May, 2019 | CompuScoop.com

Apple sales shrink as iPhone demand weakens, but there’s some good news

CompuScoop Staff May 1, 2019 0

Apple Inc.’s sales are still shrinking amid weakening iPhone demand, despite the company’s increasing emphasis on services designed to bring in a steady flow of money from the 1.4 billion of its devices still in use.

Revenue for the January-through-March quarter fell to $58 billion, down 5% from the same quarter last year, the company said in its earnings report Tuesday. That downturn followed a 5% drop in the previous quarter.

It’s the first time in 2½ years that Apple has suffered two consecutive quarterly revenue declines.

Apple still posted a profit of $11.6 billion during the quarter, though that was down 16% from the same quarter last year. That translated into $2.46 per share — down 10% year over year but above the $2.36-per-share forecast among analysts surveyed by FactSet.

The Cupertino, Calif., company also announced a 5% increase in its quarterly dividend to 77 cents per share.

That news, plus a company forecast signaling that the revenue downturn may be ending in the current April-through-June quarter, seemed to please investors. Apple’s stock climbed about 5% in after-hours trading.

But even if the shares rise similarly during Wednesday’s regular trading session, the stock will remain about 10% below the peak it reached nearly seven months ago.

Questions still loom over the stock. Apple is grappling with challenges it hasn’t had to confront since iPhone debuted 12 years ago.

Until recently, Apple could count on people eagerly lining up to buy its latest iPhone models at ever loftier prices. That’s no longer the case, especially now that Apple is charging $1,000 and more for its top-of-the-line iPhones. Many consumers aren’t seeing enough compelling new features to persuade them to scrap their old devices and buy a new one.

That’s part of the reason iPhone sales in its latest quarter plunged 17% year over year to $31 billion. Much of the erosion is occurring in China, where Apple is facing stiffer competition from homegrown smartphone makers Huawei and Xiaomi.

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook signaled that the worst may be over during a Tuesday conference call with analysts. “We like the direction we’re headed with iPhone, and our goal now is to pick up the pace,” Cook said.

Most analysts expect the iPhone malaise to persist at least through the fall, when Apple traditionally unveils its latest models. “Apple remains the iPhone company,” Chatham Road Partners analyst Colin Gillis reminded investors in a research note.

Around the same time, Apple also is expected to launch a new Netflix-style video streaming service.

Cook previewed the service during a celebrity-laden event last month without disclosing how much it would cost to subscribe. He touted it as an example of how Apple intends to continue to make money from the iPhones, iPads and Mac computers it has already sold.

Apple already has attracted more than 50 million subscribers to a music streaming service it started four years ago. It’s now aiming to sign up tens of millions more to the video service, as well as others for video games and news.

The company’s service revenue also includes sales of extended-warranty programs for its devices, hefty commissions from apps that sell subscriptions and other digital goods through its App Store and fees that Google pays to be the built-in search engine on iPhones and iPads.

All told, all those services generated $11.5 billion in revenue during the quarter, up 16% from the same quarter last year.

Via: LATimes.com

NASA Investigation Uncovers Cause of Two Science Mission Launch Failures

NASA Gov May 1, 2019 0

NASA Launch Services Program (LSP) investigators have determined the technical root cause for the Taurus XL launch failures of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) and Glory missions in 2009 and 2011, respectively: faulty materials provided by aluminum manufacturer, Sapa Profiles, Inc. (SPI).

LSP’s technical investigation led to the involvement of NASA’s Office of the Inspector General and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). DOJ’s efforts, recently made public, resulted in the resolution of criminal charges and alleged civil claims against SPI, and its agreement to pay $46 million to the U.S. government and other commercial customers. This relates to a 19-year scheme that included falsifying thousands of certifications for aluminum extrusions to hundreds of customers.

NASA’s updated public summary of the launch failures, which was published Tuesday, comes after a multiyear technical investigation by LSP and updates the previous public summaries on the Taurus XL launch failures for the OCO and Glory missions. Those public summaries concluded that the launch vehicle fairing — a clamshell structure that encapsulates the satellite as it travels through the atmosphere — failed to separate on command, but no technical root cause had been identified. From NASA’s investigation, it is now known that SPI altered test results and provided false certifications to Orbital Sciences Corporation, the manufacturer of the Taurus XL, regarding the aluminum extrusions used in the payload fairing rail frangible joint. A frangible joint is a structural separation system that is initiated using ordnance.

“NASA relies on the integrity of our industry throughout the supply chain. While we do perform our own testing, NASA is not able to retest every single component. That is why we require and pay for certain components to be tested and certified by the supplier,” said Jim Norman, NASA’s director for Launch Services at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “When testing results are altered and certifications are provided falsely, missions fail. In our case, the Taurus XLs that failed for the OCO and Glory missions resulted in the loss of more than $700 million, and years of people’s scientific work. It is critical that we are able to trust our industry to produce, test and certify materials in accordance with the standards we require. In this case, our trust was severely violated.”

To protect the government supply chain, NASA suspended SPI from government contracting and proposed SPI for government-wide debarment. The exclusion from government contracting has been in effect since Sept. 30, 2015. NASA also has proposed debarment for Hydro Extrusion Portland, Inc.,formerly known as SPI,and the company currently is excluded from contracting throughout the federal government.

“Due in large part to the hard work and dedication of many highly motivated people in the NASA Launch Services program, we are able to close out the cause of two extremely disappointing launch vehicle failures and protect the government aerospace supply chain,” said Amanda Mitskevich, LSP program manager at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in, Florida. “It has taken a long time to get here, involving years of investigation and testing, but as of today, it has been worth every minute, and I am extremely pleased with the entire team’s efforts.”

To learn more about NASA’s Launch Services Program, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/launchingrockets/index.html

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