Nikkei and WSJ split over their Apple horror stories

Two major financial newspapers that typically spread fake news about Apple’s supply chain down to the last detail have suddenly diverged in their imagined tales of how the best capitalized and most competent and most tech company competent in the world could be somewhat put to the test by the economic catastrophe which now kills thousands of people.

No matter the devastation, let us worry about a trillion-dollar society that has proven almost impervious to disasters of all kinds. This is the message from Japan Nikkei Asian Review and the Wall Street newspaper, although at the moment everyone is continuing the story in independent directions.

Doom Experts Worried About Tech Rich Entity

Don’t worry about the deaths from a pandemic and the blatant lack of action that is exacerbating what appears to be the worst crisis in the world since World War II. No, worry about how Apple will survive 2020 with its one hundred billion dollars of capital waiting to close deals in the upcoming sales of desperation among the companies really at risk.

Both Nikkei and the Wall Street newspaper have a bizarre fascination with predicting a potential for doom for Apple that never seems to materialize.

This is partly because Apple has incredible power and money. It may be the only global company to be both the U.S. tariff-free sweetheart of Trump and a vital investment partner “too big to fail” in the People’s Republic of China . If straddling the world’s two superpowers was not enough, Apple also carries so much money that its investors fear it is just too rich to be able to invest its money efficiently enough quickly.

Of all the trillion-dollar companies – or even Fortune 500 companies – to worry about, Apple is perhaps the most absurd to shed tears. For the past three months, Apple has been dancing around World War III and has made analysts like Toni Sacconaghi laugh, claiming for years that “Apple’s best days were behind.”

Then, at the height of panic and isolation under the ongoing pandemic of the new Coronavirus, Apple launched new updates that bring LiDAR 3D scanning and advanced AR to its new iPad Pro and deployed MacBooks Much faster tunes, as well as new Apple Arcade games and new TV + series, as if it were a Merry Christmas rather than a dreary crisis.

Not only deaf to the situation, Apple has also used its platforms to offer reassuring and reliable information on COVID-19 from its App Stores, Apple News, and even its Apple TV + collaborations with a mother Oprah Winfrey for help all of us deal with uncertainty. The company has also released a website and a COVID-19 symptom screening application based on CDC recommendations.

Yet despite all the upheavals brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, headlines have yet to be published and stock prices still have to be manipulated by timely news from sources that are constantly mistaken in their predictions about the worst absolute scenario that could possibly assail Apple.

Nikkei don’t lose that number

Cropping the coronavirus pandemic as cause for concern about the financial situation of Apple – perhaps the best-placed entity on earth in terms of weight and capital – was launched by Japan Nikkei earlier this week in an absurd article that speculated that the company’s future iPhone 12 could be delayed by “months”, based on the same anonymous predictions as the Nikkei has been launched on the iPhone almost every year for the past seven years, stating regularly that the latest version of Apple for iPhone is having worrisome issues that never materialized afterwards.

The story only takes place a few weeks after the Nikkei previously, in February, “public health experts” in China identified a “high risk of coronavirus infection” at Foxconn’s facilities where Apple assembles its products. This earlier report was immediately refuted by local authorities in Shenzhen. Officials said in social media channels that the report was false. He also noted that the inspections were still in progress but that factories should resume production “in a timely manner” and that none of the plant operators requested a “need to resume production sooner (than the recommendations of local governments) “.

These factories have since reopened without any reports of coronavirus infection. the Nikkei did not withdraw his false report, he simply went on to float new ones.

The last Nikkei Bomb targeting the launch date of Apple’s iPhone 12 similarly contradicts known facts from reputable sources, including comments from Foxconn. Immediately after its release, the idea was also refuted by Wolf Ventures analyst Gene Munster, who pointed out that Apple’s iPhone launches aren’t just launched together over the course of the year, but involve three or four years of advanced planning.

“By the end of March in any given year, the vast majority of work on designing and planning an iPhone with the supply chain is already complete,” Munster wrote. “Amid rumors of an iPhone 5G delay, it’s important to keep in mind that Apple plans its business in terms of decades, not years – an underestimated long-term competitive advantage. of this advantage is the company’s balance sheet, which allows it to survive the unexpected, from COVID-19 to a financial crisis or low initial demand for a new iPhone. ”

Component producers also pushed back Nikkei story, stating that Apple had not asked them to postpone production and that they had not received any requests or notifications of delay in production. If anything, the component producers are preparing to limited demand following interruptions of COVID-19.

These interruptions have already hit Apple’s Android competitors Stronger that they have iPhone sales, as we had planned. This is in part due to Apple’s resilient global operations, which can better adapt to the crisis and prioritize development and production simply through Apple’s profitability and capitalization.

It all happened before

For years, Nikkei strangely claimed, without any verifiable basis, that Apple had “cut production” of its latest iPhone. It’s been part of the routine since at least 2013, the year Apple’s CEO Tim Cook took the time to say for the first time in a conference call with analysts: “I don’t not want to comment on a particular rumor, because I would spend my life doing this, but I would say that it is good to question the accuracy of any kind of rumor about construction plans. “

Since then, a variety of analysts and investors have systematically ignored Cook’s advice to instead fuel every rumor. Nikkei floated, even if, year after year, it proved that the financial newspaper was wrong again and that what Cook had said was correct – the movements of Apple’s supply chain are simply so complex that no stranger could not accurately trace what was happening in advance … even in broad strokes.

Yet the Nikkei hasn’t stopped generating its fake news based on supply chain rumors. In 2015, he claimed that Apple had cut orders from iPhone 6s suppliers by an incredible “30 percent”, then returned the following year with the story that Apple planned to cut orders for iPhone 7 in 2016 due to “sluggish sales” and then flat-out insisted a year later that Apple was cutting production orders “in half” for the iPhone X due to “slower sales than expected “in the United States, China and Europe. It is as if they are trying to see how dramatically they can lie without laughing.

the Nikkei was not just throwing gags and letting its audience gather a false impression of what was going on. Instead, he actually reported in early 2018 that the iPhone X “failed to spread globally”, then, in a sort of desperate attempt to boldly state the most horseshit ridiculous possible, announced that “the iPhone X has facial recognition and wireless charging, but unlike previous models, it is widely considered to be devoid of any revolutionary new technology.”

Revolutionary manure

From the time Apple debuted on the iPhone X at the Steve Jobs Theater in late 2017 to the point where even Bloomberg was forced to admit that the new device had completely crushed any notion of expectations about how a $ 999 luxury smartphone could possibly sell, no one with an understanding of reality could ever pretend with a straight face the iPhone X “lacked revolutionary technology”.

Yet the Nikkei did it anyway, erasing any question of whether the company has an interest in reporting accurately when it is possible to scribble absolute lies about what is going on in the consumer technology industry just to promote l indignation, controversy and engagement in social networks. And, perhaps, foment market panic.

It would also be a lie to suggest that Google’s Pixel 4 or Samsung’s Galaxy S10 “lacked revolutionary technology,” as every major phone maker has really no problem delivering solid advances every year, thanks to the progression constant silicon, software and advanced products. development. Introducing “revolutionary technology” into a smartphone in the space of a year is actually not that difficult; the real challenge is to introduce advanced technology at an affordable price that can support a critical mass of sales necessary to generate operational profits and successfully fund future research and development.

Google has always been forced to massively subsidize its Pixel efforts that lose money with its advertising revenue. The advancement of Samsung’s high-end phones is effectively paid for by the sales of its much more profitable advanced components and displays. Even companies like Andy Rubin’s Essential have succeeded in creating “revolutionary technology”, but they simply couldn’t sell it effectively and stay afloat.

The will of Nikkei to report such a bold and confident expression of counterfactual nonsense should have completely wiped out his credibility. It was not a typo or even an incredible mistake on the order of the Wall Street newspaper falsely report that the Xiaomi in China was ten times more profitable than in reality in 2013. It was a categorical representation of false information, accompanying a fictitious story that ultimately turned out to be completely false.

Nikkei is not only bad when he denounces Apple. At the end of last year, the newspaper said that Apple had increased orders for iPhone 11 “up to 10%, or 8 million units,” while covering its bets with the comment that “the suppliers remain cautious and express concern that the higher level of orders would not be maintained. ”

These numbers predict nothing, and there is no verifiable basis to believe that the providers were “cautious” about the iPhone 11, which again proved to be a resounding success, reversing the expectations that investors had. developed for Apple’s future potential.

Yet for some reason, when the Nikkei popped up this week to say that the iPhone 12 could miss its “month” due date – a crazy idea that would apparently force Apple to launch its new iPhone in the spring and completely miss the holiday season – hesitant investors are are rushed again as if they couldn’t ” t don’t be fooled by a newspaper that got it wrong in its reports on consumer demand and unit production of iPhone since at least 2013.

Tripp Mickle: hold my beer

Next to the Nikkei, only Bloomberg, the New york times, Reuters, Yahoo, CNBC, the Wall Street newspaper and perhaps a few other major sources of financial news have also generated systematically false reports about the future prospects of the next Apple iPhone.

Generally, Tripp Mickle from Wall Street newspaper just repeated Nikkei angle on Apple, embellishing the narrative with even more absurd figures that are just as unreliable and absurd, like a literal phone game.

This week, however, Mickle took the single step of assuming that producing Apple’s supply chain will not be his biggest problem. Instead, he thought, the economic fallout from the devastating pandemic will make Apple’s installed base of about a billion customers reluctant to buy a new iPhone this year. As proof, Mickle found an anecdote in a 42-year-old sports radio producer who was dismissed, which makes it difficult to justify his normal purchase of “four new iPhones every two years” for his family.

Of course, Apple never sells each of its iPhone users a new iPhone every year. The company’s current sales have hovered around a quarter of a billion new iPhones each year, which means that on average, only a quarter of its customers buy a new iPhone in any given year. Mickle’s anecdotal and struggling individual has the next two years to catch up to his historic iPhone buying pace, which seems particularly strange that Mickle even cited the man as evidence of anything. .

You’re so two thousand late

Last year’s media story was that Apple “gave up hardware sales” and turned to selling content and services, as if the company could only do one thing at a time. This silly hot plug invented a year ago in response to Apple’s presentation of its new service offerings, including Arcade, TV + and Apple Card, has clearly continued to be wrong, as the iPhone 11 has outgrown the Premium Android sales growth and consumers bought Macs, iPads, Apple Watch and AirPods in record volumes.

Economic pressures on families and individuals who cannot go to work this month and who may be facing a domino effect from other critical issues throughout this year as the pandemic continues to cause massive disruptions and tragic loss for people – is a serious problem for every industry. So why present things as particularly troublesome for a company that has so much cash that it can go through years of crisis without too many problems?

This happened in 2008, when analysts and investors imagined that “global macroeconomic problems” would hit Apple’s luxury goods the hardest, which could perhaps dampen sales of the then-new iPhone. , whose price was several times higher than that of a variety of competing smartphones from Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia and many others. These predictions also did not materialize. Although Apple’s stock price fell by half twice that year, the company emerged stronger than ever and its sales of iPhones radically changed the balance of power in the tech industry.

In 2008, rather than retreating to a cave and watching helplessly as its cash reserves evaporated, Apple aggressively started investing in custom silicon as part of a new project that culminated in A4. Long before anyone appreciated the size of the iPhone, Apple foresaw a future where the iPhone 4 would offer the luxurious feel of a Hasselblad camera and where casual mobile computing would go from cheap netbooks running Linux or a Reduced edition of Windows to a new ultra-thin iPad brand form factor.

Apple saw the years to come when many experts still couldn’t understand it years after seeing it happen right in front of them. And as they worried about their upcoming concerns about Apple, the company planned for future years of success that have grown to become a world leader in wireless tablets, watches and headphones.

Apple’s cash flow allowed it to skillfully harmonize major partnerships and acquisitions like P.A. Semi at a time when analysts were screaming that the ceiling was breaking down and that investors had to flee to the mountains and convert their wealth into gold. They were ultimately wrong; Apple’s shares soared during 2008 to soar as the company steadily increased its new advances, that every person in America or the rest of the world could afford to pay for an upgrade. annual level of each Apple device she owned.

Things have changed dramatically since 2008. Apple stocks are now valued about twenty times more than its nadir this year even after the fall of COVID-19 – and the company has grown from a phone maker to become the only company to sell high-priced technology. in massive volumes and at margins capable of protecting the business from the worst disasters. This even included the unexpected combination of the earthquake, tsunami, nuclear power plant outages and other disasters that struck Japan suddenly, just as Apple introduced the iPad 2 with a variety of components sourced from it. epicenter of this composite disaster.

A better question is this: why doesn’t Mickle even mention Apple’s peers: companies that depend as much on China, if not more, that will have even more problems producing their higher volumes of devices at much lower average selling prices, and for whom their buying audience is made up of people at the bottom of the economic ladder – people who will be hit the hardest and most affected by their ability to buy new flashy phones or other products this year.

What kind of market potential is hailing these new flagship Android 5G products from Samsung and Huawei, or those folding display prototypes from $ 1,500 to $ 2,600 that tech media were both excited to see and very curious to know why Apple didn’t float such a tatting gadget as well as build solid products that regularly sell in the tens of millions.

It’s surely a bigger story than whether a marginal fraction of Apple’s minority of smartphone buyers will be able to buy an iPhone 12. Apple customers range from the wealthy who can buy everything what Apple has done in the rankings and who has survived the past five years of growing economic disparity, and despite being hampered by crippling student debt, health care costs and low wages with benefits social media, always manages to stay up to date with the best iPhones from Apple and continues to flex its AirPods and automatically pays for Apple Music and iCloud without overemphasizing it.

After being so bad for so long, financial bloggers really need to cut back on the production of their own fabrications, as their stock is dwindling.