmented. With the iPhone, you get an integrated device. You don’t have to mess with hundreds of different devices running multiple versions and variations of the Android OS. But that’s not really the point, we get Steve’s thoughts on Android. Tweetdeck’s developers get them even more.
What interests me is the use of the term “integrated” as a new way of defining iOS, and thus the devices is runs on, against competitors. By definition, to integrate means to “combine two or more elements so that they become a whole”. So it’s clear that, in Jobs’ mind, Apple deeply integrated the hardware with the software to create a new, reliable, user-friendly experience. Read more
This one pretty much sums it all up:
So here’s what happened: at the Q4 earnings call Steve Jobs grabbed the mic and started talking. No one expected Steve Jobs to be available at the conference, because Steve Jobs doesn’t usually attend earnings calls.
But it happened, and he went on a 10-minute long “rant” where he set the record straight about overly discussed arguments such as Google’s openness, Android’s sales numbers, Apple’s App Store and closed system and the rumored 7-inch iPad form factor. He’s still taking questions at the moment of writing this. Read more
Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in the press release for Apple Q4 financial results:
We are blown away to report over $20 billion in revenue and over $4 billion in after-tax earnings—both all-time records for Apple. iPhone sales of 14.1 million were up 91 percent year-over-year, handily beating the 12.1 million phones RIM sold in their most recent quarter. We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year.
A few surprises left might mean a new MacBook Air on Wednesday, or a CDMA iPhone (that runs on Verizon) announcement before the end of the year. Or maybe something entirely new, such a 7-inch iPad model? What about a complete MobileMe revamp?
Truth is, with $20 billion revenue in the last quarter they can pull out whatever surprise they want.
Apple just reported their Q4 2010 financial results. 3.89 million Macs sold, 14.1 million iPhones (above any expectation), 4.19 million iPads.
Check out the full press release and financial report below.
Advertising Age announced earlier today that it has named Apple “Marketer of the Decade”, a prestigious award to a company that ”influences business models across all media and creates exceptionally brand-loyal consumer base”.
It seems fitting: Apple kicked off the aughts in 2001 with the iPod, an electronic device that went on to disrupt and forever change the music industry; then mid-decade it dropped the iPhone, a mobile device that changed the mobile-phone industry and added the word “apps” to the English vocabulary; and finally, in 2010 it debuted the iPad, a computing device with the potential to disrupt the media, publishing, entertainment and computing industries.
Yes, it has been a golden decade for Apple. And while one can certainly argue that its influence has been overstated – it is No. 56 on the list of Fortune 500 by revenue – Apple’s influence on business models across industries from music and computing to entertainment and advertising, along with its impact on popular culture, media and, of course, marketing, has been indelible.
Apple and its agency, Omnicom Group’s TBWA, make a great case study on the benefits of long-term agency-client relationships. The two have been together since the iconic “1984” Super Bowl spot, although the agency was off the account from 1986 until 1997, which is almost identical to the years CEO Steve Jobs was absent from Apple (1985-1997).
Two days ago iRamadah reported (Google Translation) that FaceTime in the Middle East was working fine using an iPod Touch 4th gen. It turns out that the units they used carried MC544FD, MC540FD and MC547FD model numbers, which are the ones Apple sell in Switzerland, SaudiMac reports. Read more
Following last week’s rumors about a new MacBook Air set to be announced by Apple at its “Back to the Mac” media event on Wednesday, Cult of Mac has now posted a mockup of what they think will be the final design of the new model.
