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Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

262 points by antr 12y ago

Cookingboy 12y ago
This is pretty insane, I think $18 billion in quarterly profit is the largest ever for any corporations. Also the revenue from iPhone business alone now exceeds Microsoft and Google combined.
- aaronbrethorst 12y ago
  Yep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_corporate_profits_and_losses#Largest_Corporate_Quarterly_Earnings_of_All_Time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_corporate_profi...
  - liquidise 12y ago
    Always amazed by the lists one can find on Wikipedia. The largest losses also tell an interesting tale.
    - mikeash 12y ago
      It's interesting how the largest losses are far larger than the largest gains. Shows how it's easier to destroy than create.
    - jballanc 12y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists
  - acchow 12y ago
    This list is weird. How did Fannie Mae hit the top list annually in 2013 with $84bn but not have a single quarter with at least $21bn (=84/4) that year?
    - zaroth 12y ago
      Well we know they're not so good with numbers...
- adventured 12y ago
  Not sure that's true just yet, but it is close. Apple's December quarter tends to be particularly blowout, sales will fall by 30% to 40% by the June quarter. Microsoft and Google will combine for $160x billion in sales this nearest fiscal year. The iPhone for the same fiscal year will generate approximately $150 to $170 billion depending on how the year goes. Edit: What's with the stream of downvotes? What I said is accurate.
  - sbuk 12y ago
    You are making a prediction. How can that be accurate?
- arrrg 12y ago
  Introducing a larger device was exactly the right move it seems … I wonder how that interacts with their iPad business (which isn’t even just stagnant, it’s shrinking). Maybe it’s one of the reasons why the iPad really didn’t do this well this quarter? Not that it really matters all that much, though, if the iPhone 6 Plus is eating (part) of the iPad pie. Better that than a competitor.
  - coralreef 12y ago
    Bigger phone sales are definitely eating iPad sales. And people upgrade tablet devices less often anyway, I'm still on an iPad 2 for example. Should be interesting with the rumored iPad pro, which will be much larger (12" retina possibly w/ stylus).
  - MBCook 12y ago
    I believe Tim Cook said that the iPad wasn't turning over as fast as the iPhone (people are keeping them more than 2 years) and that the 6+ is eating some of their tablet sales. > Not that it really matters all that much, though, if the iPhone 6 Plus is eating (part) of the iPad pie Certainly. Plus the iPhone 6+ is a $750+ device and it's competing with the $350+ iPad Mini. Add in the fact that iPhone users are incentivized (in the US at least) to replace their device every two years and that's probably much better than selling someone a $500 iPhone and losing the tablet sale to someone else.
- saryant 12y ago
  Saudi Aramco is probably the largest but since they aren't publicly traded, we don't really know. Estimates put their annual profit at ~$180 billion, so their quarterly revenue would be ~2.5x Apple's.
Tetraviolator 12y ago
This is great to see. As an Apple fan, it was fun to watch Google's Android quickly steal everything from the iPhone, and then fail to make as much money as Apple on the endeavor. Apple has been a great leader in consumer-ready touch devices.
- zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
  Thanks for the clarification, I would never have guessed you're an Apple fan.
  - skyboxone 12y ago
    Google steals web content and brands it as their own (Google search Google News), it's not just stealing mobile phone ideas. Their execution and customer service at Google are also a joke.
- doodpants 12y ago
  I've said it before, and I'll say it again: ideas cannot be "stolen", because an idea expressed is an idea shared. The moment Steve Jobs announced the iPhone is the moment Apple freely gave the world the idea of a keyboard-less and stylus-less touchscreen smartphone. Google didn't have to break into a vault to learn about this.
fidotron 12y ago
Truly phenomenal. But then when no one else is making decent laptops this is what happens. If anything the gap has grown thanks to Windows 8. I'm not a fan of Yosemite by any stretch, but it is very much the least bad of the available options. And on mobile, iOS is very clearly in for the long haul now. There was a time a couple of years ago when Android looked like it might gain enough momentum to sweep them away, but it now looks like the iOS market share in developed markets is going to remain fairly solid. I can't be the only one that has noticed the rise of the Mac-based business but all running on Office 365. It seems to be the new default.
- zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
  I have the opposite impression. Regardless of the bug aspect, I find that Windows 8 looks much more advanced, polished and sophisticated than Mac OS, which has been stagnating for several years now and is still riddled with mindboggling inconsistencies (e.g. why can I rename a file in the Finder but not in an open file dialog, which looks exactly like a Finder?).
  - kevinchen 12y ago
    Pretty sure the open file dialog being read only is a feature and not a bug - you also can't move things around, delete things, etc. I actually like this b/c when I want to find a file, I don't want to move something accidentally. It also lets them implement things like dragging a file from Finder to open dialog to select it (that feature doesn't make sense if your file pickers can also modify the files).
    - jmilloy 12y ago
      The point wasn't that having a read-only open file dialog is wrong. It's that that having a read-only file dialog and a full-featured file browser look identical is confusing/misleading.
  - sigzero 12y ago
    The open file dialog is exactly that to "open" a file. I find the fact that you can do that on Windows stupid and inconsistent.
jusben1369 12y ago
I think these results are amazing. Kudos to Apple. And now I'm going to be "that guy" on HN. iPad is off 18%. So now Apple really is living and dying by a single product? I mean it's amazing how well they are doing with "just" one product but technology tastes seem so fickle that it's an interesting predicament to be in.
- coralreef 12y ago
  They don't live and die by one product. Its just that one product is ridiculously more successful than the rest. This makes their stock value more volatile, but as a company changes not much. The iPod was once the crown jewel, then its sales dwindled and now its been absorbed into a new form factor.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  iPads are mature, no compelling reason to buy one every 2 years like a phone. It's not like the other tablet manufacturers are doing much better (or good at all). Apple still makes a lot on iPads, many companies would kill for that business (including large ones...).
  - Fomite 12y ago
    Seriously. I just upgraded from my original iPad to a new one, whereas even being a slow upgrader I tend to get new phones more frequently.
- SG- 12y ago
  I think the bigger iPhones just ate into iPad sales. Have you seen how big the 6 Plus is in person?
  - jusben1369 12y ago
    Great point! How would you feel if they sold an iPhone as the old iTouch (ie wifi only no telco attached)?
  - prawn 12y ago
ykl 12y ago
Sometimes just to wrap my head around really large numbers like this, I like to put things in units of aircraft carriers. The US Navy's last finished carrier cost $6.2 billion[1], meaning that $74.6 billion[2] is enough to buy Apple 12 nuclear carriers, a.k.a. a nuclear carrier fleet larger than that of the US Navy. Of course this is an inaccurate and very silly comparison[3], but at least for me it does give some sense of scale. That is a preposterous number of iPhones. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_George_H.W._Bush_(CVN-77) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_George_H.W._Bush_(CVN-77) [2] Yes, I know that number is revenue and not profit. As long as I'm making a silly mental comparison though, why not have more fun by using the bigger number? [3] Maintaining/staffing carriers is astronomically expensive, $74.6 billion is actually only enough for 12 empty carrier-shaped hunks of steel.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Buying aircraft carriers is the easy part. Maintaining and staffing them is the hard part but it's a nice unit to use right next to libraries of congress and stationwagons full of tapes.
  - baddox 12y ago
    I'd say that getting away with building a huge navy would be the hard part.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      Korea will be happy to supply the steel bits, the rest is going to be a lot harder. Brings the snowcrash world a little closer though. Apple vs Microsoft round #3 would be interesting.
      - redler 12y ago
        Perhaps even Samsung Heavy Industries, until Apple gets around to vertically integrating that part of its supply chain.
  - deeviant 12y ago
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PhoenixWright 12y ago
Truly amazing quarter.
wclax04 12y ago
Apparently people really like iPhones...
- Tarang 12y ago
  Well yes but its more than that. Apple's iPhones when it comes to the smartphone industry make up a large proportion of the entire industry's profits even though they don't sell as many phones or have as much sales in proportion to the industry. [1] [1] http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/11/04/apple-continues-to-dominate-with-massive-86-share-of-handset-industry-profits http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/11/04/apple-continues-to...
deleted 12y ago
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aaronbrethorst 12y ago
Some interesting tidbits in the earnings call (http://www.macrumors.com/2015/01/27/apple-earnings-1q15/ http://www.macrumors.com/2015/01/27/apple-earnings-1q15/) * Apple Watch is coming in April * 39.9% gross margins * 1 billion iOS devices sold since 2007 * 97% csat for iPhone as measured by Changewave * Mac revenue was $6.9 billion
- dude_abides 12y ago
  >>1 billion iOS devices sold since 2007 That's an insane stat. Assuming average cost of an iphone as 500$, and 70% profit margin for an iphone, Apple has made 350 billion in profits on selling iPhones since 2007!! Any idea what would the equivalent figure in Android profits for Samsung be? Android crossed 1 billion devices sold in 2013, but my guess is the number is going to be much smaller.
  - macintux 12y ago
    To be precise, that 1 billion tally includes iPads, iPod touches, and Apple TVs. Still obscene profit.
    - coob 12y ago
      Although it runs a variant of iOS AppleTV is not counted by Apple as an iOS device.
- bby 12y ago
  csat?
- paganel 12y ago
  > * 39.9% gross margins In this day and age that's really unbelievable.
jacquesm 12y ago
Samsung will do their earnings announcements on the 29th, it will be interesting to compare those two side-by-side. Apple is doing extremely well on the margins but they have actually lost ground when going by the numbers (~30% market share now vs ~70% android).
- coralreef 12y ago
  Why bother comparing iOS to Android as a measure of success? If you do, you should only compare products in the same price range. Apple products are a premium and will never have majority market share of small margin price range. Also Samsung's phone business is doing poorly financially.
- bdcravens 12y ago
  I think much of that 70% number is downmarket. Apple's competition is primarily Samsung, as well as the premium devices offered by Motorola, HTC, etc. (Though to be fair, I wonder how much of Apple's 30% is from older phones costing $99 or less with contract)
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    > I think much of that 70% number is downmarket. Yes, it is. Hence the huge margins gap. > Apple's competition is primarily Samsung, as well as the premium devices offered by Motorola, HTC, etc. (Though to be fair, I wonder how much of Apple's 30% is from older phones costing $99 or less with contract) No idea, that would be interesting to figure out.
- Cookingboy 12y ago
  That number is old, in the most recent quarter Apple just rose to be the number 1 OEM in China, and took 55% marketshare in Japan, even took 30% marketshare in S.Korea, Samsung's home turf. Sure, globally Android will remain larger, but the trend is stabilizing if not reversing a little for now.
  - Simp 12y ago
    That's incorrect: As of the end of Q3 2014, Android was the most popular operating system, with a 84.4% market share, followed by iOS with 11.7%
pdknsk 12y ago
It shows that margin on Apple products is too high. This leaves plenty of room for some company to come into the market and steal their customers. That it hasn't happened shows the strength of Apple. They make products people will pay premium for.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  >> "It shows that margin on Apple products is too high." How does this show that in any way whatsoever? If their margins were too high they'd be leaving money on the table. Short term they probably are but lowering prices would also dilute the brand.
- archagon 12y ago
  It would be hard for another company to imitate Apple's hardware/software integration. One of the reasons I've bought Macbooks for my last two laptops was that I knew that the OS and most of its software was designed with my hardware in mind.
  - pluma 12y ago
    That's precisely what stopped me from buying into the Apple cosmos. If I want an Apple Watch, I need to buy an iPhone. If I buy an iPhone, I should use iTunes. In order to get a version of iTunes that isn't atrocious, I need to use OSX. In order to use OSX I need to buy an iMac or MBP. Want to use an iPod? Same thing, just skip the first step. Want to develop apps for (or port apps to) iOS? Again, same thing. I'm using Linux. I occasionally use Windows for testing in IE or playing games. There's just no way I can adopt any Apple device as an addition to that without getting an experience that is significantly lacking in comparison to what I would get by switching everything over. As I speak I'm using a Dell laptop, a Samsung smartphone and an Asus tablet. I'm actually in the process of replacing the Dell laptop with a smaller brand laptop custom-built for Linux support. There's just no way I could justify moving any single device over to an Apple equivalent without moving everything else. You could call it "synergy" or "network effects". Before Apple (when Microsoft did it) we used to call it vendor lock-in and monoculture. The funny part is that I'm pretty sure that if you ignore the lower end market most of the criticism I've heard about each brand is perfectly interchangeable at this point. "My smartphone bends / overheats", "I installed an update and now something is misbehaving, but it's not big enough of a deal that I can be bothered to figure out how to fix it", "my laptop was faulty and I had to get it replaced/repaired two weeks after I bought it", "the OS does something incredibly annoying and there apparently isn't any way to change that so I rely on clunky workarounds" and so on. I swear I've heard some variation of each for Linux, Microsoft and Apple devices alike. This isn't really a complaint, more of an observation. Buying Apple is perfectly reasonable, especially if all your other devices are already Apple. But after having seen people be ridiculously productive on all kinds of devices (e.g. a sensible PHP dev using Windows Surface as a laptop -- that one caught me off guard) and likewise also seeing every single variation fail at other times, I would recommend not to give your favourite vendor too much credit. In all likelihood the "perfect" experience you're having with your platform of choice is not unique to you or that platform -- it just happens to be something that works really great for you right now. It might not work as well for someone else, or even for yourself at a different time in a different situation. tl;dr: everybody poop. All systems fail.
norenjr 12y ago
drops mic
freshyill 12y ago
Remember, Apple needs to target the low end to succeed in China. They need to put out the crappiest, cheapest phone they possibly can otherwise Samsung and Xiaomi will eat their lunch. Edit: Obvious sarcasm is apparently not obvious enough.
- xj9 12y ago
  Do you see these numbers? Why would Apple care about low-end, low margin sales in China?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- Osmium 12y ago
  They don't seem to be doing too badly in China. (Armchair opinion but: I think devaluing their brand in China would be the worst thing they could do.) "74.5 million iPhones, 46% growth over last year. Unit sales up 44% in US, up 97% in BRIC countries. Sales doubled yoy in China, Brazil and Singapore." and "Performance of Greater China was particularly impressive with revenue up 70%."
- sidko 12y ago
  Apple doesn't need to target the low end. They seem to be doing just fine, making the largest quarterly profit in history by not indulging in a race to bottom in search of market share.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- loganu 12y ago
  Does Apple care about beating crappy Samsungs in market share? Probably not. There will always be a market for low end/ cheap/ burner phones. There's little room for margins, and those customers don't buy into the ecosystem as much. Comparing ecosystem revenue per user, Apple's doing fine. They sell a top-end phone to people that will pay a premium, and continue to buy apps and media. It's kind of like telling BMW that they need to compete with Kia. Sure, more market share would be nice, but it's not necessary. If iPhone's are seen as a luxury item/ status symbol, then there's little advertising needed. Plus, Apple could still sell iPhone 4s and 5s to compete with lower end. (I think)
ncza 12y ago
After all the surveillance revelations it fills me with confusion and dread how instead of valuing freedom and control people run into the golden cages like there is no tomorrow. Well, maybe there won't...
hyp0 12y ago
Apple has the technology headroom to keep making more powerful iphones for several more generations... but will it reach a point where people don't need a more powerful phone? (that they don't get any benefit from it, so that power is not utilized). I would have thought they were more powerful than a phone needs to be already, but obviously not! One view is that they are still replacing desktops, suggesting users will value increases in power until they are as powerful as a desktop. Of course, gaming use is unlimited, but I'm not sure that's a key usage. I would expect something like the Apple watch is essential for Apple, because that small form factor has lots of runway, as each increase in power would be a benefit to users.
- robotresearcher 12y ago
  They are finding it easier to sell skinny phones and long battery life than CPU speed. Phones could be quite a bit more powerful if they were as thick and heavy as they used to be. The Google Project Tango prototype phone is chunky but has lots of CPU.
- james33 12y ago
  Why wouldn't gaming be a key usage? On iPhone alone it is a multi-billion dollar industry. I think gaming could be one of the big driving forces moving forward once they get serious about Apple TV. Give it a few years for the processing to catch up to today's consoles and you no longer need an Xbox/Playstation.
  - hyp0 12y ago
    It's important, but not enough. I don't think it's important enough, to buy a super-powerful (future) iphone, for just that, for enough people. Consider PCs: also used for gaming, and certainly much more powerful than xone/P4, but PC sales have slowed.
- far33d 12y ago
  Never underestimate the human ability to consume power / CPU / memory / sensors / etc. So far we've never had "enough" of any of these.
mythz 12y ago
Wow $74.6 Billion Revenue and $18 Billion profit on 74.5M iPhones in a quarter is nuts. Apple also mentioned in the Conference call that the volatile exchange rate also hurt sales numbers by 4% (vs a constant exchange rate) which they're more susceptible to now that over 65% of their sales are outside of the US.
- avar 12y ago
  That's happening to a lot of US companies that do a lot of their business in the EU/EUR zone and other currencies that are weakening relative to the strong USD.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  RMB is pretty strong, and Apple's 2nd largest market is China, so they are somewhat protected.
espitia 12y ago
Where would I be able to see app revenue alone? On the Summary Data PDF it says services did 4.8B and that includes "revenue from the iTunes Store, the App Store, the Mac App Store, the iBooks Store, AppleCare, Apple Pay, licensing and other service". Is it possible to see only App Store revenue?
- kunaalarya 12y ago
  Asymco did a look into this last week http://www.asymco.com/2015/01/22/bigger-than-hollywood/ http://www.asymco.com/2015/01/22/bigger-than-hollywood/
kryptiskt 12y ago
The best part of the report is that iPad sales are plunging. It's a victory for general purpose computing that that segment of the walled garden is in decline. Let's hope that open systems can gain a toehold in phones sometime too.
- Fomite 12y ago
  It's entirely possible it's not "in decline" but has merely hit saturation.
  - robryan 12y ago
    Anecdotally it seems like ipads have a longer lifespan than a phone as well. Those with an ipad 1 will probably have to upgrade and those with a 2 might want to for the retina display. The 3 though have been out for nearly 3 years and is still fine. Whereas someone who bought a phone at the same time may have already upgraded.
    - mcphage 12y ago
      I've got a 3, and want to upgrade, but... it's not super urgent. I use my iPad pretty often, but the iPad 3 has the feature I care about most (retina screen), and there haven't been many major changes since.
      - MBCook 12y ago
        I've got a 3 but there is nothing wrong with it. The Air 2 is thinner and MUCH lighter, but enough to spend $500+? If they release a new version with some really big new feature like real stylus support for drawing they might get me, but as it is my iPad 3 works very well and I see no actual need to upgrade.
        mcphage 12y ago
        Yep, I agree. They're faster and lighter, but starting with the 3, they're all pretty good at what they're used for. Until they make some major change, people will keep them around for a while.
akrymski 12y ago
Having bought the iPhone 6, I have to say I miss the size of iPhone 5, being able to use it with one hand, being less slippery, and the sturdy design. Many months passed by and I still miss it - this has never happened before. I won't be buying the Apple Watch because I have a real watch. And I simply don't see the point in having a watch that does a fraction of what my phone already does. I have just bought some PUT options on AAPL, because I don't see the revenue driver for the future. There's no need for a more powerful or slimmer phone at this stage, any advancement will be increasingly marginal. All the possible sizes are already out. Desperate people have got their hands on the latest gadget. What's next for Apple? How can they continue to grow phone sales at this rate? I simply don't see it, nor do I see another product category being as big as the truly personal computer that is the smartphone.
- IBM 12y ago
  I hope you aren't betting too much money.
- threeseed 12y ago
  Pretty dumb move to bet against Apple. Apple can and likely will release an iPhone 6s mini after they've exhausted their component supplies for the iPhone 5. But the very fact you bought the iPhone 6 (with its higher margin) just shows they know what they are doing. As for growth in smartphones they haven't even made a tiny dent in China, India or African countries. As for revenue drivers. The Apple Watch and future versions will sell and they haven't really done much with AppleTV, Beats, Primesense etc. So there's your 5 year roadmap.
  - akrymski 12y ago
    I'm not saying they will rollover and die tomorrow. I think it's enough for them to start growing at a lower rate than the current 30% for the stock to take a hit. iPhone 6 mini - sure I see that. But it wont be much of an improvement to 5s, so not that many people will buy it. The other product lines are less than 10% of revenue. Asia is the key - and if they can keep the momentum they have in China for a few years numbers won't be bad, BUT even so I struggle to see the same YoY growth that they currently have.
femto 12y ago
Does the "tax rate of 26.3 percent" mentioned refer to how much tax Apple actually paid, or its notional tax rate? For example, here in Australia, Apple had $6 billion revenue and paid $80 million tax. Assuming the margins are at least as good as the US, the profit would be $2.4 billion, so Apple's actual tax rate in Australia is 3.4%. Compare that with the theoretical Australian corporate tax rate of 30%, which would put Apple's tax bill closer to $700 million. http://www.smh.com.au/business/apples-803-million-australian-tax-bill-revealed-20150127-12yrqq.html http://www.smh.com.au/business/apples-803-million-australian...
- robryan 12y ago
  It would be actually paid tax. They can externalise a lot of the tax from Australia but have to be paying it somewhere. For instance if they are selling itunes/ app store content via Ireland or another lower tax nation they will still have to pay tax there.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Apple wouldn't be able to book all the profit in Australia; R&D is done in the states obviously so that value add could be booked over there taxed at US rates. So say an iPhone costs $300 to produce and sells for $600, it might be exported to Australia at $400 or $500, with tax on the difference going to the US.
oliyoung 12y ago
Apple now has more cash at hand (AU$178bn) than the Australian government (AU$136bn)
MaysonL 12y ago
Research and development spending rose 50% YoY!
- nielsbot 12y ago
  Apple Watch is probably part of that
eyeareque 12y ago
I wonder how much profit they would have made if all of their offshore and manufacturing jobs were moved to the US.
- mrcwinn 12y ago
  I think that's impossible to answer, since the U.S. lacks the infrastructure, workers, regulations to make that possible today. Hopefully over time we can improve that situation. In other words, it's more complicated than a simple business choice.
dba7dba 12y ago
Obviously larger screen iPhones helped a lot. Samsung supposedly copied Apple with rounded edges. And Apple copied Samsung with phablet sized device. I still remember reading the negative reviews when Samsung first came out with phablets. I wonder who will copy what next...
dba7dba 12y ago
And how much of the revenue will actually be paid to US treasury as tax? Just wondering...
tuananh 12y ago
I found the email of the contact info the the end of the report very annoying. >paxton1@apple.com >hoover1@apple.com Does Apple forcing everyone to use name only (prohibit use of dash and underscore? ) and keep addning number if the username is used?
- georgespencer 12y ago
  There isn't a hard and fast rule.
gchokov 12y ago
So far, following the Law of Large Numbers[1] pretty well. Also 1B iOS devices.. huge markets for iOS devs! -- [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers
- Simp 12y ago
  How is that even possible when Android has a 84.4% market share?
crazychrome 12y ago
Apple does hire a great PR team. imagine they announce the agreement with Chinese government over iPhone inspection after the 1Q report...
davidgerard 12y ago
What are the results like corrected for inflation?
datashovel 12y ago
Apple's profits definitely seem to be outpacing their contributions to open source.
rtpg 12y ago
This is about revenue, but every time I see Apple's financial statements, I remember that Apple (as of June 2014) has 160 billion dollars in cash. 2 years of _revenue_ (not operating expenses, mind you, but quite a bit more). I think Bill Gates was all about having enough cash to run the company without a single sale for a year, but apparently they have a 20% profit margin, so we're looking at almost 30 months where they could continue to spend everything, not get a single dime, and be "fine". If that's not an example of the absolute failure of trickle-down economics, I don't know what is.
- john_b 12y ago
  If you want to argue general economic principles, then do so [1]. Just don't cherry pick examples to prop up your perspective. I don't think anyone, even Reagan or Thatcher, would have stood behind the assertion that a luxury phone and computer maker with a hoard of cash would benefit the poor. You're attacking a strawman here. [1] Just keep in mind that "trickle-down economics" is a political philosophy, not an economic one: http://www.tsowell.com/images/Hoover%20Proof.pdf http://www.tsowell.com/images/Hoover%20Proof.pdf (footnote on page 2)
  - hnnewguy 12y ago
    >that a luxury phone and computer maker with a hoard of cash would benefit the poor. If they were forced to re-patriate and pay taxes on that cash, how could that not "help the poor"?
    - alphakappa 12y ago
      Repatriate what? Income that was earned overseas?
    - djrogers 12y ago
      >If they were forced to re-patriate and pay taxes on that cash, how could that not "help the poor"? That would mostly benefit politicians and their beneficiaries, not exactly 'the poor'. Very little of the $$ spent by the government helps 'the poor', unless you're counting our severely underpaid military.

262 points by antr 12y ago

This is pretty insane, I think $18 billion in quarterly profit is the largest ever for any corporations. Also the revenue from iPhone business alone now exceeds Microsoft and Google combined.

aaronbrethorst 12y ago
Yep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_corporate_profits_and_losses#Largest_Corporate_Quarterly_Earnings_of_All_Time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_corporate_profi...
- liquidise 12y ago
  Always amazed by the lists one can find on Wikipedia. The largest losses also tell an interesting tale.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    It's interesting how the largest losses are far larger than the largest gains. Shows how it's easier to destroy than create.
  - jballanc 12y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists
- acchow 12y ago
  This list is weird. How did Fannie Mae hit the top list annually in 2013 with $84bn but not have a single quarter with at least $21bn (=84/4) that year?
  - zaroth 12y ago
    Well we know they're not so good with numbers...
adventured 12y ago
Not sure that's true just yet, but it is close. Apple's December quarter tends to be particularly blowout, sales will fall by 30% to 40% by the June quarter. Microsoft and Google will combine for $160x billion in sales this nearest fiscal year. The iPhone for the same fiscal year will generate approximately $150 to $170 billion depending on how the year goes. Edit: What's with the stream of downvotes? What I said is accurate.
- sbuk 12y ago
  You are making a prediction. How can that be accurate?
arrrg 12y ago
Introducing a larger device was exactly the right move it seems … I wonder how that interacts with their iPad business (which isn’t even just stagnant, it’s shrinking). Maybe it’s one of the reasons why the iPad really didn’t do this well this quarter? Not that it really matters all that much, though, if the iPhone 6 Plus is eating (part) of the iPad pie. Better that than a competitor.
- coralreef 12y ago
  Bigger phone sales are definitely eating iPad sales. And people upgrade tablet devices less often anyway, I'm still on an iPad 2 for example. Should be interesting with the rumored iPad pro, which will be much larger (12" retina possibly w/ stylus).
- MBCook 12y ago
  I believe Tim Cook said that the iPad wasn't turning over as fast as the iPhone (people are keeping them more than 2 years) and that the 6+ is eating some of their tablet sales. > Not that it really matters all that much, though, if the iPhone 6 Plus is eating (part) of the iPad pie Certainly. Plus the iPhone 6+ is a $750+ device and it's competing with the $350+ iPad Mini. Add in the fact that iPhone users are incentivized (in the US at least) to replace their device every two years and that's probably much better than selling someone a $500 iPhone and losing the tablet sale to someone else.
saryant 12y ago
Saudi Aramco is probably the largest but since they aren't publicly traded, we don't really know. Estimates put their annual profit at ~$180 billion, so their quarterly revenue would be ~2.5x Apple's.

Tetraviolator 12y ago

This is great to see. As an Apple fan, it was fun to watch Google's Android quickly steal everything from the iPhone, and then fail to make as much money as Apple on the endeavor. Apple has been a great leader in consumer-ready touch devices.

zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
Thanks for the clarification, I would never have guessed you're an Apple fan.
- skyboxone 12y ago
  Google steals web content and brands it as their own (Google search Google News), it's not just stealing mobile phone ideas. Their execution and customer service at Google are also a joke.
doodpants 12y ago
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: ideas cannot be "stolen", because an idea expressed is an idea shared. The moment Steve Jobs announced the iPhone is the moment Apple freely gave the world the idea of a keyboard-less and stylus-less touchscreen smartphone. Google didn't have to break into a vault to learn about this.

fidotron 12y ago

Truly phenomenal. But then when no one else is making decent laptops this is what happens. If anything the gap has grown thanks to Windows 8. I'm not a fan of Yosemite by any stretch, but it is very much the least bad of the available options. And on mobile, iOS is very clearly in for the long haul now. There was a time a couple of years ago when Android looked like it might gain enough momentum to sweep them away, but it now looks like the iOS market share in developed markets is going to remain fairly solid. I can't be the only one that has noticed the rise of the Mac-based business but all running on Office 365. It seems to be the new default.

zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
I have the opposite impression. Regardless of the bug aspect, I find that Windows 8 looks much more advanced, polished and sophisticated than Mac OS, which has been stagnating for several years now and is still riddled with mindboggling inconsistencies (e.g. why can I rename a file in the Finder but not in an open file dialog, which looks exactly like a Finder?).
- kevinchen 12y ago
  Pretty sure the open file dialog being read only is a feature and not a bug - you also can't move things around, delete things, etc. I actually like this b/c when I want to find a file, I don't want to move something accidentally. It also lets them implement things like dragging a file from Finder to open dialog to select it (that feature doesn't make sense if your file pickers can also modify the files).
  - jmilloy 12y ago
    The point wasn't that having a read-only open file dialog is wrong. It's that that having a read-only file dialog and a full-featured file browser look identical is confusing/misleading.
- sigzero 12y ago
  The open file dialog is exactly that to "open" a file. I find the fact that you can do that on Windows stupid and inconsistent.

jusben1369 12y ago

I think these results are amazing. Kudos to Apple. And now I'm going to be "that guy" on HN. iPad is off 18%. So now Apple really is living and dying by a single product? I mean it's amazing how well they are doing with "just" one product but technology tastes seem so fickle that it's an interesting predicament to be in.

coralreef 12y ago
They don't live and die by one product. Its just that one product is ridiculously more successful than the rest. This makes their stock value more volatile, but as a company changes not much. The iPod was once the crown jewel, then its sales dwindled and now its been absorbed into a new form factor.
seanmcdirmid 12y ago
iPads are mature, no compelling reason to buy one every 2 years like a phone. It's not like the other tablet manufacturers are doing much better (or good at all). Apple still makes a lot on iPads, many companies would kill for that business (including large ones...).
- Fomite 12y ago
  Seriously. I just upgraded from my original iPad to a new one, whereas even being a slow upgrader I tend to get new phones more frequently.
SG- 12y ago
I think the bigger iPhones just ate into iPad sales. Have you seen how big the 6 Plus is in person?
- jusben1369 12y ago
  Great point! How would you feel if they sold an iPhone as the old iTouch (ie wifi only no telco attached)?
- prawn 12y ago

ykl 12y ago

Sometimes just to wrap my head around really large numbers like this, I like to put things in units of aircraft carriers. The US Navy's last finished carrier cost $6.2 billion[1], meaning that $74.6 billion[2] is enough to buy Apple 12 nuclear carriers, a.k.a. a nuclear carrier fleet larger than that of the US Navy. Of course this is an inaccurate and very silly comparison[3], but at least for me it does give some sense of scale. That is a preposterous number of iPhones. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_George_H.W._Bush_(CVN-77) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_George_H.W._Bush_(CVN-77) [2] Yes, I know that number is revenue and not profit. As long as I'm making a silly mental comparison though, why not have more fun by using the bigger number? [3] Maintaining/staffing carriers is astronomically expensive, $74.6 billion is actually only enough for 12 empty carrier-shaped hunks of steel.

jacquesm 12y ago
Buying aircraft carriers is the easy part. Maintaining and staffing them is the hard part but it's a nice unit to use right next to libraries of congress and stationwagons full of tapes.
- baddox 12y ago
  I'd say that getting away with building a huge navy would be the hard part.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Korea will be happy to supply the steel bits, the rest is going to be a lot harder. Brings the snowcrash world a little closer though. Apple vs Microsoft round #3 would be interesting.
    - redler 12y ago
      Perhaps even Samsung Heavy Industries, until Apple gets around to vertically integrating that part of its supply chain.
- deeviant 12y ago

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PhoenixWright 12y ago

Truly amazing quarter.

wclax04 12y ago

Apparently people really like iPhones...

Tarang 12y ago
Well yes but its more than that. Apple's iPhones when it comes to the smartphone industry make up a large proportion of the entire industry's profits even though they don't sell as many phones or have as much sales in proportion to the industry. [1] [1] http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/11/04/apple-continues-to-dominate-with-massive-86-share-of-handset-industry-profits http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/11/04/apple-continues-to...

deleted 12y ago

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aaronbrethorst 12y ago

Some interesting tidbits in the earnings call (http://www.macrumors.com/2015/01/27/apple-earnings-1q15/ http://www.macrumors.com/2015/01/27/apple-earnings-1q15/) * Apple Watch is coming in April * 39.9% gross margins * 1 billion iOS devices sold since 2007 * 97% csat for iPhone as measured by Changewave * Mac revenue was $6.9 billion

dude_abides 12y ago
>>1 billion iOS devices sold since 2007 That's an insane stat. Assuming average cost of an iphone as 500$, and 70% profit margin for an iphone, Apple has made 350 billion in profits on selling iPhones since 2007!! Any idea what would the equivalent figure in Android profits for Samsung be? Android crossed 1 billion devices sold in 2013, but my guess is the number is going to be much smaller.
- macintux 12y ago
  To be precise, that 1 billion tally includes iPads, iPod touches, and Apple TVs. Still obscene profit.
  - coob 12y ago
    Although it runs a variant of iOS AppleTV is not counted by Apple as an iOS device.
bby 12y ago
csat?
paganel 12y ago
> * 39.9% gross margins In this day and age that's really unbelievable.

jacquesm 12y ago

Samsung will do their earnings announcements on the 29th, it will be interesting to compare those two side-by-side. Apple is doing extremely well on the margins but they have actually lost ground when going by the numbers (~30% market share now vs ~70% android).

coralreef 12y ago
Why bother comparing iOS to Android as a measure of success? If you do, you should only compare products in the same price range. Apple products are a premium and will never have majority market share of small margin price range. Also Samsung's phone business is doing poorly financially.
bdcravens 12y ago
I think much of that 70% number is downmarket. Apple's competition is primarily Samsung, as well as the premium devices offered by Motorola, HTC, etc. (Though to be fair, I wonder how much of Apple's 30% is from older phones costing $99 or less with contract)
- jacquesm 12y ago
  > I think much of that 70% number is downmarket. Yes, it is. Hence the huge margins gap. > Apple's competition is primarily Samsung, as well as the premium devices offered by Motorola, HTC, etc. (Though to be fair, I wonder how much of Apple's 30% is from older phones costing $99 or less with contract) No idea, that would be interesting to figure out.
Cookingboy 12y ago
That number is old, in the most recent quarter Apple just rose to be the number 1 OEM in China, and took 55% marketshare in Japan, even took 30% marketshare in S.Korea, Samsung's home turf. Sure, globally Android will remain larger, but the trend is stabilizing if not reversing a little for now.
- Simp 12y ago
  That's incorrect: As of the end of Q3 2014, Android was the most popular operating system, with a 84.4% market share, followed by iOS with 11.7%

pdknsk 12y ago

It shows that margin on Apple products is too high. This leaves plenty of room for some company to come into the market and steal their customers. That it hasn't happened shows the strength of Apple. They make products people will pay premium for.

k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "It shows that margin on Apple products is too high." How does this show that in any way whatsoever? If their margins were too high they'd be leaving money on the table. Short term they probably are but lowering prices would also dilute the brand.
archagon 12y ago
It would be hard for another company to imitate Apple's hardware/software integration. One of the reasons I've bought Macbooks for my last two laptops was that I knew that the OS and most of its software was designed with my hardware in mind.
- pluma 12y ago
  That's precisely what stopped me from buying into the Apple cosmos. If I want an Apple Watch, I need to buy an iPhone. If I buy an iPhone, I should use iTunes. In order to get a version of iTunes that isn't atrocious, I need to use OSX. In order to use OSX I need to buy an iMac or MBP. Want to use an iPod? Same thing, just skip the first step. Want to develop apps for (or port apps to) iOS? Again, same thing. I'm using Linux. I occasionally use Windows for testing in IE or playing games. There's just no way I can adopt any Apple device as an addition to that without getting an experience that is significantly lacking in comparison to what I would get by switching everything over. As I speak I'm using a Dell laptop, a Samsung smartphone and an Asus tablet. I'm actually in the process of replacing the Dell laptop with a smaller brand laptop custom-built for Linux support. There's just no way I could justify moving any single device over to an Apple equivalent without moving everything else. You could call it "synergy" or "network effects". Before Apple (when Microsoft did it) we used to call it vendor lock-in and monoculture. The funny part is that I'm pretty sure that if you ignore the lower end market most of the criticism I've heard about each brand is perfectly interchangeable at this point. "My smartphone bends / overheats", "I installed an update and now something is misbehaving, but it's not big enough of a deal that I can be bothered to figure out how to fix it", "my laptop was faulty and I had to get it replaced/repaired two weeks after I bought it", "the OS does something incredibly annoying and there apparently isn't any way to change that so I rely on clunky workarounds" and so on. I swear I've heard some variation of each for Linux, Microsoft and Apple devices alike. This isn't really a complaint, more of an observation. Buying Apple is perfectly reasonable, especially if all your other devices are already Apple. But after having seen people be ridiculously productive on all kinds of devices (e.g. a sensible PHP dev using Windows Surface as a laptop -- that one caught me off guard) and likewise also seeing every single variation fail at other times, I would recommend not to give your favourite vendor too much credit. In all likelihood the "perfect" experience you're having with your platform of choice is not unique to you or that platform -- it just happens to be something that works really great for you right now. It might not work as well for someone else, or even for yourself at a different time in a different situation. tl;dr: everybody poop. All systems fail.

norenjr 12y ago

drops mic

freshyill 12y ago

Remember, Apple needs to target the low end to succeed in China. They need to put out the crappiest, cheapest phone they possibly can otherwise Samsung and Xiaomi will eat their lunch. Edit: Obvious sarcasm is apparently not obvious enough.

xj9 12y ago
Do you see these numbers? Why would Apple care about low-end, low margin sales in China?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
Osmium 12y ago
They don't seem to be doing too badly in China. (Armchair opinion but: I think devaluing their brand in China would be the worst thing they could do.) "74.5 million iPhones, 46% growth over last year. Unit sales up 44% in US, up 97% in BRIC countries. Sales doubled yoy in China, Brazil and Singapore." and "Performance of Greater China was particularly impressive with revenue up 70%."
sidko 12y ago
Apple doesn't need to target the low end. They seem to be doing just fine, making the largest quarterly profit in history by not indulging in a race to bottom in search of market share.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
loganu 12y ago
Does Apple care about beating crappy Samsungs in market share? Probably not. There will always be a market for low end/ cheap/ burner phones. There's little room for margins, and those customers don't buy into the ecosystem as much. Comparing ecosystem revenue per user, Apple's doing fine. They sell a top-end phone to people that will pay a premium, and continue to buy apps and media. It's kind of like telling BMW that they need to compete with Kia. Sure, more market share would be nice, but it's not necessary. If iPhone's are seen as a luxury item/ status symbol, then there's little advertising needed. Plus, Apple could still sell iPhone 4s and 5s to compete with lower end. (I think)

ncza 12y ago

After all the surveillance revelations it fills me with confusion and dread how instead of valuing freedom and control people run into the golden cages like there is no tomorrow. Well, maybe there won't...

hyp0 12y ago

Apple has the technology headroom to keep making more powerful iphones for several more generations... but will it reach a point where people don't need a more powerful phone? (that they don't get any benefit from it, so that power is not utilized). I would have thought they were more powerful than a phone needs to be already, but obviously not! One view is that they are still replacing desktops, suggesting users will value increases in power until they are as powerful as a desktop. Of course, gaming use is unlimited, but I'm not sure that's a key usage. I would expect something like the Apple watch is essential for Apple, because that small form factor has lots of runway, as each increase in power would be a benefit to users.

robotresearcher 12y ago
They are finding it easier to sell skinny phones and long battery life than CPU speed. Phones could be quite a bit more powerful if they were as thick and heavy as they used to be. The Google Project Tango prototype phone is chunky but has lots of CPU.
james33 12y ago
Why wouldn't gaming be a key usage? On iPhone alone it is a multi-billion dollar industry. I think gaming could be one of the big driving forces moving forward once they get serious about Apple TV. Give it a few years for the processing to catch up to today's consoles and you no longer need an Xbox/Playstation.
- hyp0 12y ago
  It's important, but not enough. I don't think it's important enough, to buy a super-powerful (future) iphone, for just that, for enough people. Consider PCs: also used for gaming, and certainly much more powerful than xone/P4, but PC sales have slowed.
far33d 12y ago
Never underestimate the human ability to consume power / CPU / memory / sensors / etc. So far we've never had "enough" of any of these.

mythz 12y ago

Wow $74.6 Billion Revenue and $18 Billion profit on 74.5M iPhones in a quarter is nuts. Apple also mentioned in the Conference call that the volatile exchange rate also hurt sales numbers by 4% (vs a constant exchange rate) which they're more susceptible to now that over 65% of their sales are outside of the US.

avar 12y ago
That's happening to a lot of US companies that do a lot of their business in the EU/EUR zone and other currencies that are weakening relative to the strong USD.
seanmcdirmid 12y ago
RMB is pretty strong, and Apple's 2nd largest market is China, so they are somewhat protected.

espitia 12y ago

Where would I be able to see app revenue alone? On the Summary Data PDF it says services did 4.8B and that includes "revenue from the iTunes Store, the App Store, the Mac App Store, the iBooks Store, AppleCare, Apple Pay, licensing and other service". Is it possible to see only App Store revenue?

kunaalarya 12y ago
Asymco did a look into this last week http://www.asymco.com/2015/01/22/bigger-than-hollywood/ http://www.asymco.com/2015/01/22/bigger-than-hollywood/

kryptiskt 12y ago

The best part of the report is that iPad sales are plunging. It's a victory for general purpose computing that that segment of the walled garden is in decline. Let's hope that open systems can gain a toehold in phones sometime too.

Fomite 12y ago
It's entirely possible it's not "in decline" but has merely hit saturation.
- robryan 12y ago
  Anecdotally it seems like ipads have a longer lifespan than a phone as well. Those with an ipad 1 will probably have to upgrade and those with a 2 might want to for the retina display. The 3 though have been out for nearly 3 years and is still fine. Whereas someone who bought a phone at the same time may have already upgraded.
  - mcphage 12y ago
    I've got a 3, and want to upgrade, but... it's not super urgent. I use my iPad pretty often, but the iPad 3 has the feature I care about most (retina screen), and there haven't been many major changes since.
    - MBCook 12y ago
      I've got a 3 but there is nothing wrong with it. The Air 2 is thinner and MUCH lighter, but enough to spend $500+? If they release a new version with some really big new feature like real stylus support for drawing they might get me, but as it is my iPad 3 works very well and I see no actual need to upgrade.
      - mcphage 12y ago
        Yep, I agree. They're faster and lighter, but starting with the 3, they're all pretty good at what they're used for. Until they make some major change, people will keep them around for a while.

akrymski 12y ago

Having bought the iPhone 6, I have to say I miss the size of iPhone 5, being able to use it with one hand, being less slippery, and the sturdy design. Many months passed by and I still miss it - this has never happened before. I won't be buying the Apple Watch because I have a real watch. And I simply don't see the point in having a watch that does a fraction of what my phone already does. I have just bought some PUT options on AAPL, because I don't see the revenue driver for the future. There's no need for a more powerful or slimmer phone at this stage, any advancement will be increasingly marginal. All the possible sizes are already out. Desperate people have got their hands on the latest gadget. What's next for Apple? How can they continue to grow phone sales at this rate? I simply don't see it, nor do I see another product category being as big as the truly personal computer that is the smartphone.

IBM 12y ago
I hope you aren't betting too much money.
threeseed 12y ago
Pretty dumb move to bet against Apple. Apple can and likely will release an iPhone 6s mini after they've exhausted their component supplies for the iPhone 5. But the very fact you bought the iPhone 6 (with its higher margin) just shows they know what they are doing. As for growth in smartphones they haven't even made a tiny dent in China, India or African countries. As for revenue drivers. The Apple Watch and future versions will sell and they haven't really done much with AppleTV, Beats, Primesense etc. So there's your 5 year roadmap.
- akrymski 12y ago
  I'm not saying they will rollover and die tomorrow. I think it's enough for them to start growing at a lower rate than the current 30% for the stock to take a hit. iPhone 6 mini - sure I see that. But it wont be much of an improvement to 5s, so not that many people will buy it. The other product lines are less than 10% of revenue. Asia is the key - and if they can keep the momentum they have in China for a few years numbers won't be bad, BUT even so I struggle to see the same YoY growth that they currently have.

femto 12y ago

Does the "tax rate of 26.3 percent" mentioned refer to how much tax Apple actually paid, or its notional tax rate? For example, here in Australia, Apple had $6 billion revenue and paid $80 million tax. Assuming the margins are at least as good as the US, the profit would be $2.4 billion, so Apple's actual tax rate in Australia is 3.4%. Compare that with the theoretical Australian corporate tax rate of 30%, which would put Apple's tax bill closer to $700 million. http://www.smh.com.au/business/apples-803-million-australian-tax-bill-revealed-20150127-12yrqq.html http://www.smh.com.au/business/apples-803-million-australian...

robryan 12y ago
It would be actually paid tax. They can externalise a lot of the tax from Australia but have to be paying it somewhere. For instance if they are selling itunes/ app store content via Ireland or another lower tax nation they will still have to pay tax there.
seanmcdirmid 12y ago
Apple wouldn't be able to book all the profit in Australia; R&D is done in the states obviously so that value add could be booked over there taxed at US rates. So say an iPhone costs $300 to produce and sells for $600, it might be exported to Australia at $400 or $500, with tax on the difference going to the US.

oliyoung 12y ago

Apple now has more cash at hand (AU$178bn) than the Australian government (AU$136bn)

MaysonL 12y ago

Research and development spending rose 50% YoY!

nielsbot 12y ago
Apple Watch is probably part of that

eyeareque 12y ago

I wonder how much profit they would have made if all of their offshore and manufacturing jobs were moved to the US.

mrcwinn 12y ago
I think that's impossible to answer, since the U.S. lacks the infrastructure, workers, regulations to make that possible today. Hopefully over time we can improve that situation. In other words, it's more complicated than a simple business choice.

dba7dba 12y ago

Obviously larger screen iPhones helped a lot. Samsung supposedly copied Apple with rounded edges. And Apple copied Samsung with phablet sized device. I still remember reading the negative reviews when Samsung first came out with phablets. I wonder who will copy what next...

dba7dba 12y ago

And how much of the revenue will actually be paid to US treasury as tax? Just wondering...

tuananh 12y ago

I found the email of the contact info the the end of the report very annoying. >paxton1@apple.com >hoover1@apple.com Does Apple forcing everyone to use name only (prohibit use of dash and underscore? ) and keep addning number if the username is used?

georgespencer 12y ago
There isn't a hard and fast rule.

gchokov 12y ago

So far, following the Law of Large Numbers[1] pretty well. Also 1B iOS devices.. huge markets for iOS devs! -- [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers

Simp 12y ago
How is that even possible when Android has a 84.4% market share?

crazychrome 12y ago

Apple does hire a great PR team. imagine they announce the agreement with Chinese government over iPhone inspection after the 1Q report...

davidgerard 12y ago

What are the results like corrected for inflation?

datashovel 12y ago

Apple's profits definitely seem to be outpacing their contributions to open source.

rtpg 12y ago

This is about revenue, but every time I see Apple's financial statements, I remember that Apple (as of June 2014) has 160 billion dollars in cash. 2 years of _revenue_ (not operating expenses, mind you, but quite a bit more). I think Bill Gates was all about having enough cash to run the company without a single sale for a year, but apparently they have a 20% profit margin, so we're looking at almost 30 months where they could continue to spend everything, not get a single dime, and be "fine". If that's not an example of the absolute failure of trickle-down economics, I don't know what is.

john_b 12y ago
If you want to argue general economic principles, then do so [1]. Just don't cherry pick examples to prop up your perspective. I don't think anyone, even Reagan or Thatcher, would have stood behind the assertion that a luxury phone and computer maker with a hoard of cash would benefit the poor. You're attacking a strawman here. [1] Just keep in mind that "trickle-down economics" is a political philosophy, not an economic one: http://www.tsowell.com/images/Hoover%20Proof.pdf http://www.tsowell.com/images/Hoover%20Proof.pdf (footnote on page 2)
- hnnewguy 12y ago
  >that a luxury phone and computer maker with a hoard of cash would benefit the poor. If they were forced to re-patriate and pay taxes on that cash, how could that not "help the poor"?
  - alphakappa 12y ago
    Repatriate what? Income that was earned overseas?
  - djrogers 12y ago
    >If they were forced to re-patriate and pay taxes on that cash, how could that not "help the poor"? That would mostly benefit politicians and their beneficiaries, not exactly 'the poor'. Very little of the $$ spent by the government helps 'the poor', unless you're counting our severely underpaid military.