"the economy may be slowing elsewhere ..."
"my point is the economy may be slowing down elsewhere but not in Appleland."
It is a dangerous game to take extremely limited anecdotal experience and extrapolate.
For Q4 '07, Apple retail stores produced 20.1% of Revenue. As the number of Apple retail stores has grown over time, this figure has risen steadily. Yet in Q1 '08, retail stores took a sudden and pronounced drop, accounting for 17.7% of Revenue. Those numbers are analyst generated estimates, they're Apple's numbers from their SEC filings.
"Some of these analysts who are taking Apple's numbers down need to visit a store. No slow down there."
Similarly, it's a dangerous game to conclude on the basis of very limited anecdotal evidence that a 40% haircut in a stock would happen without any deceleration in the business. It's fashionable to declare analysts right-on when the say what we want to hear, and denounce them as bumbling fools when they say what we don't want to hear.
It may very well be the case that when we get Apple's numbers for the current quarter in mid-April, that the Apple retail stores will have seen no slow down in the rates of growth they have seen on a same store basis. Apple continues to evolve the stores, create new and better services, and increase efficiencies that should result in ever greater sales per square foot. But at less than 20% of Apple's business, it's perfectly possible that the retail outfits are seeing no slowdown, but that there is a slowdown in the other 80% of the business.
I don't recall any analysts saying the less than 20% of Revenue coming from retail stores, specifically, was falling, but rather that overall Revenue and sales in certain segments had decelerated. I don't think anyone has disputed the numerous reports from the supply chain that indicate Apple has lowered its component order sizes. Which is about as clear a sign as can be had that sales have slowed.
Doesn't mean Apple won't see great growth in the Mac business, or in any particular segment of the business, but it strikes me as a long-odds gambit to bet that there hasn't already been a slowdown, and that Apple is somehow unaffected by the broader economy. To the contrary, I believe Peter Oppenheimer stated in fairly clear and unequivocal terms in the most recent analyst presentation that Apple will be affected.
AI
