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Apple shines, Yahoo slumps

• Rory Cellan-Jones
• 22 Oct 08, 09:23 GMT

Two of the best known names in technology reported their latest results last night, with Wall Street anxiously scanning the figures for clues as to the impact of an economic downturn. And what a contrast. One firm used this kind of language in its statement:"disappointed", "challenging", "softening advertising demand". The other spoke of "spectacular performance", "the strongest product line in our history", "zero debt" and "one of the best quarters". The , , and the funny thing is that both companies delivered better than expected results and may see their shares rise in the short term.

What's most frightening about Yahoo's statement is not the 53% drop in profits compared to last year (it made $70 million in the quarter compared to Apple's $1.14 billion profit) but its gloom about advertising. It seems only days ago that every web company I met was assuring me that they were not seeing any downturn - and even if advertising budgets did come under pressure they would be fine because canny customers would just shift even more of their spending online. Now what do we hear from Yahoo? "Online advertising softened in the third quarter."

So either those other companies were being economical with the truth - or Yahoo is underperforming the rest of the industry. I suspect, though, that a host of Web 2.0 companies with a business model entirely dependent on advertising are facing a battle for survival. For Yahoo staff, the outlook is particularly grim - the company is planning to lay off 10% of its workforce. Mind you, it promised similar surgery earlier this year, only to recruit more people than it had laid off. But the analysts seemed cheered by the promise of cost-cutting and relieved that the results weren't even worse - a measure of how low expectations of this former star performer have fallen.

Apple, by contrast, was resolutely cheerful about its current state - while cautious about predicting how many iPods, iMacs and iPhones consumers will want as the economic gloom deepens. The iPhone results, in particular, look stunning. 6.9 million 3g phones went in their first three months on sale - that compares to the 6.1 million first generation iPhones sold over the 15 months it was in the shops. Steve Jobs boasted that his phone had even outsold Blackberry, and it looks as though Apple's entry into the smartphone market can now be judged a major success, though it will be interesting to see how it fares as rivals like the G1 jostle the iPhone in the Christmas market.

Perhaps even more significant is the 2.6 million Mac computers shipped in the quarter - more evidence that the halo effect from the iPhone and the iPod is persuading consumers to switch from PC to Mac. And with over $25 billion in the bank and no debt, Apple looks well placed to weather a recession - and perhaps snap up a few juicy businesses at bargain basement prices.

With two such contrasting corporate stories, you would think that their share prices would have gone in different directions over recent months. But Yahoo' share price has dropped from $26 to $12 in the last six months, while Apple's has fallen from $180 to $91 - so the market has decided that each of them is worth about half as much now as they were in May.

Later today, analysts are predicting that shares in both will rise - a relief rally for Yahoo, and a reward rally for Apple's spectacular figures. In the longer run (which in stock market terms means a few weeks) they will probably both fall back again, with Yahoo falling much further than Apple. So what's the moral? Markets may eventually get it right - but in the short term, terrified investors just have no idea what a technology firm is worth.