Last August, China Unicom Ltd (CHU) announced a 3-year partnership to officially bring the iPhone to China. As predicted in July, the CHU's iPhone is sold with Wi-Fi disabled, in accordance with the Golden Shield Project. Additionally, 3GS hardware is still unavailable in China.

Despite these hindrances, handset and App Store sales have been doing well, AppleInsider reports. It's estimated that $1 million in legitimate app sales have been made this year, with a little over a month-and-a-half left in the quarter.

Black market phones are a huge problem in China, and it's been estimated nearly 2 million are in circulation, most of them jailbroken and running pirated apps. Apple hopes to sell 500,000 iPhones in China by the year's end.

Next year looks brighter: Wi-Fi regulations were relaxed back in May, and CHU hopes to have a Wi-Fi enabled model available soon.

[Via AppleInsider]

Apple naysayers are a dime a dozen these days. I keep a few in my garage just so I can laugh at them when I wave my iPhone in their general direction and they all cry in unison, "The Zune phone is so totally going to be an iPhone killer. You know, if and when it comes out. Just wait and see."

Rarely do Apple naysayers come with more unintentional hilarity than Joe Wilcox from Betanews, who, alone among reporters everywhere, uncovered a media conspiracy on a scale not seen in recent memory. Namely, contrary to what literally everyone else has reported, Apple was in fact NOT more profitable with the iPhone compared to all of Nokia's cellphone business during the recent financial quarter.

John Gruber from Daring Fireball saw Joe's post, and with his response laid the smackdown on Joe's analysis.

Gruber's post boils down to castigating Wilcox for ignoring Apple's statement of non-GAAP earnings. Basically, Apple's subscription-based accounting for the iPhone spreads its revenues out over several quarters, which it expresses in GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) earnings. These are the earnings Wilcox looked at and said, "Wait a minute! Apple didn't make that much money at all! Murder most foul!" If you want a real idea of what Apple actually made with the iPhone over the quarter, you have to look at the non-GAAP earnings. This is something I figured out back when I edited earnings press releases for PR Newswire, and something anyone who reports on financial matters really ought to double-check before protesting to one and all that something foul is afoot.

Wilcox updated his post after Gruber's response, but his rationale is almost as funny as his initial post:

I chose to use the GAAP figures because a) Again, that's what Apple is supposed to report; b) It made for a simpler analysis; c) Apple recognizes previously deferred revenue with the quarterly results; d) According to Apple SEC filings, deferred revenue is for more than just iPhone and Apple TV. The last two points are paramount.
In other words, a) It's the SEC's fault, not mine; b) like Gruber said, I didn't bother reading past the first paragraph of the press release; c) I also didn't bother parsing through the reams of financial tables that come with every quarterly financial press release; d) Gruber is wrong and Apple TV is totally selling like hotcakes.

I showed Wilcox's post to the Apple naysayers I keep chained up in my garage, and they just kind of turned away scratching their heads awkwardly. I don't think that's a good sign for the supposed "misreporting" of Apple's iPhone profits that Wilcox thinks he's uncovered.

Apple doesn't make the most mobile phones but, as of the third quarter of 2009, the Cupertino company does make the most money from them. Research firm Strategy Analytics says Apple is now the world's most profitable mobile phone maker, kicking Nokia from the top spot between July and September.

Apple's phones only command about 2.5% of the world's cellphone market, though the iPhone's cool factor and the company's premium pricing let it rake in about $1.6 billion in operating profit from the iPhone in the third quarter of 2009, besting cellphone stalwart Nokia and its $1.1 billion in operating profit for the same period.

Alex Spektor, an analyst with Strategy Analytics, says, "With strong volumes, high wholesale prices and tight cost controls, the PC vendor has successfully broken into the mobile phone market in just two years."

What did Nokia do wrong? Reverse what Apple did right. Nokia seems to have slipped thanks in part to lower margins from the weak economy and a less-than-stellar presence in the United States, though Spektor thinks there is time to turn the Finnish ship around. He suggests the company focus more on the U.S. and less on traditional 'non-smart' phones, which don't make as much money per unit as the likes of the iPhone or the Blackberry.

While Nokia may not make the most money, at this point it still makes the most handsets. Nokia's worldwide market share for mobile phones sits at 37.9%. At least for now.

[via The Mac Observer, Electronista]

Our friends at Cult of Mac commented on the possibility, floated on CNBC, that Apple will eventually overthrow Microsoft as the most valuable company in the technological world. If you think about it, Apple's stock was worth an unstable $25 dollars a share at this time 10 years ago -- today, it's worth $202 a share and shows no signs of decline. CNBC reports that Microsoft isn't really growing, but Apple continues to gain value and market share every day. From that, you could logically deduce that Apple will surpass Microsoft... but there are still a few points to make.

Apple has a long way to go before they're really ahead of Microsoft by most metrics. I suppose it's possible that the company's worth could surpass Microsoft within the 2 years that CNBC predicts, but as far as actual market share... I hope not. Here's why:

If Apple grows that quickly, we're going to see the effects of gravity bring them back down a bit. That kind of growth would be great for the brand but not necessarily the customer. We're already seeing record highs at the Genius Bars and not enough experienced staff to handle the demand. Calling AppleCare is usually a chore, not a pleasure.

Then again, any tech support call isn't fun, but long wait times make it even more frustrating. Using the example of Microsoft, getting too big too fast degrades your ability to offer quality service. It doesn't mean that their products are horrible, it means that you have to bring in more people to fill the gap -- people who aren't necessarily the most qualified to help. Will this sort of thing happen with Apple? I hope not. If their growth continues at its current rate, they better have a very good plan to avoid the Microsoft effect.

In my opinion, Apple does well as the underdog: they constantly have to adapt to the changing markets and make themselves more appealing than the competitor. If you look at Apple's top-dog aspects (iPod and iPhone), we begin to see things that aren't so awesome: the lack of a subscription service, the restrictive iPhone platform, not to mention the App Store approval process. In some ways, they get to the top of the mountain and then stop trying. Apple doesn't figure out where to go after they reach the summit, they simply find a different mountain and start climbing. They spent a couple years with the iPod, then a couple years with the iPhone... now we're gonna be seeing a couple years of the iTablet (or iSlate or iPad, you get the point).

If I'm not mistaken, it's really been a while since they've done anything innovative with the computer. Sure, the iTablet could bring innovation, but that's another mountain -- as were the iPod and iPhone. I'd love to see the company get back to the personal computer and do something that would change how we look at Apple. When I mention Apple at the moment, I hear the response, "Oh, they make the iPhone, right?" 4 years ago, that was the iPod. Soon enough, it will be a new piece of sexy hardware that Jonathan Ive designed.

Maybe two mountains will collide with the iTablet. Maybe it will really be the computer innovation that we've been missing. Maybe it will put Apple ahead of Microsoft in value, but let's hope that the Apple brand continues its reputation for great products, service and innovation.

Apple announced early this morning that there are now over 100,000 apps available to iPhone and iPod touch users in the the App Store. Customers of the App Store have purchased over two billion apps, and it is the world's most popular applications store.

In this morning's press release, Apple senior vice president for Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller noted that "The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly a major differentiator for millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers around the world."

Schiller's statement was echoed by top executives from EA Mobile and Smule. EA Mobile's Travis Boatman, VP of Worldwide Studios, praised the App Store as an innovative marketplace to over 50 million iPhone and iPod touch owners, while Smule's CEO Jeff Smith took the perspective of a small, new development house that has skyrocketed to success. "With 10,000 downloads a day, worldwide customer response to our I Am T-Pain App has exceeded our wildest expectations," said Smith. "The App Store has given us a unique opportunity to create and grow a very successful business, and we're looking forward to an exciting future.

By comparison, the Google Android Market had just over 10,000 apps as of early September, almost 65% of which were free. An analysis of iPhone and Android app purchases shows that iPhone users are more likely to purchase apps, while users of Android-based smartphones appear to like getting their software for free. Developers for the most part will go where the money is, and at this time, that appears to be the App Store.

[via Engadget]

Steve Jobs' Disney stocks aren't the only thing making him rich -- AAPL has hit an all time high, according to MacRumors, thanks to the big announcements earlier this week, both on the online store and during the conference call. Before opening this morning, it was at 204.72, but the high yesterday was a whopping 208.71, the best the company's ever seen, beating the previous high of 199.83, set in December of 2007. And it's been a heck of a year: the stock was trading in the mid 80s this past January, though that may have been more of a sign of the economy at large than Apple's fortunes specifically.

Boy, it would have been nice to buy back then, wouldn't it have? $5,000 of Apple's shares in January would be worth $13,000 yesterday. Just goes to show you can't keep a good fruit down.

You can track all the AAPL financial news on our sister sites Blogging Stocks and Daily Finance.

Is it better to have a lot of something good or a little of something great? If Apple CEO Steve Jobs is any indication, it's better to have both.

In September, Alpha Steve had an estimated personal net worth of $5.1 billion, enough to end up the 43rd richest person in the U.S. according to Forbes' list of the 400 richest people in the states. This week he's up to at least $5.4 billion. If you think that's because of the tear on which Apple's stock has gone over the past few weeks, you're only a little over half right.

According to filings by Apple (AAPL), Jobs owns 5.426 million shares of Apple stock. As of Tuesday night, Apple's stock had picked up 26.39 points since Forbes' counted the 400 "haves." Jobs shares had gained $146 million in value. Not bad.

Disney (DIS) filings say Jobs owns 138 million shares of the happiest company on Earth. Those shares have not had nearly the run enjoyed by Apple shares over the last few weeks, gaining only 99 cents as of Tuesday night. Still, Jobs has so many of them that they've increased in value by $136 million. Not bad either.

Apple's meteoric rise plus Disney's incremental rise equals $282 million more for Apple's CEO and Disney's largest private shareholder.

It's better to have both.

[via Fortune]

Apple's earnings report came out just a few minutes ago, and the conference call is coming right up! Join us for the liveblog below as we follow along through the conference call.

Apple has just released the fourth quarter earnings report for fiscal year 2009. The report can be read here and will be discussed in detail on the upcoming earnings call with Wall Street analysts.

The big news? Apple once again beat the Street with $1.82 EPS against an expectation of $1.65 EPS! More good news will be coming soon.

Also big news:
"Apple sold 3.05 million Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing a 17 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 10.2 million iPods during the quarter, representing an eight percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 7.4 million iPhones in the quarter, representing seven percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. "

Be sure to join in on our liveblog of the call, coming up at about 4:50 PM EDT today.

Time flies when you're having fun -- it seems like it was only a few weeks ago that we were enjoying the Q3 earnings report from Apple, Inc.

Well, today the wizards of Cupertino are on the phone again with top Wall Street analysts to report how the company did during the fourth quarter (July - September, 2009). Many analysts are expecting Apple to continue its recession-defying high wire act, with an analyst poll by Thomson Reuters Financial showing an earnings forecast of US$1.42 per share. That's 13 percent over the same quarter a year ago, and higher than Apple's own forecast of US$1.18 - US$1.23 per share.

As usual, we'll be covering the earnings call via CoverItLive. Drop by TUAW at approximately 5 PM EDT (2 PM PDT) and join us. Bring your questions, and we'll supply the news and commentary.

Amidst the ongoing macroeconomic malaise (is it over yet? Can we come out from under the covers?), the PC industry's sales have been suffering as big corporations and cash-strapped consumers postpone those discretionary purchases of shiny new gear. The expectation, based on 2008's results, was that this quarter would be tough sledding.

Results from analysts Gartner and IDC, however, both show an uptick in unit sales across the PC market year-over-year (2.3% higher globally per IDC, 0.5% higher per Gartner). Any pickup in sales comes as a surprise to Gartner, which had predicted a 5.6% decline in unit shipments.

For Apple specifically, the news is also good: both firms predict a boost in unit sales and share percentage for Apple's CPU shipments, with US numbers up from 8.6% to 8.8% share (Gartner) or a blazing 9.4% share (IDC). For the unvarnished results, you can tune in this coming Monday, 10/19 at 2pm PT to hear Apple's quarterly earnings call.

[via BrainstormTech]

The iPhone is selling well in Australia. Research firm IDC reports that the iPhone has taken 21% of the Australian smartphone market share in the past 12 months, putting Apple in 2nd place behind Nokia and just ahead of Blackberry.

What's most interesting here is how the iPhone has increased overall smartphone shipments to Australia. Specifically, other manufacturers have had to keep up with customer demands for features similar to the iPhone's, and as a result customer interest and overall smartphone sales have "...intensified of the past couple of years," said IDC telecommunications analyst Mark Novosel. He expects Australia's smartphone market to grow steadily over the next five years.

Australia's first Apple retail store opened in July of 2008, and the iPhone was released shortly thereafter.

[Via MacDailyNews]

Chris Foresman over at Ars Technica has an interesting pronouncement: A rule governed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, that's been heavily lobbied for by Apple and other electronics companies, may be enough to lift the charge that iPod touch owners have had to pay for updates of significant features to their devices. It's complicated, but it all has to do with "subscription accounting" -- devices that gain "significant new functionality" after their sale, like the iPhone, have to be reported over a series of years rather than all at the same time (presumably because the revenues associated with the product were the result of a series of updates, not just one lump sum).

For the iPhone, it's fine -- they have subscription charges associated with them over two years anyway. But the iPod touch is different -- because Apple doesn't want to report the sales of those devices over a period of time, they've had to charge minimum fees for updates -- the $10 (and more recently, $5) that iPod touch owners have paid for the firmware updates. But if the new rule goes in (it still requires FASB approval), then Apple would be able to report sales of the iPod touch all together without having to worry about charging for updates, as well as the dual GAAP and non-GAAP reporting we've heard on their conference calls.

Plus, as Foresman says, it would help Apple's stock price (seeing all of the iPhone's sales at once would boost investor confidence), and it would help developers who are asking all users of both the iPhone and iPod touch to update right away -- they wouldn't have to wait for iPod touch owners to find a few bucks in their couch. With the weight of Apple behind this one, we can probably expect to see the rule approved (even if they have to make some concessions). And so while iPod touch owners will probably have to still keep waiting for a camera, they at least won't have to pay for more software updates.

Piper Jaffray senior research analyst Gene Munster, who is not pictured at right, is continuing his love affair with all things AAPL. In the last few weeks he's told us that the iPhone will be picked up by another U.S. carrier in 2010, that Steve Jobs will be on hand at the September 9th Apple music event, and that there would be an AppleTV announcement at the event (this was quashed by Jim Dalrymple at The Loop).

Now the Munster-man is back with even more good news. He believes now that manufacturing capacity for the iPhone 3GS has ramped up and supply is adequate, Apple is on track to sell 7 million iPhones during the quarter ending September 30th.

According to Munster, tight supplies of the 3GS at launch led AT&T store managers to recommend the less pricey 3G to customers. Now that supplies are adequate, store managers are recommending the 3GS, which remains the best selling device at AT&T outlets. Piper Jaffray's figures indicate that during August, the iPhone took share from BlackBerry, the Nokia E71x, and other competitors.

Munster's last prediction isn't so rosy, but is based on historical precedent -- he expects Apple's stock price to dip after tomorrow's event by about 1 percent.

[via AppleInsider]

Apple's quarterly earnings aren't the only bits of good news going around: according to Betanews, the market research firm NPD has found that Apple's revenue market share in the premium price segment (computers costing $1000 or more) is 91 percent, up from 88 percent in May.

Not only is this good news for Apple, it is a continuation of a positive trend: their premium revenue share is way up from the first quarter of 2008, when their cut was about 66 percent. However, most original equipment manufacturers and Microsoft prefer to measure success by unit market share, or how many individual computers were moved regardless of price. Gartner and IDC place the unit market share of PCs running some version of Microsoft Windows at 90 percent, while Macs have 8.7 percent.

Breaking down the numbers, this news isn't too surprising. According to NPD, the average selling price of a computer sold at retail in June was $701. Splitting this figure into Macs and PCs gives an ASP of $515 for any Windows PC sold. A Mac, on the other hand, has an ASP of a whopping $1400.

Considering that Apple chooses not to wage the netbook price war and that the bulk of PCs purchased cost less than $1000, it makes sense that Apple would control the premium segment. They were also able to boost their sales figures in this bracket by lowering the high-end prices $100 or more on each model while keeping all but one computer in the $1000+ segment. But hey, we'll take good news however we have to slice it, right?

[via The Loop]