蘋果增長故事完好無損 Apple still on top
Apple missed analysts’ estimates in its June quarters of 2012 and 2013. Three years ago investors — and customers — were waiting nervously for the next iPhone. Two years ago the company’s sales in China, its most important growth market, fell. Those were things worth worrying about.
在2012年和2013年，蘋果(Apple)在截止6月份這個季度的業績均遜於分析師預期。三年前，投資者——以及消費者——焦急地等待下一代iPhone的面世。兩年前，該公司在其最重要的成長型市場中國的銷售出現了下滑。這兩者都是值得人們操心的事情。
On Tuesday, Apple’s stock suffered a more serious adverse reaction than on either of those darker July afternoons, falling more than 7 per cent. Profits and revenues beat consensus estimates. This time the worries are iPhone shipments that were a sliver below expectations and a slightly weaker-than-expected revenue target for the September quarter.
比起上述兩個更爲灰暗的7月下午，本週二蘋果股票對公司業績披露作出了更爲劇烈的負面反應，股價重挫逾7%。蘋果的利潤和收入超出了共識預期。這次市場擔憂的是，iPhone發貨量稍遜於預期，以及該公司公佈的第四財季收入目標略低於預期。
Some investor wobble is to be expected. They own a different company than the Apple of two years ago, and their expectations are higher. The stock has doubled since then even after Tuesday’s sell-off. Tim Cook is firmly entrenched as chief executive.
投資者出現一定程度的動搖在意料之中。他們現在擁有的蘋果公司與兩年前不同，而且他們的期望值更高了。即便在週二的暴跌之後，蘋果的股價也仍比兩年前高了一倍。蒂姆錠克(Tim Cook)的首席執行官地位穩如磐石。
But the growth story is still intact. The iPhone remains a magical success story, with 47.5m units sold in the last three months, up 35 per cent year-on-year. Consumers are willing to pay significantly more for them, with the average selling price up $99, or 18 per cent, in 12 months. China’s economy may be slowing, but so far it has done nothing to slow customer demand: revenue from the region rose 112 per cent year-on-year to $13.2bn. At that pace, it will outstrip the Americas as Apple’s biggest market in the next few months.
但蘋果的增長故事仍然完好無損。iPhone依然取得了非凡的成功，在過去3個月裏售出了4750萬部，同比增長35%。消費者願意花更多的錢購買它們，其平均售價在12個月裏上漲了99美元，漲幅爲18%。中國經濟可能在放緩，但迄今還沒有導致消費者需求下降：蘋果在大中華區的收入同比增長112%，至132億美元。按照這種速度，大中華區市場將在幾個月後超過美國市場，成爲蘋果的最大市場。
None of this is to argue that Apple can keep growing at its current pace indefinitely. How the company can follow the iPhone 6 and the conquest of China is a legitimate question; the Apple Watch is not yet showing signs of being a world beater. Anxieties about Apple eventually losing share to cheaper rivals are similarly legitimate. The point is that nothing in Tuesday’s numbers diminishes the fact that Apple absolutely dominates the most profitable part of mobile technology today, or the stubborn fact that dominance is hard to maintain.
這一切絕不意味着蘋果能夠永遠保持當前的增長速度。有人想知道蘋果如何在iPhone 6和征服中國市場之後延續成功，有這樣的疑問是合理的；Apple Watch迄今仍沒展示出在世界熱賣的跡象。對蘋果最終被產品售價較低的競爭對手搶走市場份額的擔憂同樣是合理的。關鍵在於，週二發佈的財報數據既沒有削弱一個事實，即蘋果在當前移動科技利潤最高的領域佔絕對主導地位，也沒有削弱另一個鐵一般的事實，即維持這一霸主地位並不容易。
