Pro analysts: mediocrity has become a habit

Horace Dediu is just amazing. He's so much more fun to read than all my dreary number-filled tables. Go read his "existential theory" of asymco. A true "entertainer," indeed.

Smooth Operator

No need to ask.
He's a smooth operator

"That's a part of the magic at Apple, and I don't want anybody copying it."

"Excellence has become a habit."

"If this is cannibalization it feels pretty good."

I'm happy and relieved to see Apple finally beating my estimates after I had been slightly overshooting for the last couple of quarters.

Thanks to Steve, Tim and the rest of the Team, all Apple employees, for kicking major ass. To paraphrase a commenter in another post: me and my family and our accounts thank you, Apple.

Anyway, on to the details. Solid quarter with upside across the board, except Macs and iTunes coming a bit below my estimates. The $670m revenue upside and 50 bps GM beat was tempered by slightly higher than expected operating expenses and tax rate, resulting in a 21 cent "surprise" (3.2%).

But the real shock of the report is not that much on the December quarter but in Q2 ending in March, which looks to be another record in the making (ironically Q2 is usually the weakest of the year). Not only did they guide higher than the admittedly lowball WS analysts expectations, PO also shattered my own "sandbagged" estimate, and almost guided up into my "real" estimate of $5.07. That would have been, and is unprecedented.

All the details: