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http://www.forbes.com/sites/neilhowe/201...cdf0225040
Quote:Earnings season wasn’t kind to Apple AAPL +0.76%. The company reported its first revenue slide in more than a decade, and lost $46 billion in market capitalization on the news. Are these troubles a sign that the “four horsemen” of technology—Apple, Alphabet , Facebook FB +0.30% and Amazon—are falling out of favor? Sure, their stock prices continue to climb (aside from Apple’s), and price to earnings ratios remain sky-high. But plenty of questions remain. Apple is still searching for the first “next big thing” of the post-Jobs era. Alphabet and Facebook each have far-reaching ambitions that have yet to bolster the bottom line. Amazon, meanwhile, may have the best shot at turning dreams into cash.
The luster of the nation’s most dominant technology companies hasn’t faded just yet. Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Facebook have generated a whopping $436 billion in combined sales over the last twelve months. With the exception of Apple, whose stock has dropped amid concerns that we’ve “reached peak iPhone,” these companies’ share prices have jumped through the roof. Facebook stocks have roughly tripled in value since the company’s 2012 IPO, while Alphabet has climbed 60% over the same time period. Amazon shares have doubled in the past year. Each firm claims sky-high net margins of at least 22%—except for Amazon, which has famously eschewed profitability in favor of expanding market share.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/neilhowe/201...cdf0225040
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06-06-2016, 08:28 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-06-2016, 08:31 PM by Ragnarök_62.)
Neil Wrote:These firms have all succeeded because of how well they mesh with the Millennial mindset. Collectively, the four horsemen represent more than just bleeding-edge, trans formative technology. The goods and services offered by Apple, Alphabet, Facebook and Amazon have brought a sense of order to their respective sectors, and have created entire communities of like-minded users. But iconic status doesn’t guarantee future growth. Even among the four horsemen, the ones without a clear path forward are destined to fall behind.
1. I see no reference to GenX. He's only looking at something like half the pie.
2. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Neil Wrote:Alphabet and Facebook, despite their search and social media empires, are dangerously reliant on advertising revenue. Alphabet reports that fully 90% of its Q1 2016 Google revenue came from ads ($18 billion). Facebook’s ad-based revenue share is even higher, at 96% ($5.2 billion compared to $5.38 billion in total revenue). But advertising is a zero-sum game: Since ad spending over the long term is unlikely to change much as a share of GDP, Alphabet and Facebook are competing for the same fixed pie.
Hey, it might go down there, Neil. Ever heard of ad blocking? Clever Xer's block ads to save bandwidth you know. If the number of data plans go to limited data, then more Xer's will block ads to save $. Btw, it also keeps corporations dark wrt browsing habits. 
I do agree about Amazon. Yeah the stock price is way to high though.
One simple edit is all it takes to clobber ads, man.
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm
hosts file fix = ad free youtube and Forbes as well!
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I've been saying for a while that we are in a new tech bubble driven by social media.
I suspect Apple's problem is that the market for smartphones and tablets in the US has become saturated and their profit margins are being further cut by competition with other manufacturers. And without Jobs Apple is kinda running on creative fumes (well, however "creative" inventing new consumerist junk can be) on when it comes to devising and marketing new products to sell.
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Practically all electronic goodies eventually become, for all practical purposes, toys. As competitors build knockoffs and create competition for price, the profit margins diminish until the object becomes a throw-away toy. Just think of how much of a throwaway object that a tablet will be when people will find them inexpensive ways to deliver information. -- as if in recent years a VHS or audio tape, then a DVD or floppy disk.
Apple will have to come up with some new, high-tech, high-price object to supplant the current devices.
Real money comes from supplying services.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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I don't know why Neil refers to Alphabet, a company I have barely heard of and don't remember anything about, rather than Google, a top company everyone knows and is definitely seeking innovation?
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(06-06-2016, 11:31 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know why Neil refers to Alphabet, a company I have barely heard of and don't remember anything about, rather than Google, a top company everyone knows and is definitely seeking innovation?
Alphabet is Google 
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(06-07-2016, 10:50 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: American vidiots may finally be starting to realize what dufuses they are, renting iShits from the phone company, often using the phone company's expensive connection instead of WiFi, and forgetting to actually move the bits and bytes off of the wee little not-quite-a-computer into real storage somewhere.
And don't get me started about planned obsolescence (I just HAVE to get the iShit 7S+++ to BE COOL and BE SEEN!!!!!).
Smarter ones buy used iShits and sign up with a pre-paid outfit, use WiFi as much as possible, don't keep lots of bits and bytes on their wee 'puter, etc.
I'm a slow adapter. I consider alternatives, one of which is to hold out with the old technology as long as I can get away with it. I know the pattern, and I would become an early adapter only if I were in the business and had to know the product for the sake of my business activity.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(06-07-2016, 10:52 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: (06-06-2016, 11:31 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know why Neil refers to Alphabet, a company I have barely heard of and don't remember anything about, rather than Google, a top company everyone knows and is definitely seeking innovation?
Cuz he's writing for Forbes and for cred must use the current ticker.
Actually, alphabet is the parent company of google.
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