Asymco

U.S. smartphones: Inching toward 1 million per week

Unless something changes fast, they're all going to be Androids and iPhones

ComScore issued its January snapshot of the U.S. mobile phone market Tuesday -- with accompanying pie chart here -- but if you want to understand what the numbers mean you should check out Horace Dediu's Wednesday morning report on Asymco.com.

Dediu seems to be the only analyst who tracks these monthly reports over time. Graphing two years of comScore data MORE

Apple as the new GM or IBM

Is it a flash in the pan or one of those rare companies that defines an era?

Investors, analysts and business historians have been struggling in the weeks since Apple's (AAPL) most recent earnings report to make sense of this corporate oddity: a mega-cap company ($487.1 billion) that grows like a start-up (first quarter earnings up 115.7%).

Since  November, when it pulled decisively away from Exxon Mobil (XOM), Apple has been the MORE

Who first called Apple at $500?

Technically, it was Hudson Square's Daniel Ernst. But we have a few caveats.

Eyebrows were raised in October 2010 when Daniel Ernst hiked his 12-month Apple (AAPL) price target from $300 a share to $500. But perhaps drawing attention to himself was the point. The senior analyst at Hudson Square Research is now a regular contributor on CNBC and his current price target -- $700 -- is once again the Street's MORE

63% of iPhones were activated outside the U.S. last quarter

And that percentage is likely to increase sharply now that China has the iPhone 4S

The chart at right from Horace Dediu's Asymco blog shows the U.S. share of iPhone activations growing last quarter due, he speculates, to the U.S. launch of the iPhone 4S and the addition of a third domestic carrier, Sprint (S).

But the long-term trend is clear. The U.S. is becoming a progressively less important market for sales of Apple's MORE

Video: Grading the Apple analysts on a scale of A to F

Two ways of seeing how well (or badly) the pros and amateurs predict Apple's earnings

We've been trying for several years to find the best way to show how much better the so-called amateur analysts (some of whom have since gone pro) are at estimating Apple's (AAPL) quarterly revenue and earnings than the Wall Street professionals who do it for the big banks and brokerage firms.

Now Asymco's Horace Dediu, who is MORE

IDC: iPhone is No. 3 worldwide

Apple's mobile phone shipments nearly doubled in 2011, overtaking LG and ZTE

On the strength of sales of the iPhone 4S last quarter, Apple (AAPL) jumped two spots in IDC's ranking of the world's five largest manufacturers of mobile phones -- smart or otherwise.

In a press release issued Wednesday, IDC reported that weakness in the demand for so-called feature phones dragged down market growth in the Christmas quarter -- usually the MORE

An Apple chart for Mr. Market

Something is amiss when Apple's price per earnings per trailing growth approaches zero

"I want to scream every time I see or hear another one of those ridiculous claims that Mr. Market doesn't understand Apple (AAPL), doesn't respect it, doesn't get it, etc." an investment analyst named Marc Gerstein wrote in an unusually condescending Seeking Alpha post last week. "The ones who don't get it are those who act as if reading MORE

Wall Street raises its Apple estimates, but not high enough

Apple's earnings grew 116% in Q1. So why is the Street is looking for 44% in Q2?

After Apple (AAPL) blew past everybody's expectations on Tuesday, reporting sales up more than 73% and earnings up nearly 116%, analysts up and down Wall Street rushed to revise their spreadsheets and issue new notes to clients. We got our hands on 39 of them -- plus a note from one analyst that his MORE

Chart of the Day: Apple's industry-defying growth curve

37 years of computer history in three graphs, two blogs and a podcast

The chart above, one of three that Horace Dediu has posted on Asymco.com over the past two days, and which he discussed on his Critical Path podcast Wednesday, takes some explanation.

First, it's on a log, not a linear scale, so every unit on the Y-axis represents an exponential increase in the number of units shipped. Second, it's counting all MORE

Apple hits a record-high close with over 2 weeks to spare

The slingshot ride in advance of the company's quarterly earnings report has begun early

"If you can keep a good stock down then you are able to load up for the ride back up. It's like a slingshot -- the harder you pull, the more propulsion you generate." Jason Schwarz' Apple: Seven Reasons Shorts Love It.

I'm reminded of Jason Schwarz' 2009 quote every time I see a chart like the one at MORE