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Prior to Apple's earnings report I read at least one article suggesting that the most important indicator to watch was Apple's margin. I suppose this was due to a recent decline in margins from a peak gross margin of 47.4% in Q1 2012 to 36.7%.

As the graph below shows, margins began to recover by Q3 2013 and are nearly on par with year-ago levels.

The guidance for the present quarter is a gross margin between 37% and 38%. This would imply a flat q/q GM line (blue line above.)

This is not quite catastrophic.

To better understand margins, it helps to compare them with other companies. When Apple reached that peak of near 50% gross margin I noted that such a level was higher than Microsoft's and Google's. The irony being that Apple was nominally an (implied) low-margin hardware company while Microsoft was an (implied) high-margin software company and Google was an (implied) high-margin internet services company.

Here is the picture with the last two years added:

In the last two years Apple's margins have declined but so have Google's. And although Microsoft's fell, they fell less than Apple's and thus overtook it to remain slightly more profitable (32.5% vs. 30.3%) into Q4.

I also added Samsung Electronics' operating margin. ((As a large conglomerate, Samsung will have a lower blended average. Separating the Telecom group's operating profit shows a 16.14% divisional operating margin.))

So although Apple stabilized, it did so at an extraordinarily high level, well out of band for a hardware company. Thus the question remains: Are Apple's margins a fluke? Is the recent rise of margins to levels far above those of a comparable hardware company and into the realm of software and services sustainable?

The simple answer is to assume that the iPhone and iPad, which make the bulk of revenues and which explain much of the rise, enjoyed a temporary buzz which allowed them to be priced at a premium but as that buzz wore off, the pricing and margins would decline. This is common with fads and fashions.

But the situation is far more nuanced. If the margins were due to mere novelty, the effect should not have persisted over so many years. Pricing data shows that the iPhone remains exceptionally valuable and that the iPad, excluding line extensions, has also held the line on pricing.

The missing piece in the puzzle is that the iPhone and iPad and iPod touch and Apple TV are pieces of an inter-dependent network of assets. The iTunes stores, Apple's services and Apple Retail are easily ignored because they are not "profit centers" but I believe they are a key component to the sustainment of these margins.

In other words, the iPhone and iPad enjoy margins not just because they are new and well designed. But also because they form part of a ecosystem. The key word is 'system'. The user buys into a system not just what the device embodies.

This is why I've always said that the iOS product businesses should be thought of as "hardware as a service". The inspiration comes from the notion of "software as a service" which posits the idea that software purchases should be thought of as services and thus recurring revenues.

iOS devices are part of a service matrix: the user experience in the stores, the after-sales support (including the easily ignored Applecare), the broadband supplied through operator service (which is part of a trillion dollars of value), the apps and content that can be purchased (which add up to a mountain of money), the network effects of iMessage and iCloud and now iRadio and Match and Siri.

These services attachments are well understood as great business models and underpin some of the most celebrated businesses to emerge in the last decade including Google, Amazon, Facebook, Box, Dropbox, Windows Live, etc.

It's curious therefore that whereas these other businesses are highly valued as services, in the case when the service is a component within a larger system, the value is missed. In an integrated context the connection between services and high margins is not understood. The reason may be the absence of robust systems analysis and a preference for the facile explanation.

Horace Dediu and Guy English discuss the future of TV, how we consume media, and the fate of console-style devices. From Apple to Nintendo and beyond, is there one box to rule them all, or can there be?

Interview segment: Cinematographer Barry Braverman talks about working with director Wes Anderson (uncut version to be posted as Screen Time #54)

via 1: Bicycle for the Mind.

• Apple TV Gains its Own Shopping Category | AppleInsider
• Horace wrote one of my favorite Asymco articles in 2011 that applies here: Hiding in Plain Sight
• AirPlay Configuration Files Hint at Next-Gen Apple TV Hardware |AppleInsider
• Mobile Gamers Aren't Playing NIntendo-Style Games | ConsulGamer
• Barry Braverman's website, and his IMDb credits.
• Bicycle Thieves, aka The Bicycle Thief aka Ladri di bicciclette | Wikipedia
• Bottle Rocket (and Murita Cycles) | The Criterion Collection
• Umberto D (click through for restored trailer) | The Criterion Collection

The increase in net sales of iTunes, Software and Services in the first quarter of 2014 compared to the first quarter of 2013 was due to growth in net sales from the iTunes Store, AppleCare and licensing. The iTunes Store generated a total of $2.4 billion in net sales during the first quarter of 2014 versus $2.1 billion during the first quarter of 2013. Growth in the iTunes Store, which includes the App Store, the Mac App Store and the iBooks Store, was driven by increases in revenue from App sales reflecting continued growth in the installed base of iOS devices and the expansion in the number of third-party iOS Apps available. Net sales of digital content, including music, movies, TV shows and books, from the iTunes Store was relatively flat in the first quarter of 2014 compared to the first quarter of 2013.

Apple Inc. Form 10-Q.

During the last quarter Apple changed the pricing for iWork and OS X to zero ((OS X server is still priced at $20 and iWork for previously unlicensed devices and computers is still priced above $0)).

I estimate the net effect to have been a reduction in revenues from those software titles of about $350 million for the quarter. Nevertheless, increases in services and app revenues means that the iTunes total reported revenues increased to a new record.

The total with estimated contributions by media and service components is shown below right.

Note that revenues do not reflect total billings. As Apple reports only the 30% of App transaction values, the full iTunes/Software/Services transaction values are shown in the above graph on the left.

The "gross" revenues are now nearly $7 billion per quarter. On a yearly basis the iTunes/Software/Services group had gross revenues of $23.5 billion with growth of 34% y/y.

Other estimates for full year 2013 growth are:

• Third party content +46.6%.
• Music downloads -14%
• Video +19%
• Apps +105%
• Books -9%
• Services +37%
• Pro apps +29%
• OS X -8%
• iWork and iLife -8%

Although iTunes/Software/Services are not usually included in a "sum-of-the-parts" total contributing to Apple's overall enterprise value, the scale of volume and value of transactions is becoming harder to ignore.

To illustrate this, I plotted the history of gross iTunes revenues vs. Google's search business ((Excludes Motorola and "Other" segments as reported by Google))

On a yearly basis iTunes/Software/Services is nearly half of Google's core business and growing slightly faster.

The iTunes "empire" of content and services would be ranked as number 130 in the Fortune 500 ranking of companies (slightly below Alcoa and above Eli Lilly).

Horace Dediu is an analyst with a focus on the mobile phone industry and especially Apple. Blogging at asymco.com, he often posts surprising facts that confront the conventional "wisdom" of other analysts, who are often predicting doom-and-gloom for Apple.

We asked Horace to share his thoughts on technology, change, and how to anticipate the next big thing.

via Renaissance Session: Opportunities.

Apple revenues grew at the rate of about 6% in Q4, while earnings grew at 5%. These were improvements over Q3 and Q2 but the rate of top line growth is has not been this low since 2009. The bottom line is also slower than it's been for the entire "epoch" or era of the iPhone.

The components of sales growth are shown in the following table:

The company delivered performance inline with its own guidance so there should not have been surprises in the top and bottom lines. However, the disappointment might be in the low growth for iPhone (at 6%) and iPad (at 7%). The Mac and iTunes grew at moderate rates (16% and 19% respectively) while the iPod continued its decline with -55% growth and Accessories remained fairly flat.

As the graph below shows, the iPhone and iPad are the bulk of the business so their performance is a large part of what is observed.

The speed with which products are introduced and scaled is phenomenal so it is more important than ever to see beyond the trajectory of existing products into the pattern of the introduction of new product categories.

Markets are effective in anticipating the path of a technology as it ascends into the hands of users, especially if it is destined for ubiquity. But markets are completely incapable of anticipating the emergence of new technologies.

In this regard markets are a reflection of common sense rather than uncommon wisdom.

 

In my essay on Google's absence of profit (or income or business) motives questions were raised on the stated absence of hunger for profits from Apple and what difference there might be from Google's philosophy.

Indeed, Jony Ive stated:

"Our goal isn't to make money. Our goal absolutely at Apple is not to make money. It may sound a little flippant, but it's the truth." ((at the British Embassy's Creative Summing in July 2012)).

He was probably repeating what Jobs had previously stated:

"I remember very clearly Steve announcing that our goal is not just to make money but to make great products" ((Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs))

However, note that both quotes are qualified. In the case of Jobs, he said "not just to make money". Jobs clearly stated that great products lead to money. That great products are causal to money and therefore that if you make great products you make money. One leads to the other.

Ive also continued in this reasoning:

"Our goal, and what gets us excited, is to try to make great products. We trust that if we are successful people will like them. And if we are operationally competent we will make revenue. But we are very clear about our goal."

I would paraphrase the Apple logic as "Great products are the means by which we sustain our business. By focusing on the product, the customer is satisfied and through that satisfaction we create the free cash flows which can be used to fund more products."

There is a difference between Apple's "indifference to money" and the "indifference to business models" that Google exhibits.

Google steps even further away from cash flows. Its goals are to build great things guided by their vision and patterns in the data they collect. The value is in the data itself rather than in any transaction.

As long as the source of money is unfettered, its provenance is uninteresting. A business model is a profit algorithm. It could be linked to the data but it need not be. Markets are messy and imperfect. Data provides much clearer views into value. You could conclude that value itself cannot be trusted to the judgement of the public. Value is to be determined through the recognition of patterns on data privately collected.

So when I say that Google has disdain for market mechanisms I mean that they believe they can do better. Apple still values the user as the ultimate adjudicator of its actions. Google looks past the user and interprets their intentions.

Google sees markets as ultimately obsolete.

A short anecdote about the history of Silicon Valley told at Asymconf California last year using techniques taught at Airshow workshop.

Next workshop is in San Jose on Jan 30, 2014.

via The Birth of Silicon Valley — Airshow: World Tour.

A company is nothing more (and nothing less) than three things: people, processes and purposes. In the language of the software engineer these would be inputs, algorithms and specifications. In the language of classical business analysis they are assets (or resources), organization structures and business models. In military theory, these are logistics, tactics and strategy.

This is the trinity which allows for an understanding of a complex system: the physical, the operational and the guiding principle. The what, the how and the why.

When approaching any analysis problem, these questions form the foundation of causal inference. What is it, how does it work and why does it exist?

When analyzing nature the sciences often help with the what and the how but rarely address the why. ((Religion attempts to answer the whys which science leaves as unanswerable.)) In contrast, man-made systems (e.g. systems of law, religion and commerce) require an answer to the why as there is a presumption of a will in their creation and preservation. The why allows ultimate judgement on the merit of an enterprise. The why may escape us but it's assumed to always be there. For instance, in criminal law the motive is often a crucial piece of evidence but it's not always found. In business, the motive for action or for organization is a crucial piece of the puzzle which often explains the what, who and how, but here the ultimate why is usually profit. This the characteristic of a for-profit business, the purpose is explicit.

Some companies try to define their purposes beyond profit but they are often too vague or merely speak of values represent a quality not causality.

This is the case with Google. The problem isn't only that "don't be evil" isn't a priority or a purpose, but also that its resources are not applied to cohesive goals. In fact, there seems to be no interest in pursuing a direction aligned with generating income.

This is not in itself a bad thing. The notion of operating as a learning (vs. a deliberate) organization, informed but not driven by a goal, is the best approach when seeking new markets or discovering new needs and new business models. The difference with Google is that there seems to be no expectation of business model discovery. In other words, that the learning is not for any purpose other than learning itself.

This might be noble but learning for its own sake has not been attempted by public, for-profit organizations ((The Bell Labs story in an interesting possible exception but on deeper inspection it was the by-product of a  government sanctioned monopoly and hence a ward of the state)) since there is an implicit fiduciary responsibility to generate profit and unrestricted experimentation, unguided by profit, is unlikely to ever learn the needs of markets.

 

The evidence I note supporting this is in the persona the company maintains, both internally and externally. There is no representation of themselves as a "business seeking profit" or even as a commercial entity. It's not simply because their business model is embarrassing. It's because all business models are embarrassing.

The representation is one of a research laboratory succeeding against difficult problems. Very similar to a successful academic or industrial laboratory sustained by grants from a benevolent (but messy) organization. Google becomes the embodiment of "big science" and "the world's laboratory" unfettered by politics and unsoiled by commercial interests.

There is a business in Google but it's a very obscure topic. The "business side" of the organization is only mentioned briefly in analyst conference calls and the conversation is not conducted with the same team that faces the public. Even then, analysts who should investigate the link between the business and its persona seem swept away by utopian dreams and look where the company suggests they should be looking (mainly the future.)

There are almost no discussions of cost structures (e.g. cost of sales, cost of distribution, operations and research), operating models (divisional, functional or otherwise) or of business models. In fact, the company operates only one business model which was an acquisition, reluctantly adopted.

It's as if the management is not only uninterested in its own profit model but deeply scornful of it. For all the technology innovations the company can claim, it has not had one internally sourced business model innovation.

But is this wrong? Again, we need to ask if Google breaks with convention then maybe convention needs to be broken. This is the radical bet underlying the Google thesis: are business models necessary? This is in fact a bet many VCs are implicitly placing within the current start-up culture. The notion of making a profit or even having an interest in doing so seems passé. This notion is directly traceable to the Google ethos as it acts as the source of acquisition funding and is driving the agenda of VCs and entrepreneurs. This is leadership by example and the example is one of blissful ignorance of market constraints.

But we have to go back to the profit model, even if analysts, observers and the company itself sweep it under a rug. The reason is that this laboratory runs only as long as the grant money keeps coming. No bucks, no Buck Rogers. So far the money rains down from heaven, but that rain is not infinite nor permanent. The answer seems to be diversification, even the creation of a conglomerate. In other words, the answer seems to be that if enough great technology is developed or acquired, then a business model will appear (think about it as a probability problem) and the vulnerability of revenue sources is managed. Clever? Convenient? We'll see.

But that's not the only problem. The deeper problem is in us knowing their intentions. The absence of a purpose rooted in profit makes Google resistant to analysis. There might be a purpose, known only to the founders ((or not known at all)), but it's one that is potentially naive, amoral or too abstract to be useful. Shareholders are aware of this and have agreed to entrust control to only three individuals. The purpose of the organization is in their hands alone and reflects their priorities. Bearing in mind that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, they must be brave indeed.

This would not be too troubling if the effect would be restricted to the company stakeholders. The trouble lies in that organization also having de-facto control over the online (and hence increasingly offline) lives of more than one billion people. Users, but not customers, of a company whose purpose is undefined. The absence of oversight is one thing, the absence of an understanding of the will of the leadership is quite another. The company becomes an object of faith alone.  Do we believe?

As Philip Elmer-DeWitt is still interested in my estimates I provided the following:

Revenues ($B) 57.8
EPS ($) 14 (908m shares)
iPhone (units) 56.4 million
iPod (units) 7.6 million
Mac (units) 4.14 million
iPad (units) 26.5 million
iTunes/Software/Services ($) 4.2B
Accessories ($) 2.2B
GM% (percentage) 37.1%

I arrived at these estimates without looking at anyone else's (except for Apple's own published guidance). Soon after sending them I noticed that Daniel Tello published his own.

In the same format as above, I quote them for comparison. Please visit his post for additional detail.

Revenues ($B) 59.0
EPS ($) 14.92 (895m shares)
iPhone (units) 56 million
iPod (units) 9 million
Mac (units) 4.65 million
iPad (units) 25.5 million
iTunes/Software/Services ($) 4.3B
Accessories ($) 1.8B
GM% (percentage) 37.8%

The graph below shows the history of revenue guidance vs. revenue reported. The last quarter shows my estimate for net sales.

Note that the company achieved at or slightly above its upper guidance ever since they started offering a range for guidance (i.e. since Q1 2013). My estimate for sales is therefore very near the top of guidance. The figures for units earnings and margins all result from this assumption.

In 2013 there were 18.8 times more Windows PCs sold than Macs. This is a reduction in the Windows advantage from about 19.8x in 2012. This decline is mostly due to the more rapid decline in Windows PC shipments relative to the more modest decline in Mac unit shipments. Gartner estimates that about 309 million Windows PCs were shipped, ((This figure is not published publicly but can be derived from subtracting Mac shipments from the total PC shipments which are published)) down from 337 million in 2012 (which was down from 344 million in 2011, the year PCs peaked.) I estimate about 16.4 million Macs were shipped in 2013 down from 17 million in 2012.

The history of PC shipments relative to Mac shipments is shown in the following graph:

I chose to graph the Mac data as an area with additional areas for iOS devices layered on top.

When comparing these platforms, the contribution of the Apple mobile platform becomes striking.

Nevertheless, it's still important to understand the role of the Mac. In years gone, the advantage of Windows was measured in multiples of Mac sales. That peak occurred in 2004 when there were 56 times more PCs sold than Macs. At that moment, when the Windows advantage peaked, the Mac sold 3.2 million units  into a market where 182 million PCs shipped. This means the Mac had 1.7% market share.

And yet, remarkably, even with 1.7% share, the Mac did not disappear. The figure of 3.2 million units was not great and below the peak to date ((which was 4.5 million in 1996)) but it was enough to sustain Apple while it developed its next products. At the time the iPod was starting to grow rapidly and development on iPhone/iPad was already underway. The point being that there were new products. 3.2 million was a sufficient volume to preserve the company until such time when they would be ready.

Today the situation is quite different. The total number of platform products Apple sold in 2013 was about 260 million ((This includes my estimates for Q4. We'll have the exact figure in a few days.)) The total number of users Apple has is above 550 million. ((Possibly 600 million.))

Note the effect in the graph above. Even if we only consider the Mac, the Windows advantage has decreased considerably, and the platform was certainly not extinguished. The new form factor Mac Pro and the continuing improvements in the thinnest of laptops shows how Mac has not just survived but prospered as the underdog which easily captures the bulk of profits.

But the bigger story is how Apple's mobile platform has nearly reached the sales volume of Windows. In 2013 there were only 1.18 more Windows PCs than Apple devices sold. Odds are that in 2014 they will be at parity. ((The prediction I made in 2012 was that "it’s safe to expect a “parity” of iOS+OS X vs. Windows within one or two years". The data so far does not change this expectation.))

But will it last?

It's important to understand just how the quantities involved here have a quality of their own. The quantities themselves speak of a change. It's not convincing to suggest that what comes around goes around and a reversal of fortune can be reversed yet again when there are several zeros added to the end of the figures involved.

We have to understand that the Windows advantage itself came from the way computing was purchased in the period of its ascent. In the 1980s and 1990s computing platform decisions were made first by companies then by developers and later by individuals who took their cues from what standards were already established. As these decisions created network effects, the cycle repeated and the majority platform strengthened.

But it was the large companies who made the core decisions. In the 1980s if the Fortune 500 companies all standardized on Windows then their suppliers and customers would also standardize on it. Add governments and other institutions and 80% of the market is probably decided. There was concentration in decision making. In other words, in the 80s a platform could win by convincing 500 individuals who had the authority (as CIOs) to impose through fiat a standard on the centers of gravity of purchasing power.

Today, with mobile products there are billions of decision makers. 500 decisions mean nothing. In fact, Apple with at least 500 million loyal and wealthy users is considered to be in a precarious situation. That's partly due to the way other platforms like BlackBerry and Symbian found themselves in crisis with tens of millions of users. ((and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of corporate buyers deciding to support its platform exclusively. What IT does matters for little.))

The decision making process for buying computers, which began with large companies IT departments making decisions with multi-year horizons, has changed to billions of individuals making decisions with no horizons. Companies have become the laggards and individuals the early adopters of technology.

The fundamental shift is therefore in the quantity of decision makers and the quality of those decisions. Those who buy are also those who use and their decisions will be perhaps whimsical, maybe impulsive and not calculated, but fundamentally, in the aggregate, wise.

Ultimately, it was the removal of the intermediary between buyer and beneficiary which dissolved Microsoft's power over the purchase decision. It's not just unlikely that this situation will be reversed, it's impossible. Computing decision making has moved to the furthest edge where use has been for decades. The computer has become personal not just in the sense of how it's used but in the sense of how it's owned.

Horace and Jim discuss shopping online for used cars and how and why the value of cars disappears so quickly. The conversation drifts into information asymmetry, the declining interest in auto maintenance and the perpetual closed-loop auto information model. We hypothesize on the impact of the coming self-monitoring and awareness of the lives of vehicles. Finally we ask whether the dysfunction in the industry is the cause or the effect of the ancient integrated factory model and the sustaining auto eco-system incentives that impede transformation.

Asymcar 9. Stasis: Depreciation, Brands, Information Intransigence | Asymcar.