Apple – woo hoo!

I am not a stock market analyst, not even close. Until recently I didn’t even own any stocks, the closest I get are some funds. But I’ve been an Apple fan since 1989 and like a lot of others I regret that I wasn’t smart enough to buy any stocks in Apple back then… Though, I didn’t really have the money to buy them with, so it’s just a hypothetical question.

Anyway if you want Apple shares, then you have to buy them and the 20th January I sent a mail to my bank contact. It was a Friday and she didn’t contact me until Monday 23rd. We agreed on the formalities and she would arrange it for me. Though, since I live in Sweden and also on the island Gotland, they were not used to handle stock orders for the US market.

After the phone call I realized that Apple was about to announce their financial report for Q1 2012 and I sent another mail to my bank contact ”Please hurry!” The next day I got a phone call from the woman who were handling my stock order and by lunch, Swedish time, she sent the order.

I am so happy that the deal was set on January 24th and if you check Yahoo Finance’s chart for Apple, you can see why.

Well, what happens when you have bought stocks? Like I said, I’ve been an Apple fan since 1989 so I have followed the news about Apple with great interest, but now I also follow it from a financial perspective and I am so amazed, almost breath taken when I try to take in the meaning of what is happening. Apple’s development is really amazing. They have no real competitors – okay, there are a lot of products that claim to be competitors, but hey, really? Most of them are just copy cats and the result is embarrassing. Actually Windows phone seems to stand out because they have made something different with the UI which is a relief and I think they are worth a lot of credits for doing that – though I know nothing about how it actually works.

Some people who are more financially skilled than I am feel that they have to say wise things to me and warn me – though they have no specific knowledge about Apple, I know more than they do. I see a company who continue to follow their own goal and keep producing excellent products. Products that set the standard and forces other companies to perform better (and when they can’t, they copy like Samsung does… sigh). Apple’s financial results are astonishing even though I am an Apple fan it’s hard to imagine that this is what happens when ”everyone” begins to understand that Apple makes outstanding products.

There are a few dark clouds on the sky (and iCloud is not one of them – sorry, couldn’t help myself) like a couple of law suits and patent trolls. The darkest cloud for the moment is the working conditions at the Foxconn factory in China. This is a teaser for yesterday’s coverage made by ABC News who were invited by Apple together with the Fair Labor Association.

Then follows a longer video, but I think there’s got to be a longer documentary as well, though I couldn’t find it.

So, what do I think about Foxconn? Well, to start with China is going through a strong development which means a lot of changes. Look at this part from ABC News:

As China’s largest exporter, only the government employs more people than Foxconn, and the company earns more revenue than their next 10 competitors combined. Apple may be their most famous customer, but Foxconn also churns out products for Sony, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Motorola, Toshiba and other major brands, keeping the details of each production line wrapped in total secrecy.

In order to make gadgets like the Xbox, the PlayStation and the Amazon Kindle this campus employs 235,000 people, roughly the population of Orlando, Fla.

And everywhere you look, on every factory and dormitory, in every stairwell and atrium, are suicide nets.

It’s my strong belief that the first step towards solving a problem is to identify the problem and I think there’s no doubt that both Apple and Foxconn are aware of the problem by now. Also, they have joined Fair Labor Association. I am convinced that they will make the working conditions better until they are acceptable and that  it will affect a lot more of the companies that make gadgets in China.

I also believe that money talks – they don’t have any other option than to deal with this problem and since Apple has proved to be an intelligent company, they will come up with good solutions. So, this is a dark cloud right now, but it’s not an eternal dark cloud.

No, in fact China is also the most promising market for Apple products right now. At Tech Fortune, CNN Money, you can read the news about how Apple just doubled its addressable market in China.

How big a deal is this? To put it in perspective, AT&T (T) sold 7.4 million iPhones last quarter — Apple’s biggest ever — Verizon (VZ) sold 4.2 million and Sprint (S) 1.8 million.

————

But sales won’t begin in earnest until Apple offers a 4G version of the iPhone that can run on China Mobile’s broadband network. 

Huberty estimates that once that happens — perhaps as early as this fall — iPhone sales in China could quickly grow to 40 million a year.

Well, and soon the iPad 3 will get launched and the the iPhone 5, did I mention the new OS – Mountain Lion… I think I will hold on to my Apple stocks for very long.