The Wall Street Journal surveyed the pre-tax earnings of the CEOs of the 456 biggest American companies and discovered that, as corporate profits have once again increased, they've made 3 percent more money overall. That doesn't sound like much, but there's an upward trend: The CEOs of the 65 companies whose fiscal year ended more recently and covered more of the recovery saw their pay increase by almost 15 percent.
The best-paid exec in the country is Liberty Media's Gregory Maffei, who made $87.1 million. Ralph Lauren came in at No. 9, making $27 million. The story also comes with an interactive graphic decoding the jargon that companies use on financial statements to justify paying so much.
The Year's Top Ten Highest Paid CEOs
How To Read A Proxy Statement
Paychecks for CEOs climb
To support a margin compression theory, the article begins by using institutional selling as proof and presents increasing Android market share as an argument. Let’s take a closer look.
1. Institutional Selling
The two examples provided (one institution selling and another expressing worry) are insufficient to support the conclusion that big money has started to dump Apple. What’s happening in the aggregate? Might other institutions have initiated positions or increased their holdings? Unless this table (http://www.nasdaq.com/asp/holdings.asp?symbol=AAPL&selected=AAPL&FormType=Institutional) is out of date (It does include Capital Growth Management’s sale.), there is no significant net change in the number of shares held by institutions.
Now, one could argue that CGM’s Heebner and FEAM’s Obuchowski are such stellar managers that their opinion warrants special attention. Well, Heebner’s CGM Focus fund is only a two-star Morningstar rated fund (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=CGMFX+Profile). Heebner “knows how to count”, as the author writes, I suppose, but he doesn’t know how to outperform; Obuchowski’s FEAM50 (http://www.1empiream.com/FEAM50_Q3%2010.pdf) and APA125 (http://www.1empiream.com/apa.htm) funds have beaten their benchmark. However, he’s expressed concern about holding Apple two years from now. He hasn’t sold yet.
The article hence doesn’t provide either quantitative (as the number of shares held has not changed significantly) or qualitative (as no star manager is cited as selling) evidence of big money starting to dump Apple because of margin compression. For the one under performing manager cited for selling, no reason is provided. As a matter of fact, there’s no evidence for net institutional selling of Apple, period.
2. Increased Android Market Share
With a 35% profit share in 2009 (http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-revenue-vs-operating-pro...), the hardware industry's highest, hasn’t Apple been successful in the personal computer market? I would say so, and yet it had only captured a 7% market share. How has it accomplished this feat? By offering something different that consumers value at a premium.
The author writes: “Jobs also (understandably) failed to mention that the “commodity’ Androids materially outperform the iOS products in terms of features and functionality. This is pretty much in direct contravention to the concept of the term “commodity”, isn’t it???? I don’t think many Samsung Galaxy S, Droid X or HTC Evo owners will characterize their devices as “commodities”.”
A product’s characterization as a commodity is not a function of the quality of its features and functionality or user opinions thereof. The Android clones are commodities because there’s fundamentally little difference between them. One might have a bigger screen, another longer battery life, and yet another a thinner form factor, but they all run the same OS and hence offer the same functionality. If an innovative feature proves popular, it can quickly be duplicated. There’s little that sets one phone apart from the other. They are interchangeable. As such, they must compete on price. You might prefer the Galaxy S, but settle for a Droid if its price is sufficiently lower to sway you. Their makers will generate lower profit margins, just like Windows PC makers.
The iPhone, on the other hand, offers something different: superior aesthetics, greater ease of use, no bloatware, superior integration with related products (Mac & iPad), a certain prestige, but mainly a distinct OS. It offers the whole package. Its hardware competitors might best or equal some features, but not the whole. If you value this different product, you can only buy from Apple. By maintaining full control of the iPhone experience, Apple prevents it from becoming a commodity like all the Android clones and, so long as it’s able to produce a superior experience on the whole, ensures premium pricing and high profit margins.
The author also writes: “…its business model may prove unassailable unless Apple makes some drastic changes (ex. allowing cloning)…”
What if Apple did pursue the Google model and licensed its OS? If it allowed iOS clones, it would cannibalize its sales and its margins would be obliterated, as it would lose its main differentiator. Would it be able to keep generating a $238 profit per phone (http://www.asymco.com/2010/10/31/making-it-up-in-volume-how-to-view-unit-profitability-vs-volume-in-handsets/)? In light of the fact that Google is giving Android away, it’s highly unlikely.
Android has already won. The battle for market or unit share, that is. Apple will henceforth never sell as many phones. That’s OK because Apple will probably keep generating the lion’s share of profits (http://www.asymco.com/2010/10/30/last-quarter-apple-gained-4-unit-share-22-sales-value-share-and-48-of-profit-share/) by executing a business model proven successful with the Mac.
As it reaches critical mass, Google’s model might indeed become unassailable. No other company will beat Google at its game. Apple has chosen to play a different game that might also be unassailable. They’re two different ways to win. Google will attempt to monetize Android through market share dominance, while Apple will maintain its profit share dominance among hardware makers through innovation and differentiation. Apple’s margins will suffer significantly only if it’s unable to keep offering something different, valued at a premium by consumers.
In short, the article fails to show an institutional dump of Apple shares. It doesn’t even show that the one (marginally competent) institutional manager mentioned for selling did so because of expected margin compression. Moreover, it is misguided in using Android’s unit share dominance to deduce margin compression at Apple. Apple’s profit margin will only suffer significant compression if it fails in the execution of its business model.
To further the analysis, is Google’s licensing model superior to Apple’s integrated model, as many seem to believe? In the personal computer market, Microsoft made money by selling Windows to hardware makers. In the mobile phone market, Google is giving Android away, while planning to monetize market share dominance through services (search and others). The hurdles it faces with this model are not insignificant. Its lack of control over its OS is a liability: witness Verizon’s pre-installation of Bing on some Android phones (http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Bing-Wont-Be-Exclusive-On-All-Android-Phones-110294). Its platform is a customizable OS that hardware makers and wireless carriers can tailor to suit their own ends, which may be to Google’s detriment, and they don’t have to pay for it. Its success is far from assured. Might Google be going back to producing its own branded phone because its current strategy is proving difficult to monetize (http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/11/this-is-the-nexus-s/)?
Apple, on the other hand, is already monetizing the iPhone. As a matter of fact, it made as much money in Q3 2010 as all other phone makers combined (http://www.asymco.com/2010/10/30/last-quarter-apple-gained-4-unit-share-22-sales-value-share-and-48-of-profit-share/), in spite of commanding only 4% market share. Apple won both the unit share and profit share battle in MP3 players with the iPod, as no worthy competitor came forth. This is not the case in smart phones with the emergence of Android. Nonetheless, the Mac, with 35% of PC profit share in spite of only 7% market share, has proven that Apple’s model can thrive even in the face of strong competition.
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SEO Training Courses in the UK
SEO - Search Engine Optimisation, is an extremely valuable skill.
The job websites - at a time of increasing unemployment - seem to be full of very well paid positions for SEO executives. The reason for this is that actually, there are very few people in the UK who are truly skilled in SEO - and for that reason, those that are tend to choose to work for themselves regardless of the large amount of money they could earn working for an SEO firm.
The main reason that very few people in the UK have real SEO skills, is that there are very few UK SEO training courses available. You can't just go & enroll on an SEO course at your local night school, they don't teach it in schools, there are no college courses in SEO in the UK, that I'm aware of, and there are very few real opportunities to learn real SEO from someone who knows how it's done.
I think the reason most SEO consultants don't offer to train, is that training is much harder work than just doing SEO - and at the same time, when training new SEO consultants, we're creating real competition for ourselves - and at the moment in the UK, there is not a lot of competition from REAL SEO consultant who actually do the work, and I think most consultants would agree that they'd prefer it that way - it's difficult promoting a clients website when you're up against another professional, so really for us, the less true SEO professionals out there, the better!
So - most SEO consultants are self taught. I have been teaching myself SEO for roughly ten years, and I dread to think how much I have spent over these years on ebooks, courses & programs, but I'm sure whatever the amount, I would have saved money by doing an intensive SEO training course, if there was one available when I started !
I have now started to offer SEO training courses in the UK, to help people who are serious about becoming professional SEO consultants. My training courses are one to one, intensive training courses, that include a year of help & support.
Are SEO training courses absolutely necesarry
No - they're not, however finding a professional SEO consultant to train you, will help you to take a huge leap towards becoming an SEO consultant, drastically reducing the learning curve that most SEO professionals have to go through.
What kind of SEO training course should I look for?
Look for a training course which is run by actual current SEO professionals, people who're doing this for a living. The world of SEO is an ever changing one, someone who used to be a great SEO consultant who now just trains, isn't likely to be training you using fresh knowledge & experience.
How much should I expect to pay?
SEO is a very valuable skill, and a good SEO consultant can make a lot of money, therefore logical thinking will tell you that no SEO consultant is going to offer to train you for a small amount of money, they are in effect training a future competitor, so they need to make more money than they would make in the same amount of time working for a client, otherwise what would be the incentive to offer training courses? So, if you do find a course which seems very cheap - just think logically about the value of such a course, and why such valuable training is being offered for bargain prices.
There are some valid reasons that a course would be offered for a smaller cost, for instance a course that was teaching a number of people at one time, would enable a lower cost - but in my opinion SEO taught in a class is never going to be as valuable as one to one training with a professional SEO.
What else should I take into consideration?
The main thing to think about - is what happens after the course? Like learning to drive, the REAL test comes after you've passed & you're let alone to drive. Remember the first few weeks of driving, scary right?
A good SEO course should include after training support. I continue to support people for a year after the course, included in the price of the course - and I offer packages for continued support after a year.
Kevin John Lewis is a professional search engine marketing / SEO Consultant Kevin is now offering a one to one SEO Training Course in the UK - available in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Cornwall (Newquay), Glasgow & Dublin. There are only a small number of positions available on the training course in both 2008, and 2009 - so if you are interested in becoming a professional SEO consultant, act soon! Article Source: |  |
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