Apple: record revenues while Steve Jobs is ill

Apple announces record revenues for the first fiscal quarter and it does so right after the news of the departure of Steve Jobs from the public scene. The very personification of the Apple brand, its public face, has in fact stated that his health conditions require a break.
Beyond the consideration of the human aspect of the affair – let’s remember that Jobs has been fighting pancreatic cancer for a long time – it is impossible to separate the man’s fate from that of the company, so much so that – upon the news – Apple’s stock saw a significant drop in the market.
To uplift the shareholders’ fortunes comes the communication regarding the revenues of Apple for the first fiscal quarter, the time span that – to be clear – also includes the Christmas period.
It is possible to note a sharp +71% in revenues, materializing in 26.74 billion dollars and 6 billion in profits. A result already extraordinary in itself, even more so when compared to the data from the same period last year: quarterly net profit of 3.38 billion dollars and revenue of 15.68 billion dollars.
It was Steve Jobs himself who commented on these record numbers: “We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record sales for Macs, iPhones, and iPads.” Jobs also took the opportunity to talk about the future, confirming the upcoming release of the iPhone 4 with Verizon, a product that will undoubtedly further boost Apple’s device, especially in the U.S. market. In the near future of Apple a new horizon of further innovations is also emerging, on projects not yet revealed but described as “very strategic.”
Unfortunately, these extraordinary results coincide with the realization that Jobs is ill and this is preventing Apple’s stock from rising as would normally be expected in the presence of such figures.
The fear of those investing in Apple is palpable: without Jobs, is it the end of Apple, stock plummeting? The syllogism seems to be creeping into the market indices; however, the trend of the stock following the announcement of these record revenues must still be monitored.