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moakleaf's comments

moakleaf | 13 years ago | on: It Can’t All Be True

They report # of phones sold for each quarter, so not much point in repeating "sales are up".

Reporting stock sensitive information (like "sales are up") should also be done via a formal press release.

I think he did the right thing; He tried to dismiss all current and future rumors with one statement.

TC may not seem like the most convincing speaker, but he is not stupid, and he is a brave man for walking in Jobs' shoes, firing Scott Forstall (father of iOS), apologizing for the Apple Map issues etc. I wouldn't change places with him.

Right now the investors are trying to figure out if some of his risky actions are generally smart or stupid... That's why the stock is down. Risk!

moakleaf | 13 years ago | on: It Can’t All Be True

Android is not becoming a monopoly...

Android's market share is larger than the iPhone, but iPhone's market share is still growing(!), and it is still quite significant.

I think a lot of the negative sentiment comes from the fact that people think that the iPhone (as a platform) was number one at one point, and is now number two in market share. At the same time people think Android is one phone. Neither of these statements are true.

The best selling phones are still iPhones.

Android is not a single device or company but a highly competitive market by itself. It is really really hard to compete on that market, because you need something to stand out of the crowd. It is also really really hard to be innovative, because everyone has access to the latest version of Android OS, and in today's market, pretty much everybody has access to the underlying hardware. The only thing that matters is if you can squeeze your supply chain enough to get a large enough profit. This is where both Samsung and Apple have reputations of being very strong -- For different reasons.

In reality, most customers don't really care that much about megapixel count, number of CPU cores, memory, etc.

So as an Android phone-maker, the only place to really distinguish yourself is by custom "home-screens" and exterior design. Exterior design is difficult.

A couple of months ago Samsung was the only company profiting from Android phones. Apple still takes the majority (more than half) of the smartphone profit. I don't know if either of that has changed in the last quarter (we'll see).

But Android is not a monopoly it is a lot of different manufacturers fighting over around 50-70% of the market share with very similar products. Samsung has the majority of that market.

The currently only major alternative to Android, iPhone, on the other hand is made by one company.

moakleaf | 13 years ago | on: Tesla Model S Sales Exceed Target

Be careful not to mix sales with reservations and deliveries.

Tesla has a backlog of about 15000 vehicles, and it will take them all of 2013 to produce those cars.

You can reserve one, but the actual sale will not happen until the car has been manufactured. The backlog dates back to before the NYT article, so you cannot determine the effect of the NYT article based on the sales numbers of this press release.

You may be able to see the effect of the NYT article in the number of new reservations Tesla has received this quarter (when it is disclosed), but there are also positive effects that play in; The "Car of 2012" award last year, and the "Green car of 2013" award last week. Those could affect sales positively.

There are also plenty of positive reviews, so a single bad review would probably not have that significant an effect on the sales.

moakleaf | 13 years ago | on: Tesla Model S Sales Exceed Target

Because, for the majority of 2012, Tesla didn't produce the Tesla S. They only started producing 400 cars/week late in the last quarter.

So you really cannot use last year's numbers for anything, and therefore last years revenue/income is completely irrelevant.

The 1.5 billion comes from estimating what this year's revenue will be based on the number of cars they currently produce/deliver (which is in the 4-500 range). It is based on about 7500$ profit/car and 20000 cars/yr, but in fairness, that is just an educated guess.

Given that they are now profitable, the key questions are: How large is the profit-margin really. If demand will keep up and allow production to increase. Is there some yet to be revealed gigantic technical issue that will require Tesla to call back all cars.

moakleaf | 13 years ago | on: I'm Betting on Elon

Well... If the profit margin guidance for the next quarters is correct, and they are not hit by anything unexpected, the company should be trading at around 15 P/E by the end of 2013 at the current share price. Which would be great... But that means that there isn't likely to be any significant share price growth until then.

One problem with that analysis is that they have overpromised and underdelivered a bit in the past.

Another issue is that they only got 6000 new reservations in the last quarter. For them to have significant growth they need a lot more. And this is in a quarter where they were awarded car of the year and got fantastic reviews (except that NYT one).

I bet these reasons, combined with a standard sell-off of a stock that has increased by a lot the last quarter, and that you now really have to be patient for another or two quarters before anything significant happens, is why the stock is down today.

Personally, I am disappointed by the number of new reservations. I think it is far too low for a car with such stellar reviews.

I had hoped they would have more than 20000 reservations currently. 15-16000 is not even enough to use their full capacity for the year, so they need to start selling more.

I had also hoped the production rate would have been higher. 400 cars per week is also not enough in the long run. Elon talked about reaching 500 by the summer, and that really isn't that great. He also said that theoretically they didn't need to get more reservations in 2013, as they would have enough to use up their capacity. That also worried me.

I have seen analyst say they will produce 30000 cars in 2014. If that is the case, the share price is really not going to move a lot from current levels. Because the growth is just too small.

So I think a lot of shareholders feel like me, that the growth isn't significant enough.

I guess we need to wait another couple of quarters before we can say anything.

moakleaf | 13 years ago | on: Everything just doesn't work and nobody cares

You can still "track" the bugs you report, but "yes" they can stay open for years. However, if you don't report these bugs Apple will not see them. The forums are not really a convenient place to report software problems. I don't think their developers go there ofter. If you report a bug in Radar, it will be in Apple's bug-report system and some (poor) developer will have to deal with it eventually.

moakleaf | 13 years ago | on: Everything just doesn't work and nobody cares

I think that if the button is faulty it falls under warranty and you should be able to exchange it for a working iPhone 4 for no extra charge. If you have put alcohol in it, you have probably blown whatever warranty you had left.

I had a nasty experience with a 2007 Macbook Pro 3 years ago. One morning the screen didn't come on. Fortunately I was in the US at that time. I went to the nearest Apple store and discussed with them. Turned out the issue with the screen was a known issue. They fixed it the same day. No charge because it was a known hardware-problem.

They are generally quite friendly when you talk with them.

moakleaf | 13 years ago | on: Everything just doesn't work and nobody cares

My relatives' Windows PCs always break and it is always a real pain to fix them. There are also problems on the Macs in the family, but they are generally more wrt. 3rd party software. It is far from perfect in Mac-land, but definitely much better than Windows. It is not a "just works" platform!

moakleaf | 13 years ago | on: Everything just doesn't work and nobody cares

Honestly, this is ridiculous. I have experienced none of these issues. I use Preview and Color Picker all the time. Both Chrome and Safari works always for me. My iPhone 4 did not have a home-button issue, so it is definitely not 100% bad. I don't need to restart iTunes all he time. I use Mail with 15 accounts and 50000 messages across multiple servers. No problems! None... Zero... It really just works for me. Xcode sucks, but is becoming a lot less sucky with every new release.
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