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Apple Posts $18B Quarterly Profit, the Highest By Any Company, Ever
jmcbain writes: Yesterday, Apple reported its financial results for the quarter ending December 27, 2014. The company posted $18 billion in profit (on $74 billion in revenue), the largest quarterly profit by any company, ever. The previous record was $16 billion by Russia's Gazprom (the largest natural gas extractor in the world) in 2011. Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones last quarter, along with 5.5 million Macs and 21.4 million iPads.
I wonder which country Apple are paying tax on that profit?
Oh wait, they are based in Ireland and pay no tax at all. Silly me.
Who runs on 4% margins that has any choice at all in it? There's nothing more moral or good business about razor thin margins. If you run at single digit margins you have absolutely no ability to invest in development.
Yes, they could still make more profit then anyone else -- because everyone else is putting out crap that isn't profitable, sustainable or with the economics of scale factoring into production.
That last bit is important. Samsung can match it, but they do so by making many products and they're suffering a lot lately on making money via that strategy. They're keeping share, absolutely, but making money is waning.
Apple margins are high relative to its bottom-feeding competitors partly because they are leveraging scale. They make very big deals over long terms, invest in suppliers and buy out supplies for years (Yes, at a premium rate, someone's going to mention the sapphire plant that went bust: they signed onto a deal they couldn't execute and you blame Apple? Please.)
As to the comment on taxes, I don't know what it means but it makes me think you don't know how taxes work.
It shows that by making bug-free products, offering long term support, providing great value, acting fully ethically, and listening to your customers, can make you a fair amount of money.
Given that Apple doesn't do any of these, does that mean that you consider their profits unfair?
It just goes to prove no one is irreplaceable; not even Jobs.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I am sure some people think software developers are overpriced, but I am not going to walk into my managers office and tell him to give me a pay cut.
If they were "overcharging", they wouldn't be selling as many. Amazing how the free market works isn't it?
So half of all smart phone buyers in the US constitute a "small niche"?
$18 billion profit, but they can't afford to make their phones in a country with decent labour laws. Nope, can't do it. The numbers just don't add up I tell you. Apple are the apotheosis of psychopathic corporate greed, at the expense of any human decency.
yeah, and i wonder just how much tax they will avoid paying
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Not necessarily. The market rewards companies that demonstrate an ability to outproduce or out-innovate their competitors. I'm not arguing that's necessarily the case with Apple, but a company that reaps large profits doesn't necessarily indicate a broken system.
In my opinion, the best indication of a broken market is a company whose customers hate their guts yet still manage to reap huge profits. That's an indication that legitimate competitors are somehow being kept out of the market, either because of leverage/buyouts, artificial monopolies, cartels, or whatever. Capitalism is a pretty decent economic system compared to the alternatives, but anyone who thinks it's infallible isn't paying attention.
The people that buy Apple products tend to like them, enjoy using them, and regularly upgrade their products with new purchases. Whatever faults Apple has, it's hard to argue that their success is completely illegitimate.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
While I know the comment was meant to be sarcastic, it sort of backfired, because the reason for Apple's success is that they do all of those, *on aggregate*, to a greater extent than any other company.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
yet we never hear about how bad the "rich" apple is, yet oil companies are lambasted for their "obscene" profits. I wonder why that is???
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
as much as they can, like any smart company/ person.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I've never understood the true-Apple-fanboi approach to these figures, which is always joy and pride, like they've somehow "won"? The amount of times I've heard people proudly tell me how Apple has the highest profit margin on their phones - a phone which the person who is telling me this is holding - truly makes me shake my head. I can't think of many other scenarios where people are proud that they paid more for their device and the people who sold it to them paid less to make it.
When did "I win because I got ripped off the most!" become a sane argument?? By all means, be happy the company is stable and will stick around to make more devices for you or will money to invest in future devices but for goodness sakes, people, stop being proud that you're being ripped off!?
I just wish Apple would use a small fraction of that profit to rewrite itunes, from scratch.