Tim Cook & Jesse Jackson Speak at Apple Annual Shareholder Meeting

Rev. Jesse Jackson outside the
Apple (AAPL) Headquarters

The annual shareholder meeting for Apple (AAPL) was held at the Apple Headquarters in Cupertino, California at 9:00 am PT. The meeting was well attended with the main room filled to capacity and the overflow room almost filled.

First, the resolutions were voted upon. The resolutions along with the results were:

1. Election of Directors: All voted in
2. Appointment of Ernst & Young as registered public accountant: Passed
3. Executive compensation: Passed
4. Employee Stock Plan: Passed
5. Net-Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Failed
6. Diversity: Failed
7. Human Rights Review: Failed
8. Shareholder Proxy Access: Failed

Then they moved on to Tim Cook giving a review of operations during the last year. Highlights are:

• 19 acquisitions
• 116,000 employees worldwide
• $50 billion in capital returned to shareholders
• Dividend increases
• Moving forward with diversity
• Education - teaching coding to students in stores
• Looking at equality and equal pay
• All operations in the US now operating on renewable energy, 77% worldwide with 100% goal
• Raising the standards of suppliers

Finally the question and answer period.

The first was a representative from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who didn't ask a question, but she spoke in support of Tim Cook and Apple Inc. with regards to the privacy issue of the iPhones and the conflict with the FBI.

Rev. Jesse jackson being
interviewed by
FOX, CNBC, and CBS

Second, Reverend Jesse Jackson spoke. First, he talked about how he supported Tim Cook's and Apple's stance against the FBI. He mentioned the historical abuses of privacy by the government. He also complimented Tim Cook on the diversity progress. Finally, he was concerned about the diversity shareholder proposal not passing.

"It will not stop at one phone." ~ Jesse Jackson

Another question was about the concerns of revenues continuing from China considering the country's shaky economic situation. Cook said that Apple got $60 billion in revenues from China last year. He said that the Chinese middle class should increase ten-fold in five years over what it was five years ago, growing from 50 million to 500 million. Four of the five top cell phones in China were iPhones.

Another question was about the growth of sales in India, which was only $1.5 billion in revenues last year. This is because there is no LTE now, but once the infrastructure limit is dealt with, then revenue growth should take place. Cook also mentioned that half the people in India are under the age of 25, and that India is where China was ten years ago.

The new Apple headquarters campus is on target; but may not be ready for next year's annual meeting.

Cook also refused to talk about an Apple electric car.

The following is a brief podcast of Jesse Jackson speaking about Apple's fight with the FBI. Please note that recordings and pictures were not allowed in the shareholder meeting. This recording took place outside with a lot of ambient noise, so unfortunately, the first part of the recording is very hard to hear. It gets better later on in the recording.

Jesse Jackson speaking

Disclosure: Author owns AAPL.

By Stockerblog.com