Revenues were up 68 percent to $52.2 million, paid memberships were up 60 percent year-over-year — hitting two million just two days ago — and its cost-per-acquisition was down 12 percent. Even total revenue per average paid member (consumers pay a subscription fee to belong to Angie’s List) was up.

The only negative number — a net loss of $7.9 million — was also up, from $13.5 million in Q1 2012. That loss is due to heavy marketing costs as Angie’s List continues to pursue quick growth.

“Our business grew very well in the first quarter, achieving new records for membership, service provider revenue and total revenue, due to continued strong and consistent operating metrics,” Angie’s List CEO Bill Oesterle said in a statement.

While subscriber revenue was up 47 percent to $14.6 million, Angie’s List makes most of its money from service providers — the plumbers and roofers doing the work, who pay to advertise on the site and pay fees when consumers purchase their services on Angie’s List.

That revenue was up as well, increasing 78 percent to $37.5 million.

Consumers must be happy with the service, as the average first-year membership renewal rate is 73 percent, the same as a year ago, and the average overall membership renewal rate is slightly higher, at 75 percent. That does, mean, however, that Angie’s List needs to grow its 2,000,000 members by 500,000 in 2013 just to grow by 25 percent, and marketing costs that the company anticipates reflect that.

Source: Google Finance

Angie’s List stock price over the last three months.

For the second quarter, the company expects revenue of $58.5 million to $59.5 million, with marketing expenses of $27.8 to $28.8 million. At the company’s current customer acquisition cost of $72, that would translate to almost 400,000 new users in the second quarter alone.

“We will continue to invest in acquiring new members, adding advertising service providers and innovating products to drive further scale and penetration, while maintaining secure levels of liquidity,” the company’s interim CFO, Chuck Hundt said.

That will probably translate into another net lost next quarter, but the company is approaching profitability within perhaps just a few more quarters.

As mentioned above, the service just passed two million members on April 22. At the time, Angie Hicks, who co-founded the site with current CEO Oesterle, said that the company’s growth was accelerating exponentially:

“It took us more than 16 years to get to one million paid households but just 18 months to double it.”

Investors have driven the stock, which debuted at $13, from around $10 to the $20 level in the past three months.

A report issued by venture capital research firm Pitchbook found that deal flow continued to decline in the first quarter of 2013. With $6.3 billion across 753 deals, it marks the lowest quarterly totals in more than two years.

“At this time last year, the venture capital (VC) industry looked poised for prolonged growth,” the report said. “Deal-making was steadily increasing quarter-over-quarter — reaching all-time highs in both 1Q and 2Q 2012 — and fundraising was also on the upswing. Investors let off the gas in mid-2012, however, and have coasted along ever since. To that end, 1Q 2013 marked the third consecutive quarter of declining deal activity.”

Pitchbook also found that exits hit an “abysmal” four-year low. Furthermore, the number of early stage investments shrunk by 8 percent as compared to the first quarter last year, and the number and value of late stage deals declined as well. Angel and seed round investments, however, expanded from 24 percent to 29 percent of total venture capital deals, and late stage financings are growing as a proportion of overall venture capital activity. This data speaks to the much-discussed “Series A crunch,” because it presents the bottleneck forming between angel and seed rounds and early stage deals.

PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Associate had similar findings in the MoneyTree report, based on data from Thomson Reuters. Both reports found that software was a “bright spot,” with deal volume and capital increasing in Q1 2013 by 8 percent from the previous quarter.

“It was not unexpected that the levels of venture capital continue to decline as the industry continues to go back to where it was in the early ’90s,” said Tracy Lefteroff, the global managing partner of venture capital practice at PwC, in an interview. “It was a pleasant surprise to see a software uptick in dollars and deals. This is reflective of the returns environment right now. Money follows returns.”

Lefteroff said this explains why the life sciences and clean technology sectors continue to decline. These sectors are capital-intensive, whereas software and IT are more capital-efficient and often have shorter timelines for a liquidity event. The number of IPOs and mergers-and-acquisitions for clean tech or life sciences companies remains low. Investors are more reluctant to put their money into these areas, particularly since venture capital is going through a “contraction phase” and firms are struggling to raise new funds.

“If stock earnings and the stock market continue to hold up, we could see some general improvement in amount of venture capitalists being put to work,” Lefteroff said. “If we continue to limp along and have disappointments from a recovery standpoint, it is still going to be a tough environment. This isn’t a collapse in the industry by any means, there is a very significant role for venture capital and will continue to be, it’s just at what dollar level are people going to participate in the amount of funds allocated to these sectors.”

Eleven of the 17 MoneyTree sectors declined, however Pitchbook found that the median deal sizes have increased or remained steady, and valuations have seen steady growth since 2011 in all stages of the company lifecycle. Some of the more notable seed and angel deals from the first quarter were Virool, BlueData, and Blaze Bioscience. Among early stage deals, Pitchbook identified Leap Motion’s $30.8 million Series B and Warby Parker’s $41.5 million as significant. Airwatch, Pinterest, SevOne and Acifio ranked him for late stage deals. MoneyTree also cited LivingSocial, Nest Labs, and AppNexus as making “top deals” last quarter.

Accelerator and seed fund Y Combinator and 500 Startups were the most prolific angel/seed round investors in the first quarter, making 19 and 18 deals respectively. Bessemer Venture Partners, First Round Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and New Enterprise Associates made the most early stage deals, and Intel Capital led the field for late stage deals.

Read the MoneyTree press release. 

Photo credits: Pitchbook and graibeard/Flickr

Q1 was solid for eBay, pretty much in line with expectations, although revenue was down a little from analyst expectations. The stock, however, is down almost 3 percent in after-hours trading, as the company’s outlook for Q2 is in the 61 cents to 63 cents per share range. Analysts were hoping for 66 cents.

The future of eBay is mobile payments, however, and for investors willing to overlook some short-term pain, there may be some long-term gain as PayPal transaction volume increased a strong 21 percent in the last quarter, and PayPal merchant services jumped 25 percent.

Source: MarketWatch

eBay stock is down almost 3 percent.

By the numbers:

• PayPal users: up 5 million to 128 million
• PayPal at point of sale: now in almost 20,000 retail locations in the U.S.
• eBay marketplace customers: up 3.9 million to 116 million
• eBay transaction volume: up 13 percent to $18 billion
• Total “enabled commerce volume”: up 19 percent to $49 billion

Analysts had expected 62 cents a share of revenue, with total revenue of $3.77 billion, although the “whisper number” was 64 cents per share. eBay missed that number, hitting $0.63 per diluted share.

eBay had beaten its earnings whisper numbers in each of the last four quarters.

“We had a strong first quarter, with accelerating user growth across both Marketplaces and PayPal,” CEO John Donahoe said in a statement. “Technology is creating a commerce revolution, and we are in the forefront with strong mobile leadership and a focus on helping retailers and brands engage consumers anytime, anywhere.”

eBay’s original raison d’etre, auctions, is decreasing in importance to the company as net revenue, while still growing, was up comparatively less, 13 percent, and gross merchandising volume — the value of goods being sold via eBay Marketplaces — was up by the same number. In addition, GSI Commerce, eBay’s e-commerce solutions for enterprise division, had increased sales of 13 percent.

PayPal accounted for 41 percent of eBay revenue, a number that has been growing in the past, and the company expects it to continue to rise.

eBay has big plans for the future.

In a note to investors in March, eBay says it plans to enable $300 billion of global commerce by 2015, up from $175 billion in 2012, and expects revenues to grow by 50 percent by 2015 as PayPal continues to be the growth driver.

photo credit: OnInnovation via photopin cc

That might sound a little melodramatic, given that the recorded history of PC shipments only goes back to 1994. But with a drop of 13.9 percent — almost double the expected 7.7 percent — to only 76.3 million units, the first quarter of 2013 has been a disaster for traditional PC manufacturers.

Even a new version of Windows, once a guaranteed shot in the arm for PC shipments, failed to stimulate demand. Quite the opposite.

“At this point, unfortunately, it seems clear that the Windows 8 launch not only failed to provide a positive boost to the PC market, but appears to have slowed the market,” Bob O’Donnell, an IDC vice-president, said in a statement.

O’Donnell says that with its radical user interface changes, subtraction of the familiar Start button, and extra costs that come with Windows 8-equipped PCs that take advantage of its touch capabilities “have made PCs a less attractive alternative to dedicated tablets and other competitive devices.”

Ouch.

In the U.S., this marks the tenth consecutive quarter of year-on-year declines, and quarterly shipments reached their lowest level since early 2006. Europe was down as well, and even growing China and the rest of the Asia Pacific region dropped 12.7 percent, the first double-digit decline in PC shipments there.

HP remains the top PC vendor globally, IDC said, but its shipments fell 23 percent year-over-year, and it was almost surpassed by Lenovo, which astonishingly had double-digit growth in a sinking market. Dell dropped 10 percent as well, and Acer, Asus, and Toshiba also dropped somewhat.

Even Apple, which has seen strong growth in recent years, particularly in laptops, had shipments decline 7.5 percent to 1.4 million.

IDC seems interested in blaming Windows 8, but the more likely culprit is surging sales of tablets, which some analysts are including in “PC” shipment numbers. In fact, some analysts believe that this year is the year tablet sales will outpace traditional PC sales, with quarterly sales of 55-60 million.

Given this quarter’s numbers, it looks like the crossover point could be as soon as the next three months. But whether that happens or not, big changes are in store for PC vendors:

“The industry is going through a critical crossroads, and strategic choices will have to be made as to how to compete with the proliferation of alternative devices and remain relevant to the consumer,” David Daoud, IDC Research Director, said in a statement. “Vendors will have to revisit their organizational structures and go-to-market strategies, as well as their supply chain, distribution, and product portfolios in the face of shrinking demand and looming consolidation.”

photo credit: amygentle77 via photopin cc

Which means that Apple is now one of the cheapest companies you can buy on the public market.

In after-hours trading, Apple’s share price dropped as low as $458, territory it has not seen since early 2012. At $458, Apple’s capitalization is only $430 billion, still big, but nothing like the $650 billion of just seven months ago.

But $430 billion is misleading.

Apple now has $137 billion of cash and cash equivalents which, added to its other assets, gives it almost $200 billion in assets. Take that $200 billion off the market capitalization, and you’re left with an Apple stock market value of just $230 billion. That’s for a company that made $41 billion in profit last year, and $13.1 billion in profit just this last quarter. And a company that has not just one but six multi-billion dollar product lines

For some comparables, that $230 billion valuation is similar to Google, which had just a bit more revenue for 2012 — $50 billion — than Apple had profit. It’s also in the neighborhood of WalMart, the low-price commodity sales retailer. And it’s just slightly more than Microsoft, whose main profit pillars in desktop operating systems and office productivity software are much more at risk in the current mobile revolution than Apple’s.

At a price-earnings ratio of under ten, Apple is insanely cheaper than Amazon, which sports an ridiculous P/E of 3,583, believe it or not. And cheaper than Microsoft, which at least is sane at about 15, and Google, with a slightly higher 23. None of which, when it’s all stacked up, seems to make any sense at all. As investor Mark Sigal wrote on his blog:

To say that investors are idiots, really is an unfair dig at idiots.

Investors reward future prospects more than past successes, true. But does anyone really think that the bottom is going to fall out of Apple’s business model entirely? When Apple just posted its largest smartphone market share percentage ever last quarter?

Apple should look at the low end and international markets, and Tim Cook would do well to stop avoiding those questions on earnings calls. But Apple is not going to evaporate overnight.

The stock market is crazy.

Despite record revenue and iOS sales disclosed in today’s earnings report, Apple’s stock has sunk a staggering 10 percent in after-hours trading.

Apple’s once mighty stock has fallen quickly in recent weeks, dropping below $500. Its current price is a far cry from Apple’s 52-week high of $705.07.

As noted by my colleague John Koetsier, Wall Street’s consensus numbers were $54.58 billion (Apple beat that), 50 million iPhones (Apple sold 47.8 million), 23 million iPads (Apple almost made it, selling 22.9 million), 12 million iPods (under Wall Street estimates), and 5 million Macs (well under Street estimates).

By not meeting those sky-high expectations, investors clearly showed their disappointment. As of this writing, Apple’s stock price is down nearly $51, a drop of about 9.9 percent.

Check out Apple’s stock performance from the last year in the chart below:

AAPL data by YCharts

Rotten apple photo via Lara604/Flickr

For a company that is supposedly struggling, and whose stock price has shed almost $200 billion from its $700/share high in September, Apple did pretty well in the first quarter of 2013. With the new iPhone 5, the iPad Mini, and the iPad 4 leading the way, Apple had  record quarterly revenue of $54.5 billion and record quarterly profit of $13.1 billion.

The only problem? Wall Street’s consensus numbers were $54.58 billion (Apple just beat that), 50 million iPhones (Apple actually sold 47.8 million), 23 million iPads (Apple just about made it, selling 22.9 million), 12 million iPods (under Street estimates), and 5 million Macs (well under Street estimates).

Still, the numbers compare very nicely to the same quarter a year ago, where Apple recorded $46.33 billion in revenue and a $13.06 billion profit on 37 million iPhones and 15.4 million iPads. Even more impressive: That quarter was 14 weeks long, while this year’s Q1 was only 13 weeks long. So normalized, Apple would have done even better.

“We’re thrilled with record revenue of over $54 billion and sales of over 75 million iOS devices in a single quarter,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook. “We’re very confident in our product pipeline as we continue to focus on innovation and making the best products in the world.”

All those iDevice sales have filled Apple’s full pockets even fuller. The company already had a hundred-billion-dollar cash stash, and this quarter, with $23 billion in total cash flow and average weekly revenue of $4.2 billion, will add to that amount.

The problem is that record revenue and more cash in the back doesn’t seem to be enough. In after-hours trading, Apple stock is down from it’s daily high of $514.17 to $488.11, as investors’ fears about slowing growth and growing vulnerability to cheaper phones and tablets running Android appear to be confirmed.

Source: Google Finance

Apple stock down in after-hours trading

photo credit: Thomas Hawk via photopin cc

Apple sold a record 22.9 million iPads in the first fiscal quarter of 2013, an increase of 67 percent over the same period a year ago, the company said today.

Wall Street analysts had been expected iPad sales of 22 million to 23 million units, so it at least met expectations on that front, unlike its iPhone numbers.

Going back a few quarters, Apple sold 14 million iPads in Q4 2012 and sold 17 million iPads in Q3 2012.

While these iPad sales are good, two Android tablets in particular could have impacted them — the $200 Google Nexus 7 and $200 Amazon Kindle Fire. Both are good machines that do most of what you can with an iPad, and they cost less than the iPad Mini’s base price of $330. Surprisingly enough, the Nexus 7 has overtaken iPad’s market share in Japan, according to a recent Nikkei survey.

There have also been recent reports that the success of the iPad Mini has hurt the demand for the full-size iPad. But since Apple does not break down its sales of iPad Mini versus the full-size iPad, we don’t know exactly how many of which were sold this past quarter.

iPad Mini photo via John Koetsier/VentureBeat

Apple, which usually issues very conservative guidance, had said it would do about $52 billion this quarter. And analyst expectations had been around $55 billion in revenue and $13.41 a share, with 50 million iPhones, 23 million iPads, 12 million iPods, and 5 million Macs.

Here’s what Apple actually did:

Financials

• Revenue: $54.5 billion
• Profit: $13.1 billion
• Earnings per share: $13.81
• Profit margin: 38.6 percent

Devices

• iPhone: 47.8 million
• iPad: 22.9 million
• Macs: 4.1 million
• iPods: 12.7 million

These numbers compare to last quarter’s 27 million iPhones and 14 million iPads, with revenue of $36 billion and profit of $8.2 billion, and Q1 2012′s 37 million iPhones and 15.43 million iPads with $46.33 billion in revenue, and $13.06 billion in profit.

photo credit: WanderingtheWorld (www.LostManProject.com) via photopin cc

The big question, however, is this: Even if Apple has a stellar quarter, will it be enough to pull it out of its stock market doldrums?

Over the past year, Apple has seen its stock lose almost $200 billion in value, from a high of $700 to below $500, before a recent rise just north of the $500 mark. This is in spite of topping 53 percent smartphone market share in the U.S., selling 7.2 million iPhones last quarter through AT&T, over 6 million iPhones with Verizon, and being the phone of choice for 50 percent of smartphone buyers.

Oh, and by the way, on the path to meeting investors’ expectations in the last quarter of 2012, Apple sold 27 million iPhones and 14 million iPads, resulting in revenue of $36 billion and  profit of $8.2 billion — an increase of $1.6 billion from the year-ago quarter.

Not too shabby?

Apparently, shabby enough to shave tens of billions of stock market valuation. The big worry is Google’s Android: Will Apple reprise the past and fade into the sunset again, as it did (temporarily) with the PC market?

The worry is that Android will grab the lion’s share of Apple’s fast-growing and most-profitable mobile market, as it did in the third quarter of 2012, and that Apple will not make the kind of hard decisions it needs to make to retain mobile leadership.

Analysts are predicting anywhere from the low $50 billions to the mid-$60 billions, with 50 million to 55 million iPhones and 22 million to 26 million iPads. Macs and iPods are much less relevant to Apple’s bottom line. Wall Street’s consensus is $54.58 billion, 50 million iPhones, 23 million iPads, 12 million iPods, and 5 million Macs.

My guess is that to make the stock price pop, Apple will have to exceed those numbers by a considerable margin.

Apple’s first quarter is always its biggest quarter, since it starts before the Christmas shopping season, and this quarter promises to be no different. The past three months saw the full commercial availability of iPhone 5 — critical because the iPhone product family accounted for more than half of Apple’s 2012 revenue — and the updated iPad 4 and iPad mini.

Apple’s guidance for quarterly earnings is at $52 billion in revenue, with earnings per share of $11.75. According to the Motley Fool, Wall Street is estimating $54.5 billion, with $13.30 in earnings per share.

That would compare with $46.33 billion in Apple’s Q1 2012 numbers, which included $13.06 billion in net income.

Source: Estimize

Estimize, Wall Street, and Apple’s guidance numbers for Q1 2013

According to the consensus on the social stock-predicting platform Estimize, which is often a little high, Apple’s numbers will be $14.66 per share, with revenue predictions from the high $40 billions to outrageously high estimates in the mid $70 billion range.

The big question is: How many iPhones and iPads will Apple sell?

If it’s a massive blowout quarter, those numbers might include something like 55 million iPhones (an appropriate number, perhaps, given the current model) and 20 million iPads. Both would be up significantly from last quarter’s 27 million iPhones and 14 million iPads, and up from Q1 2012′s 37 million iPhones and 15.43 million iPads.

Whether that happens, however, is a big question, especially given that iPad was not necessarily the sales winner this holiday season.

photo credit: Lori Greig via photopin cc