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Apple Posts $18B Quarterly Profit, the Highest By Any Company, Ever

Posted by Soulskill on from the all-about-the-benjamins dept.

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.

65 of 534 comments (clear)

  1. Tax by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Tax by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Apple has invented a really fabulous business model, which was previously monopolized by the churches and governments. They take a bi-yearly Apple-tax from their believers by making devices which have planned obsolescence.

    2. Re:Tax by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      you have a partially valid point, however apple don't pay anyone any tax (at least nothing of significance), e.g you have countries like Australia where apple did 27 billion in revenue and paid tax of less than 200 million, this is repeated in countries all around the world. china is probably doing the best out of them compared to most countries as at least they get a shit load of low paid jobs from putting there shit together. It is a result of poor ethics from apple and broken tax laws.

    3. Re:Tax by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 5, Informative

      They are paying 26% tax. It's right there in the filing.

    4. Re:Tax by ihtoit · · Score: 2

      26% tax on 0 turnover... is 0.

      (no I haven't read the filing, I just know how these tax dodges work).

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    5. Re:Tax by ihtoit · · Score: 5, Insightful

      because it trades on the US market, mayhap?

      Simple rule: if you trade on the floor, you pay the fucking rent.

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    6. Re:Tax by CastrTroy · · Score: 2

      Apple does sell plenty of high priced devices that the government collects sales tax on. In my country, they also collect taxes on all the apps, music, and movies sold in the Apple marketplace. So in a way, the government makes a lot of tax money from Apple. If Apple had to pay taxes directly, they would thy would just pass that cost onto the customer anyway; it would really just result in higher prices.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    7. Re:Tax by namgge · · Score: 2

      No, you clearly don't.

    8. Re:Tax by tehcyder · · Score: 2
      But the point is that Apple's profit is extremely high and so it should be paying a proportionately large amount in tax.

      It's not some dodgy set up like Amazon, which has huge turnover but genuinely makes losses and so pays minimal or no tax. (Which in any other industry would mean it was bankrupt).

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    9. Re:Tax by smash · · Score: 2

      Actually, they're not. You can claim expenses on your tax return if they were incurred to perform your duties at work.

      --
      I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
    10. Re:Tax by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Company tax is not based on revenue, it is based on profits.

      That's only income tax. There are sales taxes, VAT, tariffs, use taxes, port fees, gas taxes, etc.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    11. Re:Tax by tehcyder · · Score: 4, Informative

      I thought I'd check, and in their 2014 annual accounts, Apple showed tax payable of $14 billion on a net profit of $40 billion. Unless this is just some totally fictitious accounting entry, I'm not sure where you get the idea that they don't pay any tax.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    12. Re:Tax by ganjadude · · Score: 2

      funny. when it comes to most people, the actual dollar amount never seems to matter. The fact that the top 10% of americans pay almost 70% of all the taxes collected by the feds never seems to matter.

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    13. Re:Tax by rioki · · Score: 2

      What is so wrong about selling a good product at reasonable price. Now I will agree with you that Apple devices are spec wise not at the leading edge and price/value wise not the best sell. But they are withing reason comparable to other high end products. What I must give them; or rather Steve Jobs, is the fact that they/he embraced the "it just works" mantra and many people want that. Now I like my Android the way it is: open; but issues with apple devices are only rarely seen. Granted it comes at the cost of buying expensive preapproved and compatible components, instead of bargain components. For all accounts I can not see any real evil doing on the part of Apple; and no walled gardens are not evil...

    14. Re:Tax by rioki · · Score: 2

      Just for people who are incapable of actually putting their arguments of facts, here are the numbers: Net Income is 18,024 and the Taxes payed are 3,869. This turns out to be 21.4%. This is not no taxes, even if the actual figure is rather low.

    15. Re:Tax by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      I've looked at the filing. As another poster pointed out, 26% of nothing is nothing.

      What is the dollar amount of tax paid? Give me an actual number.

      Potato

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    16. Re:Tax by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 5, Informative

      It looks to me like you've got this wrong.

      According to this Forbes article from 2013, Apple routes all non-US sales revenue through Ireland. That's sketchy on the part of both Ireland and Apple, and offensive to all the other countries that get no cut from Apple's sales within their borders.

      According to this financial statement, Apple paid $9.48b in current US income tax in 2014, $2.15b in current foreign income tax.

      Pooling everything, in 2014 Apple had pre-tax income of $53.48b, $13.97b total income tax, for a net income of $39.51b.

      I don't know how those numbers compare to other large corporations, or "socially responsible corporations", or whatever you want to compare to. But claiming that Apple routes US sales revenues through Ireland, or that Apple doesn't pay tax on its profits, appears to be completely false.

      If I'm misinterpreting these numbers, please post corrections.

    17. Re:Tax by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 2

      Oh, for...

      A corporate tax filing reports corporate taxes, not "income taxes paid by employees".

    18. Re:Tax by Jeremi · · Score: 2

      Yeah, they should, like, disrupt themselves and adopt a paradigm shift to a leaner, more agile model.

      Rand Paul for ScrumMaster 2016!

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    19. Re:Tax by west · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We don't even have to debate the evilness of walled gardens

      Evilness? The walled garden is the *reason* I buy Apple products. The only annoying thing is that they don't set the walls highs enough. If they would charge a few hundred dollars per app submitted, they could (1) examine apps more closely, (2) do it faster, and (3) eliminate the millions upon millions of garbage apps that clutter the app store with the expectation it might make a few bucks.

      Sure, there exists the theoretical possibility that a good app might not get submitted, but the reality is that if you don't believe in your app enough to put a few hundred dollars behind it (or find anyone else to), it's unlikely to be a very good app. Almost all successful apps have a minimum of $50-100K behind them already.

      Some modest barriers to entry are a *good* thing for the vast majority of consumers. And for those who really, really want the choice? They've got a jillion Android phones to choose from. No one is forced into the walled garden.

    20. Re:Tax by zieroh · · Score: 2

      Apple's sales revenues in the US are routed through this holding company in Ireland

      This statement is 100% false. You're entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.

      --
      People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
    21. Re:Tax by zieroh · · Score: 2

      China and other international markets are now also there biggest revenue source.

      Then why was Americas revenue listed as ~$30B and Greater China revenue listed as ~$16B?

      If you read the quarterly announcement, you'll see that international sales made up 65% of revenue. "China and other international markets" is in fact a larger proportion (by revenue) than the US.

      --
      People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
    22. Re:Tax by MachineShedFred · · Score: 3, Interesting

      So when Tim Cook sat in front of a Senate Finance committee, sworn in and under subpoena, and said that they paid almost $6B in taxes in 2013 he was lying?

      Why isn't he in jail if he lied to all those Senators under oath, on something so easily disproven?

      Or are you just misinformed and wrong? I think we know which is more likely.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    23. Re:Tax by Rob+Y. · · Score: 2

      The indictment applies equally to all those other corporations as well. If you know of examples, make them public. But Apple - as the most profitable of the bunch - has a higher profile. Sorry if that affects their public relations. Walmart is hated for a lot of the stuff it does too. Is Target any better - possibly, but probably not by a lot. But Walmart gets all the 'biggest retailer in the world' publicity, so they bear the brunt of criticism of what all the 'biggest retailers' do.

      No companies should be allowed to pull this shit. So excusing Apple for doing what they all do is kind of disingenuous. Why not instead indict the government for allowing it. Even if you think taxes are too high, the appropriate response to that is to try to lower rates - not to enable dodges.

      --
      Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
    24. Re:Tax by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 2

      That subsidiary appears to be managing cash assets. Now, last time I checked, Apple was sitting on an absurd pile of cash, and I'm sure income from it is non-trivial. But it's still likely a drop in the bucket compared to total corporate income, which IS taxed at significantly higher than 0%.

      Bottom line, Apple paid corporate income tax equal to 26-odd percent of their pre-tax income. Feel free to argue that they should be paying more, or less, or exactly that amount. But if you're trying to imply that Apple "doesn't pay tax", or that all (or even most) of their profits are "taxed at 0%", you're just sowing confusion.

    25. Re:Tax by dnavid · · Score: 2, Informative

      Which is the amount they couldn't find a way to avoid. Their profits would be taxed at around 40% in the US, but they funnel them to Ireland (the famous "Double Irish") and pay 0% on them. What they do pay is made up of sales tax, employment taxes, and tax on things like property that they can't pretend does not exist in any taxable jurisdiction.

      This is somewhat misleading. The US is special in that its the only country that actually taxes income that isn't even earned in the country. Most countries will tax someone on the income generated in the country, but not tax income generated outside the country. That includes both corporations and *people*. If you are a US citizen and you go outside the country and earn income, you're required to pay US income tax on that income, even though it was earned entirely outside the country. To repeat: that's something practically unique to the US.

      The US does provide an exception: if that income was already taxed by another country, you're allowed to declare that because you already paid taxes on that money to someone else, you don't have to *also* pay taxes to the US. Again: that's not just for corporations like Apple, but also for individuals.

      Apple is required to, and does pay US income taxes on net income it earns in the US: it cannot simply "funnel" the income to another country to dodge taxes, and everyone saying that simply is confused or mistaken. If that was possible every corporation would do it and no one would pay any taxes. What companies like Apple *can* do, however, is a) pay taxes on that income in another country, particularly one with a much lower tax rate and b) don't bring the money back to the US, where they would then have to pay US tax on it.

      Is this "dodging taxes?" Yes. But not really *US* taxes. The countries with the biggest beef with Apple are really European countries for whom Apple doesn't pay taxes on income generated in those countries because that revenue is funneled into Ireland. But that money would *not* be "taxed at around 40% in the US" because if Apple didn't funnel that income to Ireland (where it has special sweetheart deals that Ireland gave to many companies, to the chagrin of many other EU countries), it would then be taxed in the individual countries it was earned, and the US would still not see a dime of it.

      As to dodging taxes by not explicitly transferring that money earned overseas back to the US? It has yet to be explained why a company that earns money overseas has an obligation to transfer that money to the US explicitly for the sole purpose of paying US taxes on it, and for no other reason. That's simply illogical.

      But as to the income Apple generates in the US by its business operations in the US: for the most part, it pays taxes on that income just like every other corporation.

  2. Good job! by jones_supa · · Score: 4, Funny

    Those are amazing numbers. 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. Their secret sauce? Bringing the real engineers to the spotlight.

    1. Re:Good job! by Swistak · · Score: 3

      Irony flew right past you on this one.

    2. Re: Good job! by Rational · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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
  3. It is hard to know what to think by TrollstonButterbeans · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Apple arguably makes the best phones and when using Android phones you notice little things here and there that aren't quite a nice, but these are rather rare and mostly insignificant.

    It feels strange that Apple is making such a profit with a rather smallish that may be 12% of the market and no particularly eye-popping new products since the Steve Jobs era, just a series of well-engineered refinements.

    Then again, certain shoe and apparel companies do this and have done this for decades. Seems odd to see this in technology sector that historically has been very market-share, volume and dominance oriented. However historically, this was the method employed since the early days of Apple (premium pricing).

    --
    Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
    1. Re:It is hard to know what to think by TrollstonButterbeans · · Score: 2

      So it would seem. I think the Windows distribution model causes the hardware to have razor thin margins and the OEMs to fight each other. No wonder Jobs made sure to kill Mac clones in the 1990s.

      --
      Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
    2. Re:It is hard to know what to think by swb · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It feels strange that Apple is making such a profit with a rather smallish that may be 12% of the market and no particularly eye-popping new products since the Steve Jobs era, just a series of well-engineered refinements.

      I think you underestimate the "eye-popping" value of the 6 Plus screen size among consumers. I've owned every new iPhone since the 3GS and despite waiting a couple of months after the release date, still had a backorder time of 6 weeks when I ordered a 6 Plus. That hasn't happened for any other model.

      It may not have been an eye-popping change in absolute technology terms or geek credibility, but what would be and would consumers care? There's too many constraints on size and battery life for more much more than incrementalism.

      Plus I think all smartphone vendors want to maintain the current niche paradigm for these devices -- the consumer understands the "role" of the smartphone in their larger electronics ecosystem.

      I think it will take someone willing to gamble on the idea of a dockable phone that can be used with KVM as a PC and/or tetherable to a "screen only" tablet to really shift the paradigm a lot. Apple could do it since they control the whole ecosystem but likely want to protect their product segments from sales loss, x86 is too power hungry and Windows failed on RISC and with Metro.

      Google seems likely since they aren't specifically tied to given CPU and so much of Chrome is web-focused. Maybe Project Ara is sort of the start of this to sort out the modularity aspect so that you can assemble an Android/Chome system from parts or dock components with other components.

    3. Re:It is hard to know what to think by NatasRevol · · Score: 3, Informative

      Maybe you should bother to look so you don't sound like you're an idiot.

      Revenues from hardware - $69.8B
      Revenues from other(iTunes) - $4.8B

      Net profits (not broken down) - $18B

      Even if 100% of revenues from iTunes was profit (i.e. no cost to run the App Store), it's still less than 1/3 of total profits.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  4. Taxes by Interfacer · · Score: 4, Funny

    And they paid $12 in taxes.

  5. 18B on 75B by houghi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That is 24%. That means your device could be 20% cheaper and they would STILL make more money then anybody else in percentage per product in the electronics world.
    So instead of 500USD for the Ipad2, you could be paying 400USD and they would still make money.

    And some people don't think Apple is overpriced.

    I bet the before and after tax is the same. Legal? Yes. Moral? Nope.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    1. Re:18B on 75B by Ixokai · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:18B on 75B by Ixokai · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Look, someone compares market wants to religion. Again. Because they can't fathom that people decide to buy things with reason and knowledge behind their choices.

      No. It *has* to be the Cult of Apple, nothing else explains why someone makes a different choice from you.

      The funny thing is, you say we're the religious ones. Your faith fails to work as you want and predict the reality you experience, so we're the cultists. Its us who are irrational, not you who say things should be different from how things are.

      Good luck with that.

    3. Re: 18B on 75B by Karlt1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That is 24%. That means your device could be 20% cheaper and they would STILL make more money then anybody else in percentage per product in the electronics world.
      So instead of 500USD for the Ipad2, you could be paying 400USD and they would still make money.
      And some people don't think Apple is overpriced.

      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.

    4. Re:18B on 75B by toomanyairmiles · · Score: 2

      Apple's Gross Margin is 39.9% - Samsung's is 39.87.

      Compare that to Microsoft's at 61.71%, IBM's 53.34%, Blackberry's 51.70%, and Red Hat at an eye watering 84.35%.

    5. Re:18B on 75B by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.
    6. Re:18B on 75B by smash · · Score: 2

      The free market does work. What you, and a lot of others don't seem to understand is that things like after-sales support, firmware update, cloud services and tight integration with your other devices are worth real money to people. None of those things would exist if apple was operating on the same margins as their competitors.

      --
      I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
    7. Re:18B on 75B by ninetyninebottles · · Score: 2

      I think some of what you write is exactly what is wrong with the PC industry. There is more to quality that the amount of RAM or disk space, there is also the quality of the components. Don't get me wrong, Lenovo uses pretty good hardware for the most part, but there is a reason Apple crushes everyone else on consumer satisfaction, hardware failure rates, and DOA rates every year in Consumer Reports. The last numbers I recall, Apple scored 86 versus Lenovos 63 out of 100 for overall laptop quality.

      The problem is geeks focus on easy to find and compare numbers like RAM and disk size and ignore things like reliability. Stores advertise based on these numbers and make recommendations based on them. As a result, most computer makers are racing one another to the bottom and trying to by the biggest cheapest disk out there and the biggest crappiest RAM out there, etc.

      Apple gets away with quality hardware mostly because they've already differentiated themselves in the market with a different OS, while all the other makers are competing with one another but they differentiator for consumers is price. Chromebook's might be the only exception, and barely at that.

  6. yeah.... by SuperDre · · Score: 5, Funny

    All it means is that you pay WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY too much for their products.......

  7. And all this without Jobs by msobkow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  8. Re:inflation embiggens numbers by afidel · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, this is really an absurd profit, Standard Oil's net profit from 1882 to 1906 was $838,783,800 equal to roughly $22B today, so on an inflation adjusted basis Apple's quarterly profit was nearly equal to the majority of the lifetime profits of one of the classic robber baron trusts.

    --
    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  9. Headline is flat out wrong by WWJohnBrowningDo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The highest by any publicly traded company, you mean. I'm pretty sure Saudi Aramco is at the top with annual profits estimated at a whooping $182 billion. Where else do you think the terrorists and the Bush family keep getting all that money from?

    1. Re:Headline is flat out wrong by coinreturn · · Score: 2

      The highest by any publicly traded company, you mean.

      Well, yeah. Private companies don't tell you how much they make.

  10. Re: to apple fan boys by Karlt1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Guess, how they are most profitable? Obviously nothing to do with overcharging you, NOHOHO, NOT AT ALL.

    If they were "overcharging", they wouldn't be selling as many. Amazing how the free market works isn't it?

  11. Asian success was not unexpected by Camembert · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I live since a few years in Asia (first Singapore, now Hong Kong). 3 years ago I saw lots of people with iphones in de metro, gradually this shifted to mainly big Samsung phablets which are really popular here. Switcher friends told me that they liked their iphone 4/4S but they simply like a bigger screen more.
    Now, the iPhone 6 Plus is (very visibly in the metro) stealing customers back from the Android camp, often these are switching back buyers.
    I did ask a few colleagues about their switch back, the general opinion is that while they needed to unlearn a few Android habits, they thought that the Apple gear worked very well, and (ALWAYS a factor mentioned by the lady colleagues) they thought that the iphone was simply a beautiful, elegant device.

    I upgraded 2 months ago from a 4S to the 6 Plus myself. I am not so impressed by hateful online arguments (nor do I have a problem with Android phones), and it must be said that it works indeed very smoothly. It is still just about portable and the comfort has made me almost abandon my old ipad (between the 6Plus, and the small MAcbook Air the ipad sits now a bit uncomfortably). Also, the camera is remarakable. Without doing scientific tests, I have the impression that the general image quality is akin to my old Nikon D200 (without the nice bokeh of course), the pictures are more than good enough for most casual uses.

  12. Re: to apple fan boys by Karlt1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So half of all smart phone buyers in the US constitute a "small niche"?

  13. Slave Labour is certainly profitable by taylorius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    $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.

    1. Re:Slave Labour is certainly profitable by TrollstonButterbeans · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What electronic products do you use that are made in a country with decent labor laws? And what about your clothes and shoes?

      Are you setting a positive example for this world like you promised?

      --
      Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
    2. Re:Slave Labour is certainly profitable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I was going to say that the Mac Pro is manufactured in the US, but then I saw that you asked for decent labor laws.

    3. Re:Slave Labour is certainly profitable by taylorius · · Score: 2

      I'm using a PC, it was assembled in the UK, but as you point out, the components were surely made in the far East.
      So what? Is your point that because we all use computers, and wear clothes that were made by workers in terrible conditions, that it is wrong to criticise those conditions?

      I never said Apple were the only company that does this, but they are the biggest, and they have the largest gulf between their polished, doing-good-for-all image, and the reality.

  14. Re:inflation embiggens numbers by Dragon+Bait · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, this is really an absurd profit, Standard Oil's net profit from 1882 to 1906 was $838,783,800 equal to roughly $22B today, so on an inflation adjusted basis Apple's quarterly profit was nearly equal to the majority of the lifetime profits of one of the classic robber baron trusts.

    The U.S. population in 1906 was 85,450,000 compared to 2014's population of 322,583,006. Apple is definitively a world wide, global corporation. Did Standard Oil reach as far.

    Sorry, but you don't have much of a comparison here.

  15. Re:inflation embiggens numbers by Barsteward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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)
  16. Re: to apple fan boys by Gavagai80 · · Score: 2

    If they've litigated away their competitors, why do their competitors have most of the market share by volume?

    --
    This space intentionally left blank
  17. Re:inflation embiggens numbers by smash · · Score: 2

    Depends what inflation numbers you are using, i'd say that comparing such things just leads credence to the thinking that the treasury is massively under-reporting real world inflation due to their habit of selectively excluding figures that aren't in-line with their desired reporting.

    --
    I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
  18. Re:inflation embiggens numbers by ganjadude · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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
  19. per Wikinvest by rmdingler · · Score: 5, Informative
    Walmart: 5.5% operating margin.

    Amazon: .1% operating margin.

    Apple: 29.3% operating margin.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  20. Re:to apple fan boys by Gumbercules!! · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!?

  21. Why is this flamebait? by pablo_max · · Score: 2

    Seriously, why is this guy's comment flamebait? Apple does this. They move billions of euros through Ireland to avoid paying any taxes.
    I find it curious that so many Slashdoters have no problem when a company uses all the advantages of society and yet refuses to contribute to keeping the society going. In this case, literally racking in billions upon billions in profit while barely contributing to the tax base.

    Why do you think this is a good thing?

    I work for a small company. We have only about 80 people. So, while we may not make as many jobs as Apple does we do pay our taxes. We also still have a profit.

  22. Re:Apple cheats their investors too. by nedlohs · · Score: 2

    Are you really that stupid, or do you just play a moron on the internet? http://investor.apple.com/divi...

  23. use it to fix itunes by jcgam69 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I just wish Apple would use a small fraction of that profit to rewrite itunes, from scratch.

  24. Re:inflation embiggens numbers by agm · · Score: 2

    Tax is not ethical. Legally avoiding it is not unethical.