Apple’s 2Q25 in Three Charts
We are going to change gears and return to discussing Apple’s 2Q25 earnings release. Today’s update will go over three themes, and corresponding charts, arising from Apple’s quarterly results.
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Judge Gonzalez Rogers’ App Store Pretzels, The Case for Apple’s Appeal, Potential App Store Fallout
Hello everyone. Happy Tuesday. There is a lot to go over in today’s update. We will continue our discussion from yesterday involving the latest App Store ruling from Judge Gonzalez Rogers.
The plan is to use Wednesday’s update to circle back to Apple’s 2Q25 earnings review.
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Apple Receives App Store Gut Punch in U.S., The Absurdity of It All, An App Store Dilemma
Hello everyone. Last Friday’s update was focused on Apple’s 2Q25 earnings. We will continue my earnings review later this week.
My full notes from last week's App Store anti-steering court ruling came out to about a week’s worth of updates. The 80-page ruling can be found here. Instead of spending four updates on the topic, my notes will be consolidated into two updates. For today, we are going to tackle a few major points that have been on my mind the past few days. Tomorrow’s update will discuss the points in greater detail. This is a crazy development that is up there as one of the more unusual turn of events that Apple has faced.
Let’s jump in.
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Thoughts on Apple’s 2Q25 Earnings
Welcome to a special Friday edition of the Above Avalon Daily. Today's update will go over Apple's earnings.
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Previewing Apple’s 2Q25 Earnings
Hello everyone. The news flow isn't taking a break. The ongoing Epic Games vs. Apple legal battle in the U.S. took a sharp turn against Apple. There is a lot to discuss from the court ruling involving anti-steering. The timing for having that discussion isn't great though with Apple earnings on our doorstep.
Here's the game plan:
We will go forward as we were with preparing for and then reviewing Apple's earnings. In today’s update, we will preview the release. Apple plans to release earnings tomorrow (Thursday) after market close. The report usually comes out at 4:30 PM ET.
In order to go over Apple's earnings on a timely manner, Thursday's update will come out early Friday (ET).
We will talk about the ruling early next week (i.e. Monday). Depending on what Apple reports on Thursday, we will then circle back to reviewing earrings later next week.
Earlier today, Alphabet / Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified in court, as part of Google’s antitrust remedies phase, that Google hopes to integrate Gemini with Apple Intelligence (iPhones) in 2025. The timeline makes a WWDC unveiling possible. This disclosure comes at a good time as we just discussed in yesterday’s update why Google needs such integration.
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Alphabet 1Q25 Earnings, Google Gemini Lagging Behind ChatGPT, Google Needs Apple
Happy Tuesday.
We are going to switch from Netflix, which arguably has the simplest growth narrative involving getting more people to pay more for content, to Google, a company struggling to explain its growth narrative. Given the way the schedule turned out, we didn’t cover Alphabet’s 4Q24 earnings three months ago. Accordingly, it's been a while since we last talked about Alphabet in depth.
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Netflix 1Q25 Earnings, Netflix’s $1T Ambition, Churn in Paid Streaming
Welcome to a new week. Apple will report FY2Q25 earnings on Thursday. We will dedicate Wednesday’s update to previewing Apple’s earnings.
For today’s update, we will focus on Netflix’s earnings. The company reported earnings two weeks ago.
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Apple Watch Turns 10 Years Old, Apple Watch: By the Numbers, Looking Ahead
Hello everyone.
Today’s update will be dedicated to Apple Watch. Ten years ago today, the Apple Watch went on sale in what was a highly anticipated launch. The Apple Watch was the first major new product category to launch during the Tim Cook era.
To mark the anniversary, Apple is running a few marketing promotions tied to the Activity app, the most popular and used app on Apple Watch, including a new Global Close Your Rings Day award.
Every Apple product has its own unique history and story. In some ways, Apple Watch’s story is intertwined with Apple betting on itself as it pertains to pushing personal technology.
In addition to going over my broader thoughts on the Apple Watch business 10 years in, we go over my estimates for various Apple Watch financial items. The update concludes with a look at the future.
Let’s jump in.
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Early Thoughts on Tariff Impact on Apple’s Financials, Apple Valuation Update
Hello everyone.
Apple reports earnings on May 1st. We will go over my detailed earnings expectations early next week.
To tie up a few loose ends that are still outstanding on the tariff front, there is value in going over my early thoughts on how tariffs will impact Apple’s financials over the next few quarters.
After what seemed to be a good two to three years of noisy Apple quarters coming out of the pandemic, there were expectations that the second half of 2024 and 2025 would provide a cleaner look at Apple’s underlying business fundamentals. Given the various moving pieces related to tariffs, Apple's FY2025 may turn out to be a noisy year from a financials perspective.
Let’s jump in for more discussion.
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Apple and Tariffs (Let’s Talk Sectoral Tariffs)
Hello everyone. Today’s discussion will be focused on sectoral tariffs tied to semiconductors. There is plenty to cover including differences between reciprocal and sectoral tariffs, the Trump administration’s goal(s) for semiconductors, and the various unanswered questions found with the topic.
Let’s jump right in.
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Apple and Tariffs (Exemptions Granted, With a Twist)
Hello everyone. It feels good to be back after some time off for spring break.
On the tariff front, the major news involving exemptions broke a few hours after the most recent daily update was published on Friday, April 11th. Accordingly, we are going to dedicate today’s update to going over the tariff exemptions. The way these exemptions subsequently played out on social media then fueled an interesting twist involving sectorial tariffs.
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Apple and Tariffs (Part 4)
Hello everyone. Today’s update will conclude our multi-day discussion involving everything tariffs. After today’s discussion, we will be in good shape in terms of addressing most outstanding questions involving Apple and tariffs. In terms of accuracy, we are right on track with how events on the ground have been unfolding. One of my goals for this week’s discussion has been to not get caught up in the craziness – most of which is unnecessary and driven by social media.
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Apple and Tariffs (Part 3)
Hello everyone. Happy Wednesday.
After a few days of little to no clarity on tariffs, there was quite a bit of news today. We will keep going with this week’s format of having one multi-day discussion. Let’s jump right in.
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Apple and Tariffs (Part 2)
Hello everyone. The level of unknown surrounding the tariff situation continues to rise.
We continue our multi-day discussion on Apple and tariffs. Today’s update will keep us on Apple’s supply chain.
On our “to discuss” list for the rest of the week:
Pros and cons found with Apple passing tariff costs on to consumers.
More on what looks like a full-fledged game of who will blink first between the U.S. and China as 104% import tariffs go into effect.
Apple’s earnings power, and valuation implications, after considering both universal and reciprocal various tariffs.
Let’s jump right in.
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Apple and Tariffs (Part 1)
Hello everyone. We are going to take advantage of this daily newsletter’s format when it comes to analyzing Apple and tariffs. There will be a discussion that stretches across several updates. Today’s update will be “Part 1.”
My goal is to cover pretty much every nook and cranny that should be covered when it comes to Apple and tariffs. There is a lot of noise in terms of publications and people focusing on the wrong things. Accordingly, our discussion may have different focus areas compared to prevailing analysis circulating on social media.
For today’s discussion, we are going to start a bit big picture by laying out the situation. In the coming days, there will opportunity for us to go deeper on some points.
Let’s jump in.
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