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Apple's Market Cap Exceeds Google's
Lawrence Person writes "Mac Daily News was one of many Apple-followers to note that Apple Inc.'s market capitalization exceeded Google today. That means that the combined value of all Apple's outstanding shares of stock exceeded the combined value of all Google's outstanding shares of stock. Apple's stock is worth $157 billion and change vs. Google's $156 billion. Other companies Apple has surpassed in market cap include Cisco, HP, and Intel. Also, Apple is now worth 3 times the value of Dell Computer, despite Dell's founder and CEO declaring over a decade ago that if he ran Apple, he'd 'shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.'"
How can a company with $24B in sales, $3B in profit, and $40B in cash and assets (2007 figures) have a market cap of $160B?
Most companies trade at a P/E much, much greater than 1. Historically, a P/E of 14 counts as "fair value", the point considered neither high nor low. For comparison, the average for the tech sector as a whole varies over time between 40 (at the height of the bubble) and 25 (currently in that range). Apple, at 35, falls a bit higher than its sector, but not so much that you'd call it extreme.
Google provides services for free?
You've got the model backwards. *You* (and I) are the products Google is selling to advertisers. The freebies are just fluff to keep the product happy.
It's a fair model, and I sound more cynical than I actually am, but it's worth remembering in any dealings with companies like Google.
Huh? It's right in their 10-Q under Operating Expenses.
With Dell it is always "devil in details."
Apple has the "attention to details" thing on their product development plan.
I understand that most geeks only look at specs.
But I also consider day to day routine important. And for many things Macs with Mac OS X are magnitude better compared to Dell with Vista. Devil in details, so to say.
Point is, newly bought Mac is ready out of box for average Joe Six-Pack. Newly bought Dell with Vista has to be brought to your geek friend to make out of it something the Joe Six-Pack can use.
You can't like Dell - because it is albeit useful but only a tool. But you can like Apple products because they are made to be liked. And they are also useful. That's why I can easily imaging that some people might get religious over stuff which "Just Works" (c).
P.S. To be frank, I have seen the Macfanboism only in US. US is in particular over-religious place. People get there religious over different things all the time. Apple is literally religious about making good stuff, so some people start following: and it is only logical.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
I see you worship at the church of Apple.
Or, maybe he provided a well thought-out list of specific, quantifiable, verifiable reasons why Apple is a company worthy of respect. You might want to go re-examine "worship" in the dictionary. (Hint: It does not mean "someone who disagrees with me.")
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
>McDonald's food sales compare with the profits from the sale of its unwanted real estate and so on.
Ray Krog is on record as stating that McDonald's core business is PROPERTY - not burgers. As he put it: everyone I ever met can make a better hamburger than McDonalds- none of them are rich though.
What McDonalds did so well was to let you finance the cost of the franchise (with it's massive brand recognition and marketing power) by using the bond on the property where you wanted to put it. The result is that McDonalds corporation now owns many of the most valuable street corners in all the biggest cities in the world: and that lets you finance any other investment you care to make. When the franchise no longer works in the region (it became less residential and more commercial as an area) - you can rent or sell out the property you got there at massive profits over the cost of giving somebody a franchise there ones.
If the franchise never fails, you ultimately end up earning not only repetitive franchise-fees but rent on the property as well !
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *