Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results • Hacker News Board

Well yes but its more than that. Apple's iPhones when it comes to the smartphone industry make up a large proportion of the entire industry's profits even though they don't sell as many phones or have as much sales in proportion to the industry. [1]

[1] http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/11/04/apple-continues-to...

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#15

Post by liquidise » Tue, Jan 27, 2015, 10:16 PM UTC

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #3

Cookingboy wrote: post #2

This is pretty insane, I think $18 billion in quarterly profit is the largest ever for any corporations. Also the revenue from iPhone business alone now exceeds Microsoft and Google combined.

Yep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_corporate_profi...

Always amazed by the lists one can find on Wikipedia. The largest losses also tell an interesting tale.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#16

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Jan 27, 2015, 10:16 PM UTC

ykl wrote: post #9

Sometimes just to wrap my head around really large numbers like this, I like to put things in units of aircraft carriers. The US Navy's last finished carrier cost $6.2 billion[1], meaning that $74.6 billion[2] is enough to buy Apple 12 nuclear carriers, a.k.a. a nuclear carrier fleet larger than that of the US Navy. Of course this is an inaccurate and very silly comparison[3], but at least for me it does give some se…

Buying aircraft carriers is the easy part. Maintaining and staffing them is the hard part but it's a nice unit to use right next to libraries of congress and stationwagons full of tapes.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#17

Post by aaronbrethorst » Tue, Jan 27, 2015, 10:18 PM UTC

Some interesting tidbits in the earnings call (http://www.macrumors.com/2015/01/27/apple-earnings-1q15/)

* Apple Watch is coming in April

* 39.9% gross margins

* 1 billion iOS devices sold since 2007

* 97% csat for iPhone as measured by Changewave

* Mac revenue was $6.9 billion

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#18

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Jan 27, 2015, 10:19 PM UTC

Samsung will do their earnings announcements on the 29th, it will be interesting to compare those two side-by-side.

Apple is doing extremely well on the margins but they have actually lost ground when going by the numbers (~30% market share now vs ~70% android).

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#19

Post by pdknsk » Tue, Jan 27, 2015, 10:19 PM UTC

It shows that margin on Apple products is too high. This leaves plenty of room for some company to come into the market and steal their customers. That it hasn't happened shows the strength of Apple. They make products people will pay premium for.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#20

Post by coralreef » Tue, Jan 27, 2015, 10:21 PM UTC

jusben1369 wrote: post #7

I think these results are amazing. Kudos to Apple. And now I'm going to be "that guy" on HN. iPad is off 18%. So now Apple really is living and dying by a single product? I mean it's amazing how well they are doing with "just" one product but technology tastes seem so fickle that it's an interesting predicament to be in.

They don't live and die by one product. Its just that one product is ridiculously more successful than the rest. This makes their stock value more volatile, but as a company changes not much. The iPod was once the crown jewel, then its sales dwindled and now its been absorbed into a new form factor.