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Apple (AAPL) has struck a deal to make its Apple Music service available on Amazon’s (AMZN) Echo smart speakers. Apple Music is expected to arrive on the Echo device on December 17.
Apple in 2018: Hitting $1 Trillion, Buybacks, and iPhone Concerns. Incredibly, the Mac maker accomplished this while trading at a discount to the S&P 500; shares were trading at around 17.5 times earnings when Apple's market cap hit $1 trillion, compared to the broader market's 24.3 multiple. Apple shares have pulled back considerably since that peak due to several factors, including President Trump's ongoing trade war with China, the company's lackluster guidance for its December quarter, and the latest renewal of fears about iPhone demand. The company recently announced a partnership with Amazon that will bring Apple Music to the e-commerce giant's Echo smart speakers, but that may speak more to Apple's desire to expand in the services market than to its plans for smart speakers.
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Apple has launched its mobile payments service in Germany, four years after its start in the United States and trailing Google, which started its payments app in the country in June. Customers at banks such as Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank unit Comdirect, Hypovereinsbank, Wirecard, Hanseatic Bank and of credit card providers Mastercard, Visa and American Express will from Tuesday be able to use Apple's Boon app, the companies said in separate statements. Retailers such as discounters Aldi and Lidl, supermarket chain Kaufland, drugstores Rossmann and DM, department store chain Kaufhof, clothing retailers H&M, Esprit, C&A and Zara as well as consumer electronics chain MediaMarkt will accept payment with the app, which allows customers to pay contactless by holding their smartphone in front of a payment terminal. While Apple has already launched its payment services in 20 other countries including France, Poland and Switzerland, a fight over fees had delayed the start in Germany.
Apple Pay Coming to boon's Customers in Germany. ASCHHEIM, Germany, December 11, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --. Wirecard, the global innovation leader in digital financial technology, today brings its German boon customers Apple Pay, which is transforming mobile payments with an easy, secure and private way to pay that's fast and convenient. Wirecard consequently drives forward the digitization of payments to approach new consumers. As of now, the iOS boon app is available at the App Store to users of iOS devices in Germany. Users can top up their boon account using any Mastercard or Visa credit card and via bank transfer. As a result, it is not necessary to already own a credit card from a bank supported by Apple Pay.
Apple vs Qualcomm: How can one US company block another in China? Qualcomm announced Monday that a court in China — the Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court — had granted the chipmaker's request for two preliminary injunctions against four of Apple's Chinese subsidiaries for patent infringement. "A patent in the U.S. is not a patent in China, unless someone registers a patent in China," said Matthew Dresden, an attorney at Harris Bricken covering international intellectual property. Both companies are based in California, but generate a significant portion of their revenues from China. For the fiscal year that ended in late September, Apple reported that 19.6 percent of net sales came from greater China.
Cupertino's decision to not report iPhone sales numbers going forward has sparked dismay on Wall Street, giving birth to a common belief that it is now expecting a slowdown in sales of its bread-and-butter device. That's not surprising, as Apple reportedly accounted for 36% of Qorvo's total revenue in fiscal 2018, which ended in March this year, so any slowdown at Apple will hit Qorvo hard. Qorvo specifically blamed the weakness on "recent demand changes for flagship smartphones," but at the same time it pointed out in a press release that "demand from China-based handset manufacturers remains measured and largely unchanged." Qorvo's substantial dependence on Apple was the reason its mobile products revenue increased 37% sequentially to $667 million in the quarter ended in September, which would have included the ramp-up for the new iPhones. But on a year-over-year basis, the chipmaker's mobile revenue was up just 5.9%. For comparison, Qorvo's total revenue increased nearly 8% over the prior-year period.
Apple said on Monday it had filed a request for reconsideration with the court, the first step in appealing the ban. Qualcomm said the Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court in China found Apple infringed two patents held by the chipmaker and ordered an immediate ban on sales of older iPhone models, from the 6S through the X. Apple said all iPhone models remained on sale in China and the trio of new models released in September were not part of the case. Qualcomm, the biggest supplier of chips for mobile phones, filed its case in China in late 2017, arguing that Apple infringed patents on features related to resizing photographs and managing apps on a touch screen. In the provincial Chinese court, which is separate from China's specialized intellectual property courts in Beijing, one party can request a ban on an opponent's product without the opponent getting a chance to present a defense.
iPhone Ban in China May Push Apple, Qualcomm Toward Settlement. (Bloomberg) -- A Chinese court’s preliminary ban on iPhone sales is another step toward a potential settlement of the long legal battle between Apple Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. A decision on Monday by the Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court made the two-year dispute over complex smartphone patents very real for Apple investors and analysts. In addition to the Chinese case, Qualcomm has filed complaints against Apple in Munich and Mannheim, Germany, and lodged another one with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington. All three venues offer it the chance, if successful, to shut down or limit the sale of the iPhone, a product that generates the majority of Apple’s revenue. While injunctions produce dramatic headlines and often force companies to take a more constructive approach to negotiations, they’ve seldom led to widespread sales bans.
Parallel Advisors LLC grew its stake in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) by 3.6% in the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Finally, Bank of America reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $250.00 price objective (up from $230.00) on shares of Apple in a research note on Tuesday, August 21st. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty-three have assigned a hold rating and twenty-four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. In other news, SVP Angela J. Ahrendts sold 25,000 shares of Apple stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 3rd.
The action in Apple's stock tells you everything you need to know about this market, says Jim Cramer. CNBC10 December 2018, 23:11 GMT. As investors try to square conflicting reports on the state of the U.S. economy and U.S.-China trade relations, the action in shares of Apple has become a microcosm of the broader stock market, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Monday. Shares of the iPhone maker traded lower intraday on worries that a legal move by Qualcomm would stymie Apple's sales in China, but managed to launch a small rebound into the close. Cramer, host of "Mad Money," argued that Apple's moves perfectly captured how flighty investors have become as they struggle to keep their conviction intact in this volatile market. For example, Apple's stock dropped from $168 to $164 a share on the Qualcomm news.
