Two of the world’s biggest companies, Apple and Wal-Mart Stores, are two companies “you can never mention,” CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Friday. Despite reporting hit-and-miss earnings, he decoded how key suppliers fail to mention their biggest customers in their releases.
” ‘A large customer,’ in retail, that’s code if you’re a supplier, for Wal-Mart,” Cramer said Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “And it’s code, if you’re a [technology] supplier, for Apple.”
Shares of packaged-foods company General Mills ticked slightly down Friday morning, after meeting earnings expectations and missing quarterly revenue expectations earlier in the week. The maker of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereals, Yoplait Greek yogurt and Annie’s soup reported declining sales, in part, due to lower merchandising in display at “one large customer,” according to Chairman and CEO Kendall Powell in an earnings call.
“Wal-Mart put the screws to them,” Cramer said. “That’s one of the reasons they did poorly.”
And shares of Apple were down more than 1 percent Friday after several prominent technology analysts cut iPhone forecasts this week. In part, the dip was credited to light forecasts from suppliers Jabil Circuit and Dialog Semiconductor.
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With Apple Pay set to launch in China by early 2016, Cramer had some advice for the CEO on what Apple could do better.
“I think the sales are good in China,” Cramer said. “I think the main problem with it is the Watch isn’t selling well. … I think the Watch is emblematic of, ‘Are they able to diversify away from the phone?’ ”
Just because analysts cut numbers doesn’t mean investors should think Apple is down for the count, Cramer said. Apple has an opportunity, for instance, to dominate in the connected car market, he said.
“Tim Cook, listen to me: When I have my iPhone, I don’t want to put it next to me with Waze or Google,” Cramer said. “I just want to put it in my little cupholder and everything is controlled by my Apple.”
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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