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Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

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Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#31
post #19

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.

Their costs are controlled at the scale at which they operate at.

A competitor may be able to offer something similar, but without the scale, their prices will likely be equal to or greater than apple's.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#33
post #21
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…

> Meaning that $74.6 billion[2] is enough to buy Apple 12 nuclear carriers You can't buy a single operational carrier for that price.

Do you mean that they're not for sale, which is obvious, or are you saying the true price is different? How different?

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#34
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…

Even their profit is enough for 3 Nimitz class super carriers.

Then they can REALLY sink their competitions ;)

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#35
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd say that getting away with building a huge navy would be the hard part.

Korea will be happy to supply the steel bits, the rest is going to be a lot harder. Brings the snowcrash world a little closer though. Apple vs Microsoft round #3 would be interesting.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#36

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).

Why bother comparing iOS to Android as a measure of success? If you do, you should only compare products in the same price range. Apple products are a premium and will never have majority market share of small margin price range.

Also Samsung's phone business is doing poorly financially.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#38

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).

I think much of that 70% number is downmarket. Apple's competition is primarily Samsung, as well as the premium devices offered by Motorola, HTC, etc. (Though to be fair, I wonder how much of Apple's 30% is from older phones costing $99 or less with contract)

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#39
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…

I prefer multiples of the Apollo program when discussing Apple's finances. In 1973, NASA reported to Congress that the entire Apollo program cost $25.4 billion ($131.4 billion in 2013). It's useful when quantifying Apple's cash on hand, which is currently > 1x Apollo.

With the quarterly revenue, they could probably reenact Apollo 11, since each launch was ~$350 million pre-inflation. If you're only doing one, a lot cheaper.

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