Tim Cook talks earnings, Android, and more at Town Hall meeting

tim cook

As expected, Tim Cook addressed the troops on Friday at a Town Hall meeting held on Apple’s Cupertino campus. The CEO was reportedly fired up during the assembly, as he congratulated his employees on their record-breaking quarter.

Cook also talked about a number of topics at the meeting, including the company’s recent stock slide, its growing competition with Android, the  current status of its retail operations and more…

The scoop comes from 9to5Mac, who clearly has multiple well-placed sources inside the company, as it provides specific details from Cook’s entire speech. We’ve highlighted some noteworthy stuff below, but the whole thing is worth reading.

The CEO’s first major topic of discussion was the company’s earnings report, and the subsequent plunge in Apple’s stock price. Despite it having its best quarter ever, it failed to meet Wall Street’s expectations, causing its stock to plummet.

“Cook also reportedly made it clear that share price is not Apple’s focus. Making new products that customers love is the priority. Revenue and share price is just a by-product of Apple’s efforts. Cook said that he believes that Apple employees agree with that sentiment. He also said that Apple is commonly misunderstood and that the company will always have critics, no matter how successful it is by Apple’s standards.”

But despite having a record quarter, Apple did show a decline in year-over-year growth. And a lot of folks attribute that to growing competition. Cook took the time during the meeting to talk about Apple’s largest competitor: Google’s Android OS.

“Cook discussed iOS’s integrated, reliable experience versus Android’s fragmentation with a plethora of devices. Cook mentioned Apple’s large iOS web traffic in comparison to Android’s smaller web marketshare. He noted that while Android may be running on more devices, it is clear that people love and use their iOS devices more than the people who use Android-based products.”

He closed out the meeting by, again, pumping up his employees and reiterating that Apple is the world’s leading technology company. I believe that this final excerpt here speaks volumes about how far he’s come as a CEO—particularly the last line.

“Cook’s meeting with employees seemed to have reaffirmed Apple’s strength as the leading technology company to its employees. The common theme recognized by Apple employees is the immense strength, experience, and foresight of Apple’s management team. More than ever, employees are witnessing how much their CEO and management cares about them and both the near-term and long-term success of Apple on a global scale.”

After multiple trial runs as acting-CEO during Steve Jobs’ medical leaves, Tim Cook took over as the full time chief in August of 2011. He has since overseen several product launches, and led the company to a number of record-breaking quarters.

It’ll be interesting to see what he does this year, as the whole world is watching—probably more so now than ever before.