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Tim Cook: What's Good For the US Dollar Is Bad For Apple
theodp writes: For years," Charles Erwin Wilson famously said back in the day, "I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa." That was then. This is now. The Washington Post reports that a strong U.S. dollar is the biggest threat to Apple's business around the world. "The dollar has shot up about 22 percent against a trade-weighted basket of other currencies since the middle of 2014," explains Matt O'Brien. "And in Apple's case, that's meant what would have been $100 of foreign sales in September 2014 was just $85 by the end of 2015. That's not good when you get two-thirds of your revenue overseas." Apple blamed the strength of the dollar compared to other currencies for costing it $5 billion in revenue, "For perspective, that difference is the size of an average Fortune 500 company," quipped CEO Tim Cook.
Oh wait, you're serious, let me laugh even harder.
Having a strong currency is not always entirely in the national good. Sure, it's generally better than a weak currency (which is often a sign of political instability and a lack of international confidence in a country's prospects), but it does cause its own kind of problems. In particular, it can hurt exporters, as it costs overseas customers more to buy their goods.
The strength of the Deutsche Mark was often problematic for German industry. That's one of the reasons why Germany has been so enthusiastic about adopting the Euro, which gives it a significantly "weaker" currency than it would have otherwise, and locks it into currency parity with most of the rest of its regional bloc.
I'll be cautious and save my answer for the next time we discuss these same news in a couple of days.
Tim, iPhone sales are down for two reasons
1. The smart phone market is over-saturated.
2. Every bugger that wants an iPhone, has an iPhone.
Stop trying to claim that things like sotck market fluctuations, El Nino, IS or Zika are to blame.
Summation 2
They produce all their products overseas, they sell most of their products overseas, and they hide all their money overseas.
What part of this company is American anyway?
It has Irish bank accounts rammed full of iPhone money
And that's why a strong US dollar hurts them; it's not just lost revenue on future sales, its lost value of past revenue.
while constantly moaning that it can't bring any of that into USD unless Uncle Sam gives a big tax discount.
And good ol' Uncle Sam's response was to bolster the local economy and boost the value of the US dollar, basically saying "it's better to pay taxes when the exchange rate is high than play stupid games until it tanks".
I don't say it often, but when I do, I mean it: The US Government made the right call. I'm sure Apple has lost more value in the money they've kept overseas by now than they'd have paid in taxes, hopefully that is a lesson learned.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
just like people do.
No actually people don't. Many people aren't in fact sociopaths and are happy to simply earn a normal living and pay taxes in the normal way without attempting to jump through vast hoops with offshore accounts and etc to avoid contributing to society.
Many people actually understand that civilsation is built on taxes and can think beyond MINE MINE MINE MINE.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
just like people do.
No actually people don't. Many people aren't in fact sociopaths and are happy to simply earn a normal living and pay taxes in the normal way without attempting to jump through vast hoops with offshore accounts and etc to avoid contributing to society.
Many people actually understand that civilsation is built on taxes and can think beyond MINE MINE MINE MINE.
You're missing the point here. People are those that are rich enough to also hide their money overseas to avoid taxes. The rest of us are just consumers (i.e. not people). 8-)