Out Fox The $treet

The confluence of the startup of the China Mobile ( CHL ) relationship, Carl Icahn pushing for corporate moves, and the December quarterly earnings report places Apple ( AAPL ) stock on a high alert for Monday. Investors appear reluctant to give the stock a market multiple on fears that it is losing its technological lead though it appears to have several catalysts to propel it forward in the next few years. In fact, it's very possible that the Icahn proposal would solve the major issue of large numbers that might be holding the stock back as much as anything. China Mobile The pre-order sales for China Mobile weren't nearly as many as expected, but the recent speculation that Apple is preparing larger display phones combined with news from the Apple CEO that it maintains a 57% mobile browser market share sets it up for a large ramp in China by fiscal year 2015. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long AAPL. Please review the disclaimer page...

The official launch of the Apple ( AAPL ) iPhone products with China Mobile ( CHL ) provided some interesting and surprising stats. China Mobile has long been coveted as a supplier for Apple considering it has the largest mobile user base in the world at around 750 million customers. Considering the lack of market share in China, it was shocking to hear Apple CEO Tim Cook discussing a 57% share of mobile browsing traffic in that country. It is almost mind boggling that Apple could generate a market leadership in actual Internet usage considering the lack of direct phone sales in China due to not having China Mobile as a customer. Business Insider provided a recent chart showing that the global mobile web browser market share was roughly that same 57%, even though Android has an 80% market share of smartphones sold. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long AAPL. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

The standard response by the media and traders is that a low cost iPhone and signing up of China Mobile ( CHL ) as a customer will send Apple ( AAPL ) margins cratering. Even the Options Action crew on CNBC Friday night immediately returned to the same old theory that a lower cost phone automatically means lower margins. Even if the phones create lower margins, it isn't necessarily bad if it helps garner market share for the iOS and traffic for the app store and iTunes. Investors without kids or ones that missed what happened in the PC race in the early days probably don't realize or remember that the lack of a low cost option kept many consumers out of the crucial Apple ecosystem. Another concern should be these consumers going to the Android operating system due to the lower cost that may never return to the iOS once snarled in that platform. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long AAPL. Please review the disclaimer page for more details...

Just last year Apple ( AAPL ) appeared set to win the race amongst a group of select tech stock to reach $1,000. Though the company had become the largest valued stock in the world, it still was competing with Google ( GOOG ) and Priceline ( PCLN ) to be the first to reach the magical $1,000 mark. Clearly reaching such a figure is partially the function of not splitting the stock, but it also is indicative of truly fast growth. With Apple plunging to below $400 in early 2013, most investors probably don't even consider it has having a chance to even reach $1,000 period much less beat Google to that number with it trading at $890. Typically those are the stocks discussed in that race to $1,000, but it actually appears that Priceline will easily win the contest with it now trading near $960. Time will tell so let's review the possibilities as the probability of reaching that magical figure is higher than most think these days. Read the full article at Seeki...

The below infographis from JUICE Mobile probably tells the market all it needs to know about the wireless market and especially the demise of Research in Motion (RIMM) . Being one of if not the most important Canadian technology companies, Research in Motion always had a dominant hold of that market. Now JUICE is showing a dramatic increase in Android OS phones. Also, the iPhone is the number 1 phone by far. The dominance is all but gone in their home territory. Yikes! That last part clearly highlights the issues facing Research in Motion. While it has a majority of the phones in the Top 10 devices, the demand is spread out amongst several different options making support very costly for RIMM. While Apple (AAPL) on the other hand has one phone with 24% of the market share. Now it appears that Samsung is having major success with the Galaxy brand. Not to mention that tablets now make up 7% of the market. All of the competitors are chipping away market share faster than RIMM can...

Samsung Electronics reported a large increase in profits that easily beat analyst estimates. The largest Asian consumer-electronics maker beat estimates by selling more phones than even Apple (AAPL) . Not that this is new to most investors, but Samsung has become a very formidable competitor in the smartphone market. Also, assuming Apple enters the TV market as expected both companies will go head to head in that market as well. The real question remains whether people are buying Samsung phones over an iPhone or as the best option available or for the price. Either way, it definitely shows where consumers are buying phones instead of Nokia (NOK) and Research in Motion (RIMM) . Without doing much research, I'm assuming most of the gains come from Asian markets and not North America. With most of my friends owning iPhones, its difficult to assess the Galaxy as a true threat to the iPhone. Bloomberg West did a nice piece the other night about the margins on the two phones. T...