Dividend Yield is still at 7x the Bank of England base rate. Without interest and with so much money in circulation, where else can it go?!
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Apple distributes most of its cash as buybacks, not dividends. The total yield is actually like 6% which is considerably higher.
That said Iām not holding Apple, I donāt like their reliance on a single product which is increasingly threatened by longer consumer upgrade cycles and I donāt have huge confidence in their ability to innovate around new products.
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Iām starting to wonder if itās time to sell, Iām up over 150% in about 16 months. Iām not really an apple fan. I bought partly because I thought they were undervalued at the time, and partly because of the cult like enthusiasm of their users. However they arenāt looking quite so undervalued any more. Maybe I should take profits and bail
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You know theyāre the ones pushing the longer upgrade cycles?
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If thatās true itās an interesting business strategy to try and sell less of the single product that makes up half your income.
The strategy is to increase the revenue from services (18% of revenue currently) over the long term. Judging by the numbers it seems to be working so far. Even if your device lasts longer check how much it costs to replace a screen on the devices post iPhone X)
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Right Iām aware of their strategy around growing services, I highly doubt they are intentionally selling fewer iphones though. I think they are just trying their best to adapt to a world in which you canāt sell a new phone to most customers every year. Iām pretty sure they would prefer it everyone did still do so though (as well as buying services).
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I canāt remember which once but in their keynote a year or two ago they specifically pushed the idea that iPhone held value and were better for the environment and the consumer because you could use them for longer than the competition.
Theyāve been pushing the environmental friendly better for the consumer thing for a while. 5-6 years of primary OS support, clear and visible hardware support for replacing aging batteries, and now the fact that theyāre putting top tier chips in their budget phones specifically to allow them to keep up with future OS and application demands are just a few of the things they do that supports this.
iPhones have always had longevity on their side, the last year or two Apple have just increased their longevity rather than reduce it. Thatās not the action of a company trying to get people to switch every year.
And as @szb mentions as well theyāre slowly expanding additional revenue streams, which the usual you know about now and also some indication of other services like Apple one which apparently will be a bundle of services for one cost.
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Iām not even mad. Plus you can get Apple care.
But Ā£200 to replace a screen in 40 minutes from the manufacture is a service you canāt really get elsewhere. if they charge you for it (they never for me)
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I like Apple as a business. They know what theyāre doing, have great leadership, and make great products. I donāt see any of those variables changing, so Iāll hold my shares and buy more after the split.
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I think you are confusing Appleās reaction to the longer replacement cycle with them pushing it.
If Apple didnāt want people to replace their phones every year they wouldnāt launch one every year. They still wish they could sell everyone an iphone every year, but for many reasons that wonāt happen so they are trying to make the best of that situation (pushing environmental credentials, longer support, other monetisation streams etcā¦).
They are doing these things out of necessity, not because they hate profit.
Iām not sure if call dedicated time in a keynote a reaction.
Not everyone is on the same schedule. Why wouldnāt they put out new hardware every year? People upgrade at different times for different reasons.
And yes, Apple cater to those that upgrade every year, they even have the IUP program for that. That doesnāt mean they arenāt or canāt cater to both considerations. If they really wanted to they could cut down support to 4 years instead of 5-6. That still beats the competition, they donāt need to provide 6 years of support, thereās no reason to do so, so why do it? Why make a $400 phone thatās going to last 3 times longer than the competition?
Why not?
So people chose the phone over competitors and to justify the price tag? They did these things because of the longer upgrade cycle consumers came to expect it, not because one day they said āyou know what would be great - selling our customers half as many phonesā
Iām not Appleās biggest fan, but I wouldnāt suggest that they sabotaged their own business by creating the biggest headwind of the sector that earns them most of their money, sorry to be rude but thatās a pretty crazy theory.
Iām not sure I see whatās wrong with creating longer lasting devices? Each option ultimately helps pull in a certain demographic while forcing options to other demographics that would otherwise not care.
I have an iPhone partially because of the level of support Apple provides.
No one expected a top tier SoC in a budget phone. And if they never put one in no one would have said anything. That they did hurts their bottom line, but itās not all about immediate gain. A fast long lasting budget phone brings in new customers, keeps existing ones through an upgrade path, and places them at the top of the mid tier budget phones on price and performance.
Apple donāt seem to care about selling less phones to people who donāt want to buy a new phone every year and instead of abandoning them have provided a long term option for support that no other competitor does. Customers will stay loyal because of that.
Iād suggest they arenāt sabotaging their business at all and instead by making longer lasting phones theyāve actually expanded it to include other audiences and keep customers.
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Iāve sold today, time will tell if Iām an idiot 
But I did realise 153% profit on it
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Congrats!
Donāt worry Dave you made a profit! congrats!
Apple is a guaranteed stock that it will always go up but slowlyā¦ apart from the last 3 weeks due to stock split announcement and Feds money.
My Apple post-split share amount now showing in app and sending the portfolio graph wild ( Tesla yet to be updated)
Mine has also gone crazy. My invested amount has multipliedā¦
I had a mini heart attack about an hour ago when I got a notification saying that AAPL had dived 70% before trading.
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