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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.
All it means is that you pay WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY too much for their products.......
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.
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.
They are paying 26% tax. It's right there in the filing.
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
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?
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.
$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.
Amazon: .1% operating margin.
Apple: 29.3% operating margin.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
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.