Get out the seltzer bottles, shaving cream pies, and slide whistles because the Forbes clown circus is coming to town and driving the car is Bert Dohmen.
“Apple: Icon, Icahn Or iGone?” (indirect link and tip o’ the antlers to @JonyIveParody)
iPuns are the best puns! Other than every other kind of pun.
For an investor “market share” is very important.
Further proof that the Wall Street Journal is printed with ink containing high levels of lead, mercury, and possibly a third yet-to-be-discovered element that will one day be known as Stupidium.
Market share for other Apple products has been declining for several years. That means the competition is gaining.
Gaining what? Well, there’s market share and, uh… market share. They certainly aren’t gaining customer loyalty or profit share. But market share is very important because adkfjad;lkajfadf [honk-honk] [seltzer bottle spray]
I know that for the Apple-philes, saying anything negative about Apple is like attacking the Pope.
Here Dohmen is just exercising that famous quote by Albert Einstein: “If people criticize any of your analysis, just assume they’re religious zealots because it certainly couldn’t be that you’re wrong and have been wrong for probably at least two years.”
(Disclaimer: Not at all a quote by Albert Einstein.)
Hey, fans of Apple products are happy to criticize the company. If it makes sense. Just look at the recent issue with Panic. Apple rejected a previously accepted app for a ridiculous reason and “Apple-philes” almost universally decried the move.
Sorry. Sorry. Facts. Better press on.
Say, do you like cherries? Well, the Macalope hopes so because Dohmen is picking a mess of them.
In April 2013, I said on CNBC that I wouldn’t buy it until the stock price had a “3 in front of it.” That happened on April 19, 2013 when the stock hit a low of $385 (pre-split). From there the stock started moving up, slowly.
Sounds pretty awesome, right? Funny that he doesn’t mention that in July of 2013 when the stock was at 438 he said that “the only reason for buying [AAPL] is ‘blind hope.’” Since then the stock has risen 77 percent.
Well, you know the old saying. You can’t make a Wall Street omelette without giving some really terrible investment advice.
Market share: Apple is losing market share in the U.S.
Naturally, Dohmen quotes figures from August, which is the worst month for Apple since it’s right before a new launch. The source of his numbers, Kantar, seems pretty upbeat about iPhone sales, though.
“Huge iPhone 6 sales put Apple on course for record quarter”
“Apple has experienced a huge jump in sales share across almost all major markets thanks to the launch of the iPhone 6. In major European economies, the US and Australia, Apple’s share of sales has risen.”
Presumably they’re some of those “Apple-philes” Dohmen rails against. Perhaps now would be a good time for another barb about the nigh-religious fervor exhibited by the fans of Apple products in the face of reality, Bert.
“Can you believe these idiots who blindly follow the Church of Apple when they should really be following my Church of Anti-Apple!”
China is the “great hope” for Apple bulls. But competition from Chinese firms is stiff, with much lower priced smart phones, especially from Xiaomi.
We’ve seen this terribly scripted and acted movie. Apple doesn’t compete against low-priced phones. Samsung was the one who got wedgied in China, not Apple.
Now we get to the crux of Dohmen’s misunderstanding of Apple’s business.
But how long will it take before more and more iPhone customers realize that the smart phone is becoming ‘commoditized,’ just as the personal computer was about 20 years ago.
People have been predicting this for seven years and it hasn’t happened. But it’s a-comin’! Any day now! Spoiler alert: this is never going to happen.
I predict the Apple Watch will be a big disappointment.
No. Way.
You will be further surprised to learn that he thinks Apple Pay will be a dud.
Apple’s past success was based on developing great new products giving it a virtual monopoly for several years, such as smartphones and iPods.
You all remember when Apple had a monopoly in smartphones, right? No? OK, well, you remember the zeppelin universe in that show Fringe? Well… that’s where it was.
Now, do some deep knee bends because the circle is about to be looped back on itself forming a Möbius strip of insanity.
Apple has always refused to license [the Mac operating system] to others because it has a superb profit margin on the computers. I feel that licensing should be re-examined. It could be a big revenue center.
Wow, this is just like the ending of 2001, A Space Odyssey. There’s an infant and an old man and the lights and the stars and you have absolutely no idea what’s going on because nothing makes any sense anymore.
There’s really only one thing to take away from this, and the licensing thing is the tell to what it is. Dohmen just wants Apple to fail. There is no other reason to suggest Apple try to get into the operating system business when more and more operating systems are being given away. Alas, that is not the reality he lives in.
It’s good for us, of course. Just not for him.