Apple Inc. was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976. Today, the company sells its technology products in 520 stores in 25 countries around the world.
Apple was the first successful personal computer company, building its success on its powerful graphics capabilities. Today, it the world’s largest electronics company.
From its first product—the $500 Apple I—Apple has stayed true to its roots of constant innovation, focusing on consumer-centric devices that are unconventional, aesthetically designed, easy to use, and created with quality as the driving development tool.
Apple’s focus on selling through subscriptions has been a tremendous boon to its bottom line. With its subscription products growing, Apple is fast becoming Apple-as-a-Service company, allowing subscribers to purchase services for a monthly fee.
The company’s product line began with computers, but Apple has expanded into a diversified line of technology, entertainment merchandise, and services. The company has continually surpassed its competition by aggressive Research & Development (about 7% of revenues) of new products with cutting-edge technology improvements.
Apple’s iCloud securely stores and automatically updates photos, files, notes, passwords, and other data. The App Store has 30 million developers who have created more than 5 million phone apps including books, business, entertainment, fitness, video games, finance food, lifestyle, medical, music, education, podcasts, navigation, shopping, photo & video, travel, weather, and many more.
Apple’s devices include its flagship smartphones (iPhones), tablets (iPads), media players (iPods), AirPods, wireless headphones, HomePod speakers, Beats products, and wearables such as the Apple watch and glasses.
Apple created its streaming service Apple TV+ in 2007, which provides original content to more than 40 million subscribers. The company also offers game subscription service Apple Arcade (including more than 200 free games), and Apple Music, offering access to streaming, on-demand radio stations, or existing playlists.
Additionally, its Apple News+ provides a subscription-based service to more than 300 newspapers and magazines. And Apple CarPlay turns an automobile display into a controller for Apple devices, enabling users to navigate, listen to messages and music, and make and receive calls. This technology is used in more than 600 car models from automobile manufacturers.
Lastly, Apple provides payments services through its Apple Card co-branded credit card, with 6.7 million subscribers, and Apple Pay, its cashless payment service with more than 45 million users (more than 75% of the company’s iPhone users).
Future growth for the company will focus on the three A’s: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), and Autonomy. Apple’s SIRI is an example of the company’s foray into AI; and AR glasses and headsets are fast becoming a reality, as is the company’s venture into the future Apple Car.
The company’s key customers are consumers, Server Message Block (SMB), education, enterprise, and government markets. They include General Electric, SoFi Technologies, Verizon, Ring Central, Paycom, Overstock, and eBay, just to name a few.
In addition to its own stores and online sales, Apple sells its products through third-party cellular network carriers, wholesalers, retailers, and resellers.
The lion’s share of Apple’s revenues come from the Americas and Asia-Pacific regions of the world, with China accounting for more than one-half of that region’s sales. Product-wise, iPhones account for almost two-thirds of the company’s revenues, with iMacs and iPads each around 8%, and Apple’s services comprise some 20% of the company’s revenues.
The company has been paying steady dividends since 2012.
Apple Trading Down 1.5 %
Shares of Apple stock traded down $2.63 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $171.52. The stock had a trading volume of 69,736,466 shares, compared to its average volume of 89,110,852. The firm has a market cap of $2.76 trillion, a P/E ratio of 28.30, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.26 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a quick ratio of 0.82, a current ratio of 0.86 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.63. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $150.45 and a two-hundred day moving average of $157.51. Apple has a 12-month low of $129.04 and a 12-month high of $182.94.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL - Get Rating) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, July 28th. The iPhone maker reported $1.20 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.14 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $82.96 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $82.97 billion. Apple had a return on equity of 152.97% and a net margin of 25.71%. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 1.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.30 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that Apple will post 6.1 earnings per share for the current year.
Apple Dividend Announcement
The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 11th. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 8th were given a $0.23 dividend. This represents a $0.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.54%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 5th. Apple's payout ratio is 15.18%.
Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades
AAPL has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Fundamental Research set a $177.07 price objective on shares of Apple and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, August 4th. The Goldman Sachs Group set a $139.00 price target on Apple in a research report on Friday, July 29th. Wedbush raised their price objective on Apple from $200.00 to $220.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research report on Wednesday. Loop Capital reduced their target price on Apple from $210.00 to $180.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, May 25th. Finally, Itaú Unibanco began coverage on Apple in a report on Tuesday, July 26th. They issued an "underperform" rating and a $136.00 price target for the company. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $181.18.
Insiders Place Their Bets
In other news, SVP Katherine L. Adams sold 25,000 shares of Apple stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $164.77, for a total value of $4,119,250.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 427,334 shares of the company's stock, valued at $70,411,823.18. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. 0.06% of the stock is owned by insiders.
