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Apple Reports First Quarter Results: $13.06 Billion Net Profit
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- georgieporgie 15y agoIf only they put their record-breaking profits into building factories and inspiring local workers, rather than relying on near-slave labor in a faraway land.
- curiousfiddler 15y agoNot to forget that they don't just sell their products in the US. And not to forget that their sales in APAC region is bound to grow significantly in the future. Not justifying the bad work conditions you're pointing to, but it seems fair to generate employment in places where they're getting their profits from.
- georgieporgie 15y agoMy point is that, last I heard, Apple is sitting on $70 billion. Meanwhile, Steve Jobs was telling Obama that the US could never produce the iPhone. Why? Because he seemed to think that near-slave conditions (e.g. rousting 8,000 workers from corporate housing for immediate 12-hour shifts) were necessary simply to create the products he sold. Also, keep in mind that nobody working at Foxconn can afford to purchase the iPads they build. It appears that this will remain the case, no matter how long they work there.
- ceejayoz 15y ago> Also, keep in mind that nobody working at Foxconn can afford to purchase the iPads they build. It appears that this will remain the case, no matter how long they work there. The same is true for the average American worker at a BMW factory.
- georgieporgie 15y agoI don't think you should try to draw conclusions by comparing commodity personal electronics to luxury automobiles.
- bobbles 15y agoThen what is that example trying to prove? There is no way I could afford to pay for the software my company produces.. Should everyone work in a place where they can afford what they build?
- georgieporgie 15y agoWhy do you think that US auto workers, making a living wage producing luxury automobiles, have anything to do with near-slave labor? If Apple has stowed away $70 billion, don't you think they could afford to pay higher wages, benefits for those mangled by RSI (back to back 12 shifts, not counting unpaid overtime) or machinery, and generally not treat people like dirt? I think they can afford to.
- yequalsx 15y agoThe truly astounding statistic to me is that Apple sold 26% more Macs than the same quarter a year ago. This while PC sales for other manufacturers declines or remained stagnant. We expect to see increases in the tablet and smartphone markets since those markets overall are increasing. But to increase 26% in a stagnant sector is remarkable.
- amartya916 15y agoCompletely agree. Do they release region wise sales? It'd be really interesting to see 'where' this 26% came from. I expect Asia (mainly China) to be the driver in this.
- Steko 15y agoFrom the call: Mac sales outgrew the market in all geographies, especially asia-pacific (58% year over year).
- tsewlliw 15y agoI have seen a huge surge in sales of Apple kit to our customer's development teams via Mac specific support requests.
- nazar 15y agoI expect its due to the iPhone&iPad hype. Here in my country, I didn't know that company such as Apple or something as MacPc and MacOS existed untill age 17. And I was one of the most technology eager students at school and generally considered as "geek". Now the trend you can see (At least in my country), people buying iPhone, then iPad, and then a Macbook as a "accessory". I am not exaggerating, there were several people who approached me saying, "Hey, you know the other blog about iPhone I started to follow after I bought one, I read from there something, apparently there is a different version of 'Windows' of Apple, and the computer itself looks kinda cool, do you think I should buy it?". And then the same person learns about iMac and every iProduct in market. I know lots of such people here owning every piece of iProducts just because they liked the iPhone.
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- ChuckMcM 15y ago'We are very happy to have generated over $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO Ok, I'm impressed. That is a literally almost 200 tons of cash when printed in 100 dollar bills [1]. I sure hope they go back to paying dividends. [1] If you can believe this source ... http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=441929 http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=441929
- robryan 15y agoThat depends, if they can use their piles of cash to improve further their supply chain, innovate even more and push out competitors maybe it is still better spent on that. Also with that kind of cash they could start being very agressive with acquisitions.
- ChuckMcM 15y agoWell at some point Google and Apple will both have so much cash on hand that either can consume the other in an 'all cash deal'. it will be an interesting benchmark to watch, the sum of their cash at the end of this quarter is $100B and climbing. GOOG's market cap is only 188B, so more than half way there :-)
- nirvana 15y agoDividends are taxed like ordinary income (IIRC), so paying dividends would be sending money out to shareholders, it gets reduced by taxes, and then the shareholders have to figure out what to do with it that would return as much as Apple would. The best return would thus be likely re-investing it in Apple shares. Its then a smaller amount, due to taxes and thus there's no really positive effect of it. I think the mainstream thinking about dividends isn't quite right-- the value of each Apple share goes up a dollar for every dollar they retain, and more than a dollar for every dollar that Apple can re-invest in its business at a profit. This is why, for instance, Warren Buffett doesn't pay dividends in Berkshire Hathaway. Apple is a very fast growing technology stock. It's really not the kind of company that should pay dividends because it has lots of opportunities to invest that money profitably. Its quite possible that Apple is contemplating a $50-$70B acquisition that is very strategic.
- solutionyogi 15y agoThis is mighty impressive. To put things in perspective: Apple's profits ($13 billion) exceeded Google's entire revenue ($10.6 billion). Source: https://twitter.com/#!/fmanjoo/status/161932440737296386 https://twitter.com/#!/fmanjoo/status/161932440737296386 (via gruber)
- nextparadigms 15y agoAs a rule of thumb, I think it's a lot easier to make more revenue as hardware company selling products worth hundreds of dollars at a time. Samsung made $37 billion in revenue in Q3 last year, for example, and HP makes about the same, too. The only problem with these companies is that they don't really know how to maximize their profits. They usually compete on price and release many models with increases costs due to complexity, so profits end up being a smaller % of the revenue.
- solutionyogi 15y agoYou are right in general, but here we are not comparing AAPL's revenue vs GOOG's revenue. AAPL's profit is more than GOOG's revenue. Now that's definitely remarkable.
- mkr-hn 15y agoThat's not a surprise. They're in completely different businesses. Google is a display advertising company that occasionally puts out a better display (Chrome, Android). Apple is in the business of finding and extracting value from hardware markets no one else took seriously.
- molmalo 15y agoThat's exactly why I don't understand all this fighting. They are each other's perfect complement! Apple has plenty of experience building hardware and OS's. Their core business is to SELL physical or virtual goods (devices, songs, whatever). They don't care that much about the services. For them, services are just a mean to sell something. Something to add value to something they want to sell. e.g.: Introducing iCloud! Use it on your Mac and your iSomething. Google on the other side, is in the business of SHOWING things. They don't care about selling you something. It's more of a problem for them to sell, than it is to just give it to you for 'free'. They are a service company. Mainly, an advertising company. That's why they don't try to sell their phones to everyone (e.g.: nexus one). They just want you to see what they have to show. So, while you are seeing it, they can show you a few ads. They bought Android, so they could accelerate and expand their market of eyes seeing their ads. But they should ally with Apple. Apple wants to sell, Google wants to show you things. Do you want a video for free? Go to YouTube. Do you want to buy music ? Go to Apple Store. There's no sense in keep fighting each other. And of course, there comes Microsoft, with its own search engine, their own store, their own mobile OS... trying to fight both of them. And they are trying hard to resurrect.
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- shingen 15y agoI wonder how long it's going to be until the monster in DC wants a bigger slice of Apple. Big oil gets targeted constantly for windfall tax proposals. As Apple marches toward $50+ billion in profit, it seems impossible the government will just leave the world's richest and most powerful corporation alone.
- Tyrannosaurs 15y agoYou're missing why oil companies are good targets for that sort of thing - people have little choice but to buy their products, prices to consumers are rising so the companies are unpopular and they are directly or indirectly responsible for shed loads of environmental damage. That's not the case with Apple, Google, MS or other tech companies.
- shingen 15y agoTo the beast in DC, it has absolutely nothing to do with the arguments you posit. You're talking about logic; it doesn't apply to their decision making. It's about the money. That's why big oil has always been a target, it has been the most profitable enterprise in America since Rockefeller formed Standard Oil. News flash: they also didn't target big tobacco because cigarettes are bad for you (that was merely the excuse they needed), or to pay for healthcare bills. They targeted them to steal / fleece a golden goose, and then divert the stolen money to other projects. Which is exactly what they did.
- joering1 15y agoI agree with you. Its just getting to be too tempting. Plus government would be the last one to worry if they destroy something. They could look very deep into the "made in china" "issue". Lookup "Kluska" - owner of company Optimus in Poland. One of the richest man in 90s. Basically, CBS imprisoned him for months after he allegedly broke the law by exporting parts to foreign countries where PCs were assembled and brought back to Poland. The issue was that he did not pay tax out of the assembly. After years of litigation (bail denied), he was free man, while his company went bankrupt and he was left in debt after fighting with Government. Polish IRS (Urzad Skarbowy) did not even apologize.
- Steko 15y agoHere's the roundup of estimates, even the rosiest forecast is below the actual quarter: http://fortunebrainstormtech.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/screen-shot-2012-01-23-at-9-34-39-am.png http://fortunebrainstormtech.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/scr... Just revealed on the call: they sold 1.4 million Apple TVs this quarter (vs 2.8 million in the 4 previous quarters).
- bgentry 15y agoGross margin for the quarter: 44.7% Holy shit.
- vaksel 15y agoyeah, at those rates they could afford to stop using slave labor or at the very least invest a bit to make life easier for Foxconn employees or maybe startup the charity programs again
- kmfrk 15y agoCook reinstated the charity price-matching policy, soon after he took over Apple. (Not that I'm saying that it redeems Apple, but they are moving in a more charitable direction.)
- dimitar 15y agoFoxconn is dominant in its industry. Moving to a another location may eat up way too much from the pie. I'm not saying they shouldn't do the very least. A bit of CSR might be even good for business.
- jonknee 15y agoNo need to move away from Foxconn, Apple could easily dictate exactly what Foxconn needs to do.
- mkr-hn 15y agoFoxconn makes stuff for a lot more companies than just Apple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Major_customers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Major_customers They could ask, and even encourage, but not dictate. And Foxconn is not likely to do something that puts them at a competitive disadvantage.
- jonknee 15y agoThey can certainly dictate. Apple has the money and volume to get anything they would like. If Apple told Foxconn that everyone making Apple products will be paid triple what they are making now and work no more than 8 hours a day, it could happen tomorrow.
- olalonde 15y agoAny chance it might have something to do with Steve Job's death? Edit: Why is this being down voted? There are typically record sales following the death of cultural icons (Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, John Lennon, etc.). Steve Jobs is arguably one of those icons.
- r00fus 15y agoDoubtful. More likely pent-up demand for the next-gen iPhone. Apple had in previous years been like clockwork - every summer, new iPhone. Then 2011, and no successor in July... so many people waited (I did). Also this is the first iPhone launch without AT&T exclusivity (both VZ and Sprint are alternatives to the big bad T)
- X-Istence 15y agoJust wanted to chime in with an "me too". I had an iPhone 3G for three years before I ended up switching to AT&T from T-Mobile and bought an iPhone 4S and too date it is still my most favourite purchase.
- gareim 15y agoYour examples are of cultural icons whose lifeworks were in music. It's possible that many who had not known of those music artists bought their albums after their deaths because they wanted to understand why people were grieving and perhaps people who were already fans bought more memorabilia since they miss the artist that they held so dearly. But with Steve Jobs, it's unlikely that people think to themselves "Damn, who was this Jobs guy? Maybe I'll buy an iPhone/iMac to find out" since iPhones and Macs are not going to give them a connection to who Jobs was as a person. And compared to Lennon, Presley, and Jackson, Steve Jobs is less of an icon for the general public. Most people know Jobs as that Apple guy, but fewer actually know who he is and what he did. I have a teacher that thinks Jobs worked with Paul Allen and founded Apple when she really means to say Steve Wozniak.
- jonhendry 15y agoThat probably applies to the book about him. I think electronics are expensive enough that relatively few people would buy for that reason.
- johngalt 15y agoNot a fan of apple products, but those are awesome results. Nice work apple.
- gcb 15y agowon by unethical manufacturing labor and lockin-in customers. not impressed.
- bishnu 15y agoAnd who do you think is building your Android handset, exactly?
- gcb 15y agoAt least i can charge it with regular usb connectors. use regular microSD cards. remove the sim card with bare hands. etc. etc. ...now i only have one problem to deal with.
- jmreid 15y agoSo, like this? http://www.usbfever.com/index_eproduct_view.php?products_id=2390 http://www.usbfever.com/index_eproduct_view.php?products_id=... And since when is removing your sim card with "bare hands" a feature? Not to mention all it takes is a pin for the iPhone.
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- mcdowall 15y agoIn december I bought a Macbook Air, iPhone and passed down my iPad to my nephew. I don't begrudge any of their profit, well done to them I say.
- r00fus 15y agoAfter hours snapshot: AAPL is up 32 points (7.78%), at $453/share, now has more capitalization than XOM (ie, largest cap stock in the world).
- timae 15y agoThe $13.1B profit is the 4th best quarterly result in world history, the 2nd best in US history (Exxon Q308), and the best by far of any company outside of Oil & Gas. Not inflation adjusted of course. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_corporate_profits_and_losses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_corporate_profi...
- da-bacon 15y agoInteresting to see United Airlines on the largest profits and the largest losses. Is this an artifact of their bankruptcy?
- querulous 15y agoHow did AOL Time Warner book a loss of nearly a trillion dollars in a single year?
- alanfalcon 15y agoThose free shiny AOL coasters didn't print themselves.
- EtienneK 15y agoA trillion is a thousand billion, not a hundred billion.
- megablast 15y agoThe write down after AOL bought Time Warner, and AOL's stock went south.
- Steko 15y agoIf you're following the call (fantastic liveblog from Jacqui Cheng at Ars[1]) really great exchange when they try to shoehorn the mac-windows analogy into mobile OS's: Tim: I wouldn't classify it like Mac and Windows at all. The Mac has outgrown the market for over 20 quarters in a row, but still has a single-digit percentage of the worldwide market whereas iOS, if you look at phones and tablets and iPod touch, we've sold over 315 million iOS devices If you look at the NPD data, it shows in the US, and this is just looking at October & November, so part of our launch in October and all of it in November, it shows iPhone at 43% and Android at 47% the Nielsen data from a few days ago shows iPhone at 45% versus Android at 47% Comscore data that came out on October/November shows iPhone at 42% and Android at 41% it seems that all of the data from the US would seem it's a very close race for iPhone, and I think on the iPad side, I think all of us inherently believe the iPad is way ahead there's really no comparable product to the iPod touch out there I wouldn't say it's a two-horse race. There's a horse in Redmond that always suits up and always runs and will keep running So what we focus on is innovating and making the world's best products. We'll just keep doing that and somewhat ignore how many horses there are. [1] http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/01/apple-q1fy2012-liveblog.ars http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/01/apple-q1fy2012-liv...
- gjulianm 15y agoNice hat tip to Microsoft when he says "I wouldn't say it's a two-horse race. There's a horse in Redmond that always suits up and always runs and will keep running". I wouldn't expect these words coming from an Apple executive. It means that Cook thinks WP is a good product that can be a rival for iOS; or that he's trying to be politically correct without following Jobs' style. Whichever it is, I really like the new path they're following. Oh, and it also means that BlackBerry is completely out of the race, but we all knew that already, didn't we?
- nirvana 15y agoI think more its an acknowledgement of two things, the first being that Microsoft really is a company that always suits up. The second being that WP7 is an attempt at coming up with something new and innovative. I think from the Apple executives perspective that's a significant change.
- mkr-hn 15y agoIt's great that Apple is reviving a stagnant market, but this isn't going to last forever. It's an artifact of soaring market share and turning smartphones and tablets into more than an executive toy. It could go on for a long time, but all it takes is someone figuring out how to compete, and that's going to become more likely as their profile grows. Apple has earned its wealth, but it's too easy for them to forget what made it possible and slide into mediocrity.
- itg 15y agoOut of all the big players in tech, I think Apple understands very well about sliding into mediocrity. Apple has been around for a few decades now and they already experienced a huge decline before.
- DavidChouinard 15y agoAlso, Apple makes 409,000$ profit per employee. (last quarter) From the ever useful Wolfram Alpha: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=apple+profit%2Femployee%2C+microsoft+profit%2Femployee%2C+google+profit%2Femployee http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=apple+profit%2Femployee...
- mkr-hn 15y agoI want to see a study of what the changes over the last ten years correlate to: http://imgur.com/BDOSZ http://imgur.com/BDOSZ (couldn't find a permalink for individual sections)
- pnathan 15y agoThat is really impressive. The management of Apple is definitely to be commended for doing an epic job.
- jonknee 15y agoNo need for accolades, they pay themselves extraordinarily well. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-11/apple-ceo-s-stock-options-lift-2011-compensation-to-378-million.html http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-11/apple-ceo-s-stoc...
- huxley 15y agoThat wasn't pay, those were stock options that are worthless currently --if he leaves before 2016, he gets nothing-- but will pay off well if he sticks around. Half of the stocks vest in 2016, the remainder in 2021. http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/01/10/apple-ceo-tim-cook-didnt-really-make-378-million-in-2011/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/01/10/apple-ceo-tim-cook-di...
- r00fus 15y agoAnd $1.7M revenue per employee. Including all the retail employees. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=apple+revenue%2Femployee%2C+microsoft+revenue%2Femployee%2C+google+revenue%2Femployee http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=apple+revenue%2Femploye...
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- deyan 15y agoQuite impressive indeed. I was particularly interested in the insane iPad numbers, which surprised me. I thought I would use this opportunity to ask the HN community: what do you think people use their iPads for? Honest question - I have had one for a long time now and barely use it as it sits in this awkward middle between a "full" PC and a smartphone. With so many millions of iPads sold and Tim Cook saying "There Will Come A Day When The Tablet Market Is Larger Than The PC Market” I am trying to form an informed opinion but just fail to see what the use case is for the iPad (perhaps reading a book? casual web browsing? netflix/youtube?). So what do you think the future of tablets holds? Link to studies on the topic are much appreciated as well!
- ww520 15y agoI have the same question. What do people use iPad for? I myself am laggard when it comes to electronic gadget and I haven't got an iPad yet. I got a Kindle though since it's good for reading. Some of my pianist friends use iPad for reading music sheets while playing. But they don't use it much besides that.
- pbreit 15y agoI have an iPad and barely use it as well. BUT...that is because my wife and 1.5 year old are on it constantly. If you have kids, it is absolutely the most fantastical product you could ever own. Beginning at around 8 or 10 months, my son could use it pretty effectively. For xmas, we got a case to mount it on the back of my car's front seat. Just slide it in, turn on a movie and the kids are engaged for hours. I actually do use it a lot, mostly for surfing web, reading email, watching movies/tv, etc. I generally use it where a notebook would be awkward such as in bed, while watching tv, in the car, and, yes, on the john.
- taybenlor 15y agoI use mine for everything I use a computer for which isn't creative. So things like watching movies, reading books, reading the news, reading textbooks (who said learning had to stop in high-school/college?), reading articles, playing games, facebook, twitter, browsing dribbble, in general chilling out and screwing around. Once I need to write/design/code then I whip out my laptop.
- greenpizza13 15y agoHo-lee-crap.
- marcamillion 15y agoFor those keeping tracking, that means their growth rates are absolutely mind-blowing. Revenues, YoY, grew at about 75%. Profits, YoY, grew at about 117%. Keep in mind this is billions of dollars we are talking about. It's "relatively easy & common" for a "small" company to grow that fast on say revenues up to $400M or even $1B range. But on QUARTERLY numbers of $25B and still be growing that fast...that's...just...mind blowing. To show how mind-blowing this is, let's do some speculation - what will those numbers look like for the next 4 years (assuming that growth rates remain constant): Next Year (Y1) - Revenue = $81B, with Profits = $28.34 in Q1. Year after (Y2) - Revenue = $141.75B, Profits = $61.49B in Q1. Y3 - Revenue = $248B, Profits = $133B in Q1 Y4 - Revenue = $434B, Profits = $288B in Q1 Before you dismiss these numbers as fantastical, keep in mind a few things. a) The tablet market is still nascent and is likely to continue exploding. b) The smartphone market is nowhere near as big as the mobile market - even the mobile market still has room for growth. c) We haven't even seen other products that will likely come out of the pipeline that could create new categories (iTV anyone?) d) iCloud was just launched. It's like AWS - but for everybody. Give it some time, but I can guarantee you it will be a major, major source of revenue and profits for them (just like Amazon) in the next few years (more than likely towards the latter part of the next decade). The truth is, seeing these numbers makes me very skeptical myself, but I would have never imagined that I would see a company as old as Apple, doing $26B in revenues per quarter and still growing at 75%/year.
- notatoad 15y ago"It's like AWS - but for everybody." what? icloud has exactly zero things in common with AWS.
- marcamillion 15y ago>exactly zero things? So it's not a 'data storage service in a remote data center'? Sure, AWS is made for servers - but the core business is the same. Charge people (AWS charges developers) to store your data in our cloud. Apple charges consumers. Different demographic, exact service. Btw, iCloud is like AWS because AWS has many services (S3, EC2, etc.). Just like iCloud has 'store all your images and files', and 'match your music via iTunes'. Two services, via the same underlying core product. It's identical to AWS - except for the target market.
- mladenkovacevic 15y agoI wonder what's Apple's strategy when everybody who wants/needs an iPhone gets one (and I'm sure they have one in place). This is a very deep well right now and the record profits will likely continue to be posted for years to come, but the demand is bound to subside eventually right? Once everybody has a decent iPhone/smartphone is there really a need for anyone to upgrade more often then let's say every 2-4 years? Can Apple/Samsung sustain their growth when the only really new prospects are the next generation of teenagers entering the market?
- 6ren 15y agoThe same thing they did for when iPod sales declined (as they have): more new products in the pipeline (which they have). My opinion is that Apple's strengths only really work in new things, and not for mature products. So, they have to keep finding new waves to ride (which is where they like to be anyway). Fortunately for them, one can also introduce a new thing into an old market (e.g. music, phones, tv, textbooks). To answer your question: iPad, iTV, textbooks - and probably others. Note that the iPad 3 will have the resolution to display diagrams from textbooks (which the kindle didn't). BTW: it's curious that the iPhone is still growing faster than the iPad. Maybe because the iPad 3 was delayed. Though, 128% and 111% are both OK :-)
- rorrr 15y agoMost iPhone owners I know buy new versions every single time, just because they can. (And every time they show me how cool the apps are on their new phone, though I haven't been impressed in a while).
- rsynnott 15y ago> just because they can. That's largely driven by a very high resale value for last year's model, though; that also won't survive market saturation.
- Andrew_Quentin 15y agoIs it just me who is slightly uneasy at the idea that one company can generate billions in profit at the expense of millions of people who had to pay much more than the product was actually worth to produce. Is that a fair bargain, or is it exploitation of a monopoly of invention?
- hobonumber1 15y agoIt's just you. Apple is a business.
- eugenejen 15y agoAll business charge highest possible price for service and product that buyers in the market accept. The cost of making something is practically irrelevant. We all know raw material in a good restaurant costs only a fraction of price on menu. But people will all swarm there if it is a high rated by critics. Will you feel uneasy?
- Andrew_Quentin 15y agoNo. One restaurant is unlikely to be able to make billions in profit. It is unlikely to be able to make billions in profit from charging millions of people much more than a product is actually worth to produce. That is, of course, because the dinners in that restaurant are not mass produced for the millions, but finely produced for the very few. Of course most businesses try to charge the highest possible price, but that does not mean that to do so is necessarily right as far as society as a whole is concerned. What, for example, has Bill Gates done to be worth more than whole countries but win some genetic lottery. How many millions are poor and perhaps starving and how many geniuses or great inventions have we missed on because of the insane concentration of wealth that our society permits on the hand of very few people or companies? Just because communism has failed I do not think means we should all try and rip off each other through an exploitative monopoly of invention. Not Apple, nor any other business can make 30% profit which amounts to billions by morally clean means. That, I think, is what makes me uneasy.
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- blantonl 15y agoCongratulations to Apple on a blow out quarter. BUT, I've got to ask the hard question. What the hell is Apple planning to do with their $97.6 BILLION in cash? Apple's recent acquisitions pale in comparison to other's in the tech space so this cash pile is even more acute.
- jonhendry 15y agoIt's not so much to buy companies, it's to buy up key suppliers' capacity to ensure component availability. Like when Apple bought up all the 1998 Christmas season air freight cargo space from Asia to the US, to carry the new iMacs, rather than shipping them by boat.
- nicholasblack 15y agoI guess someone saw that coming: http://thestreethub.com/rushi-shah-on-apple-inc-aapl-until-oct-05-2012 http://thestreethub.com/rushi-shah-on-apple-inc-aapl-until-o...
- thedangler 15y agowho is in charge of that bank account... I wonder do they get interest? :)
- jonhendry 15y agoDoes anyone get interest these days?
- thedangler 15y agoYeah . I was down voted because I asked a semi serious question. Awesome.
- peterbraden 15y agoAt that scale they don't use bank accounts. Probably a lot of it is invested in short term T bills, while liquid cash is kept in a money market. And yes, apple will be making interest on it.
- shawnee_ 15y agoAnd this is a company allergic to paying dividends. If I were a shareholder, I would be asking some questions.
- latch 15y agoBased on the performance of their stock, there's only 1 thing an unhappy Apple investor can be: stupid.
- ceejayoz 15y agoI'm a shareholder, and I'm pretty thrilled. I've got a few shares from the $40s, and a bunch from the $70s. I'll take success over dividends any day.
- shawnee_ 15y agoWhy? The only way you'll get that return is if you sell your stock today. That destroys any chance for you to earn future value from the performance of the company. Dividends are the better way companies return value to their shareholders, not encouraging them to engage in "flipping" which is not sustainable for long-term value. http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/15/technology/thebuzz/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/15/technology/thebuzz/index.htm
- ceejayoz 15y ago> The only way you'll get that return is if you sell your stock today. Or, they can continue to use their pile of cash to be able to make good strategic decisions and continue doubling my share value every few years.
- generators 15y agoso you could own a big fat palace in middle of time square, what do you do with it ? its not money, till its converted to money, and when you do, you no longer own it.
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- erikpukinskis 15y agoIt's worth noting that iOS is pretty conclusively outselling Android at this point. 60+ million devices in Q112 vs. at most 50 million Android devices. Android may be selling more phones, but at the operating system level, there's no contest.
- tintin 15y agoImpressive but I can't help to think about the people who create all the Apple products.
- chj 15y agoThe success of apple , in my opinion, is largely built on the work of app developers. Without the effort put into the software, they would not be able to have so much profits. We, the developers, are in fact the cheap workers in the Apple Empire, not those factory workers from China. Funny thing is they even charge money from us.
- jopt 15y agoConsider what convinced us to develop for their platform. That was their work. Developers don't come to the App Store by accident.
- Iv 15y agoHow I read it : Apple shows that their hardware is overpriced.
- bjgraham 15y agoThe $46.33 billion in revenue is insane. The Airspace broke it down in comparisons—over $5,000 per second! http://theairspace.net/events/apples-q1/ http://theairspace.net/events/apples-q1/