Apple Announces Mediocre Results

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Apple has just announced increased revenues for its fiscal second quarter ($43.6 billion vs. $39.2 billion last year) but considerably lower earnings ($9.5 billion vs. $11.6 billion last year). More dramatically, their gross margins have plummeted from 47.4 percent to 37.5 percent. Channel inventory of iPads was up by over a million units. Mac sales declined 2 percent.

And the future looks to be even worse. Apple is forecasting that revenues will be flat or slightly down next quarter and gross margins will continue to decline a bit to 36-37 percent. CEO Tim Cook calls this “frustrating.” To assuage shareholders, Cook announced that Apple would increase its share repurchase program to $60 billion and would raise its dividend by 15 percent. All told, its total “capital return program” has been doubled to $100 billion by 2015.

Bottom line: Apple is a bit adrift; competition is squeezing margins; and they have no good ideas about what to do with their cash hoard. Cook, in a rather pro forma tone of voice, insisted that Apple has lots of great ideas coming soon, but it’s hard to know what those might be. Apple TV? Anything else?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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