Here are your Apple rumors and news items for Wednesday:
Android Users Downloading More Apps Than iPhone Users: Even if it isn’t raking in the same money as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) in the smartphone business, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) has got to be happy about all the giant pie charts and graphs it dominates in research firm reports. As Nielsen reported in September, Google’s Android powers 43% of the smartphones in consumers’ hands. It follows, then, that Android apps are becoming a dominant market as well. A report posted on Tuesday by Venture Beat cited a new study from research group ABI Research that says 44% of all mobile apps downloaded by smartphone users were Android apps. This is compared to the 31% share of iOS apps downloaded to iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches. Still, Apple seems to be leading on a per-user basis: ABI’s study also found that, individually, iOS users download more apps than Android users.
Newsstand Leads to Promising E-Magazine Growth: Apple’s Newsstand app and storefront — a proverbial iTunes for digital magazines and newspapers — opened for business on Oct. 12, and publishers already are reporting a massive uptick in digital sales. According to a Wednesday report at Apple Insider, Condé Nast is reporting a 268% increase in digital subscription sales and a 142% increase in individual digital issue sales. The publisher currently has around 225,000 digital-only subscribers across all of its publications. Whether the uptick in sales is because of growing interest in digital publications or simply a rush brought on by interest in the new storefront and app remains unclear, so it’s not certain digital publishing has legs. The New Yorker made headlines this summer for gaining an iPad readership of 100,000, though that is mere fraction of its total circulation, which tops 1 million. Condé Nast might be seeing a huge percentage of new readers on digital platforms, but that doesn’t mean the iPad will save its magazine business.
Kindle Fire Impacting Amazon Earnings: We warned investors earlier this year to keep in mind how Amazon‘s (NASDAQ:AMZN) big spending on new projects this year would impact the company’s earnings. Considering that its shares are down nearly 12% as of this writing, after the company reported its third-quarter earnings, it would seem investors hadn’t completely absorbed the warning. As reported late on Tuesday, Amazon missed expectations by a huge margin, with EPS of just 14 cents, down 73% year over year and 10 cents below Wall Street predictions. A Wednesday report posted on Seeking Alpha (via Apple Insider) noted that the company’s new iPad competitor, the Kindle Fire, and investment in Amazon’s total Kindle business are in part responsible for the company’s low margins. Will Amazon’s big spending yield big results? The Kindle business at least is looking good. A report posted by Yahoo said that pre-orders for the new tablet have been strong enough that Kindle Fire production is up to between 4.5 million and 5 million tablets for this holiday season.
As of this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the aforementioned stocks. Follow him on Twitter at @ajohnagnello and become a fan of InvestorPlace on Facebook.
