Leading up to Apple’s earnings report this week, many analysts and industry observers were anticipating the worst. And with good reason, a number of reports over the past few weeks posited that the iPhone X wasn’t selling well and that Apple had been forced to slash production on its flagship product. Of course, as we found out a few days ago, the iPhone X was Apple’s most popular iPhone model for every single week during the quarter.
“Customers chose iPhone X more than any other iPhone each week in the March quarter,” Tim Cook made a point of noting, “just as they did following its launch in the December quarter.”
Moreover, a new report from Strategy Analytics relays that the iPhone X was the top-selling smartphone model across the world during the March quarter. And though Apple didn’t break any iPhone sales records this past quarter, it’s overwhelmingly clear that the iPhone X is far from the flop many analysts were so eager to label it.
In the wake of Apple’s impressive earnings report, legendary investor Warren Buffett appeared on CNBC today and heaped praise upon the company.
“It is an unbelievable company,” Buffett said. “If you look at Apple, I think it earns almost twice as much as the second most profitable company in the United States.”
More interesting, though, were Buffett’s remarks on the nature of Wall Street analysts to gauge Apple’s financial well-being in arbitrary three-month increments.
“Nobody buys a farm based on whether or not it’s going to rain next year or not,” Buffett explained.”You buy it because you think it’s a good investment over 10-20 years.
“The idea that you’re going to spend loads of time trying to guess how many iPhone Xs are going to be sold in a given 3 month period totally misses the point,” Buffett added. “It’s like worrying about the number of BlackBerrys ten years ago.”
It’s a solid point that is often overlooked. In fact, sometimes analysts will routinely hammer Apple when production shortfalls cause a brief drop in quarterly sales, even when a boost in sales during the following quarter is anticipated once production picks up.
Incidentally, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway now owns 240 million shares of Apple, giving the company a $42.5 billion stake in the Cupertino-based company.
