back to article Weak iPad, iPhone demand hits LG Display in the wallet

LG Display's profits have been hit by falling demand from Apple, forcing the firm to turn in its smallest profit since clawing its way out of debt in Q2 2012. Apple shares are trading steadily under $400 for the first time since December 2011 (following a brief blip earlier this month) as investors sense a shift in the firm's …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Really?

    Oh come on Reg. You can do better than this. You SHOULD do better than this. Simply posting verbatim what some idiot is saying online is hardly 'biting the hand of IT', rather more 'slavishly copying what everyone else is saying in order to gain clicks'.

    And I thought what with Anna Leach gone, the reporting on Apple might be a bit more based in reality.

    That and the fact BOFH hasn't appeared in a long while means I'm getting rather disappointed in your formerly venerable rag. If things should continue along their present course, I shall feel entirely justified in canceling my subscription.

    1. sabroni Silver badge

      Re: Simply posting verbatim what some idiot is saying online

      So you don't want comments enabled on this article?

    2. dougal83

      Re: Really?

      You don't need anyone to tell you Apple is not doing as well as predicted. Just looking at the share price should bring you to the conclusion that sales are slowing. So as to not risk upsetting any Apple fans, EVERYONE is waiting for the next iDevice because it IS innovative and ground breaking. Praise be to the great Apple in the sky, its so amazeballs, it just is!

      1. LinkOfHyrule
        Joke

        Re: Really?

        Is their next device going to be similar to Google Glass? the iEye?

      2. Philip Lewis
        Pint

        Re: Really? @dougal83

        An inaccurate and moronic comment if ever there was one.

        FACT -You can know nothing about sales trends from a share price.

        You (and I) can guess that whatever you (we) want, it will still be a guess.

        In any case, the declining share price is concern amongst big fund managers, anal-ysts etc, that Apple's exceedingly high margins have been eroded a little. Apple are still clocking in cash at the rate of almost 50 billion a year, so it's not like earnings are any substantive issue.

        The anal-ysts also are also fans of the "stupid" argument. Where they equate increasing competition as meaning that the subject of their analysis (Apple) will necessarily be impacted/unable to react/compensate. Their implicit assumption being that Apple management is asleep at the wheel. It is a broken idea, but popular amongst analysts who want their name in the press.

        Finally, the anal-ysts seem obsessed with the idea of Apple releasing some iPhone-el-cheapo model not quite understanding (or simply ignoring) what that means for the branding, margins, USP etc. etc.. They then bad mouth Apple for not having done so yet, because they (in their vacuum) think it's a good idea.

        My prediction is that it will not happen until Apple have a deal with China Mobile and it will probably be a phone just for that network. <-- Please note, this is what is called a guess.

  2. Si 1

    Isn't this just the usual lull as people put off buying until the latest version comes out? It happened right before the iPhone 4S and 5 launched and was interpreted as the end of Apple then too...

  3. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Is it really weakness or is it Analyists

    just sticking their collective heads up their backsides and saying that Apple/whoever is going to sell 20% more of everything in the next quarter?

    Probably a bit of both but many of these so-called Analyists are nothing more than really bad fairground fortune tellers.

    I read on another side that the demand for the retina display has increased driving up 2nd market prices for them

  4. Gordon Pryra

    just a little innovation

    I see what you did there, ha ha ha.

    Anyway, with Google bringing out the Glass (no matter what people think it looks like or what it should have looked like) this puts Apple on the back foot for the next big thing.

    Basically Apples model is consumer gadgets

    An mp3 player

    A smart phone

    A tablet

    next?

    Well it has to be some form of computer gadget, and unless they have something else in the pipeline they are screwed. To get to the top in the MP3 game they had to beat Sony who sat on their arse and did nothing, the same with mobile phones and Nokia. Tablets they were first, and no matter how crap you think the iPad is compared to really hardware from someone like Samsung, still Apple got there first.

    If the next thing is a web-enabled screen you strap to your face, then Apple will be up against Google (and probably their best buds Samsung) and these company's do not rest on their laurels.

    1. jubtastic1
      Meh

      Re: just a little innovation

      Pretty sure the next big thing isn't going to be some sort of screen you strap to your face.

      Also I note that when Bloomburg ran this story at least they had the guts to mention the analyst predicting woes for Apple was from Samsung Securities.

      Here's a prediction for Apple's filing tomorrow, YoY is up, stock goes down.

      1. Shagbag
        Mushroom

        stock goes down?

        In 6 months the stock has tanked. 43% drop. (705 down to 400).

        All those Noddies who bought in around 705 on the back of the media's reality distortion will be licking their wounds.

        How low can Tim Cock and his yes-men go? I used to think destroying value was the preserve of MSFT but I can see that it's infected crapple.

        Come on fanbois, let's hear your rebuttals, you shit talkers.

        1. I like noodles

          Re: stock goes down?

          @Shagbag

          I'm no fan of Apple at all, but the second you write "crapple" in your post, your damage your own (reasonable) case and your credibility drops like a stone.

        2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
          Boffin

          Re: stock goes down?

          Ok, as a supposed 'fanboi' (I have an iPod and a 5yr old 13in MBP) I'll take the bait.

          The Apple share price rose because of the crystal ball gazers on Wall St. The company is not doing much wrong. They are selling more bits of kit each quarter and making tons of money yet the Analyst drones seem to keep hyping the stock when any one with an ounce of common sense would see that this was wrong. Hence the price rose and rose because people talked it up. You can talk a stock down as well as I know to my own cost (got laid off) even though the company was more profitable then ever before, it was not profitable enough for the crystal ball gazers in NYC. I got laid off and 6 months later the company filed for Chap 11. They had let all the wrong people go.

          This stock hyping/slating has happened many times before and will happen again as long at these so called Analysts exist. Frankly many of them could not Analyze their way out of a paper bag.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: just a little innovation

        At which time I will buy more ...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: just a little innovation

      Anyway, with Google bringing out the Glass (no matter what people think it looks like or what it should have looked like) this puts Apple on the back foot for the next big thing.

      ----

      Doesn't this rather assume that Google Glass actually turns out to be a real hit in the mass market, rather than a toy popular only among a small segment of geeks? I know which I'd put my money on it being.

      Which will be remembered as a bigger innovation for smartphones, the Nokia Communicator or the iPhone? Google may sell the first wearable computing product (depending on whether you consider the "smart" watches you can buy already as being in this market) but it will be the product that first achieves mass appeal that is remembered as the one that changed the market.

      I'm not saying Apple will do that, or that they will necessarily even try to compete with Google Glass at all, but Google Glass is not going to be the groundbreaking product a lot of wishful technophile want to believe it will. Perhaps it will be remembered as the Nokia Communicator of the genre, or perhaps it will be a dead end like the Segway.

  5. g e
    Black Helicopters

    Maybe Samsung know something

    They must have known that upping chip prices would ultimately drive apple away so they didn't care that they'd lose apple as a chip customer and maybe displays, too.

    Samsung are possibly the best display manufacturer to source screens from as in they have quality *and* yield (so they can afford to snigger if apple comes crawling back to them) but as for chips?

    Well if Samsung knew that the importance of apple as a customer was going to sharply diminish - which we seem to be seeing via Foxconn and LG quarterly reports - then perhaps they're onto something. Or up to something. Either way they seem to have predicted right so far.

    1. Philip Lewis
      Unhappy

      Re: Maybe Samsung know something

      "which we seem to be seeing via Foxconn and LG quarterly reports"

      You forgot to mention Cirrus Logic.

      Characteristic of all these reports is that that they infer something negative about Apple, when no information specific to Apple was announced. There could be many reasons for Cirrus Logic screwing up their inventory. That Foxconn has apparently had quality control issues is a Foxconn issue, and LG's situation can be explained by the forex market alone.

      Misquote: "There are two things that are infinite, human stupidity and the universe - and I am unsure about the last one" - AE.

      And this pretty much sums up a vast amount of the comments in here - uninformed drivel.

  6. jake Silver badge

    "Apple's stock price is still more than healthy"

    "Healthy" being a euphemism for "not just fat, but way, way, way obese".

    Signed: Happy short-seller :-)

  7. Arctic fox
    Headmaster

    The markets are reacting to the medium term trend............

    ............... - that being the fact that Cupertino now face a degree of effective competition in the mobile sector on a scale that we simply were not seeing as recently as eighteen months or so ago. The stripy shirted sharks have realised that the days when Apple had little effective competition in the high end mob and tab market are definitively over and so are the gravity defying capital gains on Apple stock. Does this mean that Apple are going to fail to make serious money? No of course not but the aforementioned "stripies" loved the situation where Apple had little competition at the high end just as they loved the situation with Microsoft stock in the late nineties. It is one of life's little ironies that a group of people who politically speaking sing of the joys of the free-market much prefer to invest in a company which has a little competition as possible when that will make money for them and their clients.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    LG can do better out of this

    By using the spare capacty, they can make similar products as Apple and flood the market (cheaper). Who wouldnt want a retina screen on a whatever incher phablet/tablet at around £250 ish.

    Google did it, why cant they. They have the pedigree. Sell excess stuff to HTC and other makers!

    Simples.

    1. Wam

      Re: LG can do better out of this

      Ah, but a 'Retina Screen' isn't a retina screen unless it's on an Apple product

  9. Sander van der Wal
    FAIL

    Samsung Securities.

    The competition spreading FUD. As good an explanation as any.

  10. Keep Refrigerated
    Childcatcher

    Translation Please!

    LG Display said its operating profit was 151.3bn Korean won ($135m) in the first quarter.

    And what is that in British £?

    Because I checked, and yes El Reg is still serving from a .co.uk domain, I know we seem to have a recent flood of US readers and writers but if this rag starts going US centric I'm going to have to cut loose and join the Inquirer or something drastic.

    1. jake Silver badge

      @Keep Refrigerated (was: Re: Translation Please!)

      "And what is that in British £?"

      About 100 million more than you will (probably) make in a lifetime.

      "Because I checked, and yes El Reg is still serving from a .co.uk domain"

      On the 'net, nobody can hear you scream (unless your mic is activated). Likewise, there are no borders. Deal with it. Unless you enjoy your insularity, of course, in which case bail out of the modern world & enjoy.

      "I know we seem to have a recent flood of US readers and writers"

      Define "recent" ... and who is "we", Kemosabe?

      "but if this rag starts going US centric I'm going to have to cut loose and join the Inquirer or something drastic."

      Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

      1. Professor Clifton Shallot
        1. jake Silver badge

          Enjoying paddling in the Shallows, no doubt.

          Fuckwit.

          Mornington Crescent?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            @Jake

            Haven't you got ranches to ranch or what ever it is you do on there?

  11. Mr Spoons
    Go

    Artic Fox nails it.

    There is nothing that capitalists hate more than capitalism.

    "Sing when you're winning" then whine, plead and lobby when a genuine free market happens so as to regain control over it.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Source:

    Samsung Securities

    Fuck me, can you do just a little bit more research? Is it really too much to ask?

  13. sleepy

    For anyone remotely interested in being serious: 1: there is always a big drop quarter over quarter in Apple's iPad and iPhone sales, but component makers can't adjust their capacity, so it's sort of a non-story. 2: The Japanese Yen dollar exchange rate has fallen 25% in 3 months and Sharp is desperate for orders. Lots of orders are going to Japan; South Korea is seeing serious price competition. 3: Apple will reveal actual iPhone and iPad sales for the quarter this evening. 4. Apple operates its business in a completely different way to its competitors, and this is obviously not widely understood, which suits Apple fine.

    The sad truth is that to earn enough with pitiful ad revenue, it's necessary to write click bait drama queen headlines, linking to gossip. The secrecy which is an essential part of Apple's business model makes Apple a prime target for fabricated stories.

    1. Philip Lewis
      Thumb Up

      @sleepy

      now now sleepy, don't let the facts get in the way of the haters diatribes - their lives would be so meaningless without it.

  14. Frankee Llonnygog

    This comment makes about as much sense/is as relevant as any tealeaf-reading by analysts

    Blast-oh-voutimo,

    Speed-oh-reety,

    Baloney Creek!

    (cf Slim Gaillard)

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