Apple Infallible After All

The last two earnings reports for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) have been out of this world. In January, the tech company posted an $18 billion profit, its strongest quarter by far, thanks to the release of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Apple followed up it up its second-best quarter in terms of profit, raking in $13.6 billion, an impressive 27.2% jump in revenue from the previous year and a whopping 40.4% jump in earnings per share.

These best-ever quarters have kept Apple on top of the world with a $753.25 billion market cap, with the stock up 18.45% year to date.

So as you can imagine, expectations were also at an all-time high coming into Tuesday’s earnings release, and it seems as if Apple can’t keep up perfection forever. Let’s take a look at the highlights:

• Earnings per share of $1.85, beating consensus by $0.04
• Revenue of $49.61 billion, up 32.5% year over year and $300 million above analyst estimates
• Slightly below expectations on iPhone sales
• iPad revenue down 23%
• No data on Apple Watch sales
• Shares are down 5.77% after hours

The good

On the surface, Apple is still doing a bang up job. Any company that’s been in the game as long as Apple has and is still able to increase its revenues by 32.5% is a company that’s doing great things. And while the iPad seems to be struggling, CEO Tim Cook defended it, saying that Apple has around 76% of the market for $200+ tablets.

The bad

It’s hard to say it, but selling 47.5 million iPhones just isn’t enough. But that’s only because Apple was expected to sell at least 49 million. This could have something to do with Samsung releasing the Galaxy S6 in early April.

The iPad is struggling. Though Cook insists that its market share is enough to keep investors bullish, Apple has long thrived by having a trifecta of great products (think iPhone, iPad and Mac) and the iPad just isn’t getting the same traction as the other two, slipping further and further back each quarter. The fact that the Apple Watch doesn’t seem to be shaping up to be a sufficient replacement doesn’t help either. Let’s talk about that a bit.

The ugly

Tim Cook stated that Apple declined to share revenue and unit sales figures on the company’s new product because it wanted to keep the information out of competitor’s hands. But if you take what analysts suggest, the company only sold 1.9 million smartwatches during the quarter. Analysts point to the fact that Apple shipped only 1.39 million units of the first generation iPhone in 2007, but that was a different time and a different tech landscape. I don’t think it’s fair to completely write off the Apple Watch just yet, though. As native apps come into play, it will likely become more popular. But I still don’t think it will become as popular as the iPad once was, meaning that Apple is going to have to work to come up with another flagship product to keep its legacy going.