News

Wall Street Finds AT&T, Apple Numbers Uninteresting

Wall Street was left unimpressed and uninterested in the recent financial results from AT&T. AT&T picked up a lot of new customers according to its recent financial report and earnings are up. The sales of actual iPhones over a 30 hour period after launch amounted to 4,867 activations per hour. Even so, it was described as a non-event, according to Forbes on Tuesday.

With AT&T having logged a 60 percent increase in second quarter profits, earnings year over year jumping from US$1.81B to $2.7B, and 40 percent of their iPhone customers being new customers, the reaction was tepid. "It was a non-event," according to Stifel Nicolaus analyst Christopher King.

In the first day and a half that the iPhone went on sale, AT&T activated 146,000 phones. That figure was below Mr. King's estimate, however, he said that it was difficult to read too much into the numbers.

"While some have suggested disappointment with the iPhone number, we note that there were significant activation problems for the first couple of days post-launch, which may have held the number down artificially through quarter-end," Mr. King said.

Moreover, the number of iPhones sold in the first day and a half is probably not a good indicator of future sales. Sales could fall off now that the early adopters have jumped in. However, in the long run Mr. King expects Apple to sell three million phones this year.

Despite the good numbers from AT&T, analysts are worried about how much AT&T must pay for each iPhone sold. On the other hand, AT&T's CEO Randall Stephenson pointed out, "Wireless revenue growth accelerated for the fourth consecutive quarter. Our U-verse video service has begun to ramp aggressively. And we took a major step up toward revenue growth in enterprise services, where AT&T has tremendous assets and great potential."

On the Apple side, the iPhone activations didn't match the hype, so Apple's stock slid dramatically on Tuesday. However, Apple has yet to reveal how much money they've made on the iPhone, and Wednesday's earnings report may not shed much light on the final days of last quarter.

In time, as each company reveals more interesting financials with the iPhone, analysts may recover from the Blahs this week.

3 comments from the community.

You can post your own below.

+ show options

Your current settings, click to change: Sort Oldest First, Show Guest Posts, Hide Community Stats

Sir Harry Flashman said:

member since 08 Feb 2007 with 577 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

"so Apple's stock slid dramatically on Tuesday"

Didn't just about every stock slide dramatically on Tuesday? From what I read yesterday was the 3rd deepest "plummet" of the year and today isn't much better.

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

I guess they changed there minds after they heard from Apple now didn't they. It wasn't about AT&T it was about Apple and the iPhone and all of its products including the iPod and Macs.

All sold at a tremendous pace beating all estimates by a mile. Oh and the razor has now been pushed off of its pedestal as the hottest selling cell phone on the market as Apple's iPhone beat the razor in less than two days of sales compared to the razors 30 day sales record. No competition ay? I think the likes of Verizon and Motorola better rethink things over a bit since Apple made them look like IDIOTS! The numbers speak for themselves along with all of the great press about just how wonderful the iPhone experience is compared to anything out there period.

Quote this post ↓

iJack said:

member since 13 Jun 2001 with 254 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wait a minute! This doesn't make any sense. The guys on The Street pooh-poohed the sales and activation numbers, but APPL was over $147 before bedtime. Someone is buying. I smell a scam.

Quote this post ↓

Post Your Comments

  Remember Me

Not a member? Register now. You can post comments without logging in, but they'll show up as a "guest" post.


Please enter the word exactly as you see it in the image above. Registered users aren't prompted for this. Having trouble reading the image get a new one.