Apple shares fall into the abyss: (

On 23/01/2008, Apple’s current stock price fluctuates around ~ $ 130 (and the bidding hasn’t closed yet), but quite recently the share price reached $ 200! For today alone, the stock price has dropped by more than 16% . Other IT companies fell significantly less (although they also fell), for example, Microsoft’s stock price dropped ~ 2% , Google shares dropped ~ 8% , and Dell shares dropped ~ 5% .
Why it happens? There seem to be 3 simultaneously acting factors:
1. General global banking and stock market crisis ;
2. Unfounded exaggerated expectations of new revolutionary products at MacWorld Expo 2008 - see the article “Stevnoot 2008: where's the volley from the main caliber?”
3. And today's announcement of Apple 's quarterly business reporting .


So, what do we find with a careful study of the announced figures in the quarterly Apple report?
- The lack of sales dynamics of iPods, which has been observed in recent years - an increase of only 5% compared to last year’s Christmas quarter, which aroused old investors' fears about saturating the digital player market, which should lead to a decrease in sales.
- And the lack of sales dynamics of computers Apple Mac compared with the previous - Summer quarter! It turned out that in the Christmas quarter, in which more computers are usually sold than in all previous ones, Apple sold computers about the same as in the Summer (traditionally stagnant) quarter.
- And in the most important market - in both Americas, only 841 thousand Poppies were sold, which is a decrease of 17% compared to the previous Summer Quarter!

But analysts say the main reason for the massive sale of Apple shares is that a high-tech company focused not on the corporate, but on the consumer sector, will not be able to successfully survive the recession of the American economy .
And these are terrible predictions, suggesting that in the longer term, Apple may even abandon the production of computer hardware and reorient its business only to release MacOS X for Intel and its software, to the Internet business and to the business associated with the iPhone & iPod :(
Maybe it's time for new prospects for Apple that were discussed in the articles:
1) “A few globally futuristic thoughts about Apple”
2) "Apple may acquire Yahoo ..."
3) “How many profits does Apple bring to Macintosh® computers?”
4) "And what is the future of Apple MacOS X?"
')
PS: Looks like I found the answer - What happened to Apple Mac`s current Christmas sales:

Quarter - CPU Units - Rev $
Q1-2007 - 1,606 K - $ 7.115 M - (Christmas Square. 2007)
Q4-2007 - 2,164 K - $ 6,217 M - (Summer Square 2007)
Q1-2008 - 2,319 K - $ 9.608 M - (Christmas Square. 2008)

If we analyze the number of Macs sold in the summer and the money that was received for it, it turns out that in the summer Apple was selling computers at dumping prices!
And the answer is simple:
“In the summer, the new iMac & MacMini & MacBook came out and the old stock models sold out at reduced prices and thus the demand was significantly increased.
- In addition, in the summer there was news that Apple won several large tenders for providing American schools with computers, while it was not about individual schools, but about large departments purchasing equipment for several 10 schools at once. Surely for such shipments Mac prices were also dumped (at cost level).
“And besides, before the beginning of the school year in the States, Mac’s sales are usually held for students and teachers at special prices.
As a result, Summer quarters for Apple was incredibly successful in terms of the number of Macs sold, but not in the amount of money received from this :(
And this situation has played a cruel joke, as in the Christmas quarter, Apple could barely reach the record summer quarter by the number of computers sold. But, but the money from this number of computers sold on Christmas, Apple could get more than in the Summer, as much as 1.5 times !!!

PPS: Actually - why did I pay attention to this stock price and put up this topic?
Because I know for sure that the current stock price, how investors on the stock exchange react to financial and other business indicators, make important decisions for the further development of the company's business: Downsizing, Downsizing, and Product Lines, Issue or vice versa Collapsing the release of new products, Absorption and Mergers with other companies - in general business diversification!
And this is not a joke - for example, if you follow the IT market, you should have heard that such a solid and unsinkable company like Intel , in 2007 was actively engaged in business reorganization: selling unprofitable divisions, reducing 10% of employees personnel (and these are 10 thousand real people), etc.
- And why did she do all this, despite the fact that its turnover and profits are several times greater than that of Apple, and in general, Intel is essentially a monopolist, existing comfortably in its niche. And all because investors (reptiles such) all the time strive to drop the stock price of Intel. Because they see if they have seen some years of stagnation in Intel’s business, do you see that Intel’s profit does not grow year after year! And where it grows even higher - Intel already rows several billion net profits annually, but investors are still not enough, yet they are screaming, come on!
So that such a sharp drop in stocks, which happened with Apple , if it does not quickly return to previous indicators (and I think that it will not return quickly), it may well turn into the adoption of the most serious decisions, up to the curtailment of computer hardware production of course: (or, on the contrary, takeovers, for example, companies like Sun Microsystems or Silicon Graphics for serious access to the corporate IT market!