苹果摆平中国媒体的代价

    After Apple's (AAPL) quarterly report last week nearly every analyst we heard from pointed out that the company's 37.5% gross margin -- the measure of how efficiently a company turns sales into profits -- was at very bottom of its 37.5%-to-38.5% forecast range.

    The analysts offered a variety explanations, but most attributed the reduced margins to increased competition from Samsung and other manufacturers of Android smartphones and tablets.

    But there's a simpler answer: China.

    I don't know who hit on this theory first, because Wall Street analysts never credit their competitors' scoops.

    • Asymco's Horace Dediu had it in a post called Margin Call 2 that was time-stamped Thursday, April 25 at 2:38 a.m.

    • Wells Fargo's Maynard Um offered the same explanation in a note to clients issued later that morning.

    • Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty wrote about it on Tuesday April 30, five days later.

    The theory is this: On the last day of the quarter Tim Cook, to appease government-owned media outlets that for two weeks had been attacking Apple on a daily basis, issued an apology to his Chinese customers and changed Apple's warranty and return policies -- among other things, extending the warranties on any iPhone brought in for repair in China for a full year.

    At the same time, according to the company's SEC Form 10-Q, Apple booked $414 million in so-called warranty accruals to account for the impact of changes to certain unnamed "service policies and other estimated warranty costs." That $414 million came directly out of last quarter's iPhone revenue and reduced the company's overall gross margin by nearly 1 percentage point.

    Morgan Stanley's Huberty estimates that if it weren't for China's media campaign and Cook's response, Apple would have reported a gross margin of approximately 38.4% -- just shy of the top of its guidance range.

    How the market would have reacted the next day to the higher margins, we will never know.

  不久前，苹果公司（Apple）公布季报后，我们接触到的几乎所有分析师均指出，苹果公司37.5%的毛利率只达到了最低预期。分析师预测它的毛利率将在37.5%至38.5%之间。毛利率被用于衡量一家公司将销售转变成利润的效率。

    对此，分析师们给出了各种解释，但大多都将利润减少归因于来自三星（Samsung）和其他安卓（Android）智能手机与平板电脑制造商日益激烈的竞争。

    不过，还有一个更简单的答案：中国。

    笔者并不清楚无意中提出这种观点的第一个人是谁，因为华尔街的分析师们从来不会承认独家新闻来自竞争对手。

    • 数据调查机构Asymco的贺拉斯•德迪乌在一篇名为“补仓2”的博客中提到这种观点，文章的时间为4月25日，星期四凌晨2:38。

    • 当天上午晚些时候，富国银行集团（Wells Fargo）的梅纳德•阿姆在一份客户报告中提供了相同的解释。

    • 五天以后，即4月30日星期二，摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley）的凯蒂•休伯蒂也发表了与此有关的文章。

    这种观点认为：在上个财季的最后一天，为了让连续两周每天都对苹果口诛笔伐的中国媒体满意，蒂姆•库克出面向中国消费者道歉，同时还修改了保修与返修政策——如将在中国参加维修的iPhone手机保修期延长一年。

    与此同时，在提交给美国证券交易委员会（SEC）的Form 10-Q季度报表中，苹果公司登记了4.14亿美元所谓的应计保修开支，对个别未提及的改变“服务政策和其他估算保修成本”所产生的影响进行了解释。而这4.14亿美元直接来自上个季度iPhone手机所带来的收入，使公司的总体毛利率下降了1个百分点。

    摩根士丹利的休伯蒂估计，如果不是由于中国媒体的攻势和库克的回应，苹果公司的毛利率可能在38.4%左右——恰好在其指导范围的上限。

    如果苹果公布的是更高的利润率，市场第二天又会出现什么样的反应呢？对此，我们可能永远无法知道答案。（财富中文网）

译者：刘进龙/汪皓