Is Steve Jobs Critically Sick?

Apple has no articulated succession plan - its fortunes are closely tied to its iconic leader

Jul. 23, 2008 02:00 PM

Apple got pared in after-hours trading Monday, dropping 18 bucks, close to 11%, apparently because of the weak guidance it issued for the current quarter and because it declared the state of Steve Jobs' health off-limits on a day when the New York Post revisited speculation that he's critically ill.

The speculation started June 9 when Jobs turned up for the iPhone 3G unveiling looking wretched and gaunt.

Apple has no articulated succession plan, its fortunes are closely tied to its iconic leader, and Apple keep Steve’s bout with pancreatic cancer in 2003 a secret for months after he was operated on and remission apparently achieved.

Anyway it seemed that at least half the losses the stock took after-hour happened when Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer was asked about Jobs’ condition and replied, “He has no plan to leave Apple. Steve’s health is a private matter.”

Apple is notorious for its conservative guidance. It said it would make a buck on revenues of $7.8 billion in this quarter. Wall Street was figuring on $1.24 on $8.32 billion.

Apple said it would make that same buck on revenues of $7.2 billion in the June quarter and then came in Monday with record results of $1.07 billion, or $1.19 a share, on $7.46 billion, up 38%, and above Wall Street’s estimate of $1.08 on $7.37 billion.

The company’s computer sales had a lot to do with it. They represented 61% of its revenue.

Apple moved 2,496,000 Macs in the June quarter, up 41% year-over-year on the unit side and up 43% on the revenue side: desktops were up 49% to $1.37 billion, portables up 37% to $2.23 billion.

Apple said it’s selling to a lot of people who never bought a Mac before, a fact that has to worry the Microsoft set even if it’s only 2.5 million.

iPod sales of 11 million were also up 12% year-over-year and ahead of forecasts. The US was up 10%, overseas up 15%.

iTunes revenues were $819 million, up from $608 million a year ago, but off 7% sequentially.

Apple said it managed to sell 717,000 iPhones, which all but disappeared from the market during the last half of the June quarter when the company underestimated continuing demand for the old model.

The new iPhone 3Gs that Apple started selling July 11 are also in extremely short supply. Oppenheimer described demand as “staggering.”

iPhone and Apple TV, which Oppenheimer called a “hobby,” are accounted for on a deferred revenue basis, a number that stood at $4.06 billion at the end of June, up from $3.82 billion at the end of March.

iPhone and iPod users have downloaded upwards of 25 million applications.

Apple’s gross margin, which may have had something to do with investor response to its results, dropped to 34.8%, down from 36.9% year-over-year, though Oppenheimer said it was better than expected given better commodity prices and stronger sales of higher-margin goods.

Despite the slowing US economy, Apple’s Americas revenue was $3.43 billion, up from $2.68 billion a year ago. Mac units were up 28% sequentially in the Americas but down 8% in Europe and 14% in Japan.

The company has $20.7 billion in the bank and is promising “state-of-the-art new products that our competitors just aren’t going to be able to match,” Oppenheimer said.

An unidentified product transition along with back-to-school promotions are supposed to weigh on Apple’s margin.

When asked about its typically carriage trade pricing, Oppenheimer said Apple would continue to seek a “reasonable margin, but not so high we leave an umbrella for out competitors. One of things we do is make products that initially cost more but offer entirely new features. We have some types of investment like that in front of us that I can’t talk about.”

Apple is expecting a 30% margin in fiscal 2009.

Published Jul. 23, 2008— Reads 4,414 — Feedback 4
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About Maureen O'Gara
Maureen O'Gara is the Virtualization News Desk editor of SYS-CON Media. She is the publisher of famous "Billygrams" and the editor-in-chief of "Client/Server News" for more than a decade. One of the most respected technology reporters in the business, Maureen can be reached by email at maureen(at)sys-con.com or paperboy(at)g2news.com, and by phone at 516 759-7025.