Charlie Wolf

Two 'Charlie Wolf' stories April 2014 - July 2014

Apple will beat its own top-end guidance when it announces Q3 results tomorrow, say analysts

Fortune ran its usual poll of more than two dozen analysts, with the consensus view echoing earlier predictions that Apple will beat its revenue guidance of $36-38B by reporting $38.4B for its fiscal Q3 (calendar Q2). Gross margin is also expected to exceed Apple’s guidance of 37-38 percent, at 38.1 percent. This follows forecasts that iPhone sales would climb 15 percent year-on-year, while iPad sales will be flat.

Business Insider reports that Wall Street is once again expecting significant growth from AAPL.

46 Apple analysts rate the stock a buy, 13 call it a hold, and only 4 thinks it’s a sell. Citigroup, which was bearish on the stock, changed its analyst coverage and rated the stock a new “buy.” JMP securities upgraded the stock to outperform Monday morning. Other analysts have raised their price target …

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Mac sales success “defies the laws of economics,” says analyst

Noting that the Mac’s share of the PC market has risen almost continuously over the past decade (with just a brief dip in 2012) despite costing an average of $700 more than competitor machines, Needham’s Charlie Wolf is quoted by Fortune as saying that it “seems to defy the laws of economics.”

The only explanation that we see is the now-mythical halo effect. Beginning with the iPod in the middle of the past decade and then extending to the iPhone and iPad, a meaningful number of Windows users who bought these products seem to have switched from a PC to a Mac […]

What should be underscored is how unique the Mac phenomenon is […] we view the Mac’s success as the rare instance where sales increased in the face of rising prices.

The halo effect of the brand undoubtedly plays a part, but he seems to have missed the rather obvious point that OS X is a rather better operating system than Windows, and the slickness of the ecosystem makes a Mac an obvious choice for anyone who already owns an iOS device …