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Apple Makes $831 On Each AT&T iPhone
Ponca City, We Love You writes "The NYTimes reports that Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, has studied Apple's financial statements and come to the conclusion that AT&T is paying Apple $18 a month, on average, for each iPhone sold by Apple and activated on AT&T's network — up to $432 over a two-year contract. This shows how much incentive Apple has to maintain its exclusive deal with AT&T rather than to sell unlocked phones or cut deals with multiple carriers. Last week Apple disclosed that 250,000 iPhones had been purchased but not registered with ATT that Apple thinks are being unlocked so Apple has now taken action to curb unauthorized resellers by limiting sales of the iPhone to two per customer and requiring that purchases must now be made with a credit or debit card — cash will not be accepted." The latter article links to a US Treasury page explaining the incorrectness of the widely-held belief that cash cannot be refused for any transaction.
Can iPods be far behind? After all, how many iPods are out there that never downloaded a single track from iTMS? WE CAN'T ALLOW THIS!
By not accepting cash, Apple shows that customer's privacy means absolutely nothing to them -- and that they're not the Good Guys they try to make themselves out to be.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Sale price minus cost to build DOES NOT EQUAL profit. There is R&D, marketing, infrastructure costs (Infinite Loop & retail stores rental space, electricity, etc), associated shipping and packaging costs and oh yeah, Apple has this thing called EMPLOYEES that it must pay for.
As an AAPL stockholder, let me point out to you on Slashdot who actually owns corporations. It isn't rich, white fat cats twirling their mustaches. Two thirds of all publicly-traded stocks in the USA are owned by the small investor, either directly or through some sort of investment fund. And this is good, since I'd rather have Americans looking out for themselves than on the public dole, which pays less and is bankrupting America (and most of Western Europe) due to changing demographics.
My father, on disability for the last 15 years, has taken a $50,000 investment in Apple in the early 90's and, thanks to Steve Jobs, turned it into over $1,000,000. And the last thing he or any other AAPL stockholder needs is someone on Slashdot whining about how much Apple "makes" with your fuzzy math and socialist sympathies.
If you don't like Apple's products or business model, DON'T BUY ITS PRODUCTS. DO NOT PRESUME TO TELL A COMPANY THAT HAS PERFORMED WONDERFULLY FOR ITS STOCKHOLDERS (GOD BLESS STEVE JOBS) HOW TO DO ITS BUSINESS. THAT IS CALLED ARROGANCE.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
What a stupid fucking article.
I'm sure we are going to hear of someone sooner or later filing a complaint or lawsuit against Apple over requiring resellers to no longer accept cash... As printed on all U.S. Currancy, "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE"... That statement alone could be used to fight the no cash payment options at least here in the states... Apple just keeps shooting themselves in the foot over the I-phone both with negative P.R. and legal mis-steps...