Apple is world's first publicly traded company worth $1tn

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/08/03/apple-is-worlds-first-public.html

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And that’s just the profit off of one iPhone X!

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Oh this one’s a two-fer!

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It’s actually NOT the world’s first $1 trillion publically traded company - just America’s.

The first was Petrochina, way back in 2007!

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Proof positive that a market crash is coming.

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This is not a diversified company. They exist only by fanatically devoted customers willing to pay huge profit margins for one product, and if it were cash rather than built into cell contracts even that seems unlikely. They seem remarkably vulnerable to a market disrupting new product, just like the ones they themselves are known for. Anyone remember Blackberry?

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Fake news!
USA! USA! USA!

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you should get some updated data, that chart is a year and a half old. This is revenue, not net (couldn’t find a net income breakdown) but as you can see, the revenue percentage from iPhone dropped from 69% in 1Q17 to 56% in 3Q18. Services and Other are growing at ~30%, and that’s what’s driving the stock price.
24%20AM

Neither could I, which makes me suspicious. Revenue does not equal profit. I would not be surprised if the share of profit from phones is way higher than even on the graph I linked.

You know what bugs me about this? Base 9 vs base 12 I think the smart kids call it. The “Trillion” is actually only 1 billion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion

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That explains why they’ve essentially dumped all of their pro users.

For a while, selling high end machines to graphics pros was a key market. They bought up high end software for photo, audio and video production and post production to sell top computers. Then they just abandoned it. :frowning:

It does seem pretty tenuous to have a trillion dollar business based almost entirely off of the cache of their phone line.

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Yeah, “services” that are based largely on the penetration their sales of iOS phones. So their revenue is still dependent on their iPhone market share.

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Note that their share is only 15%, so a 5% shift against them in the overall market, if say a mind blowing new product appeared just like theirs traditionally have, could mean a 33% drop in their entire business.

Not really, no. In Q1 2017, somewhat, but tech moves quickly. Apple knows quite well that iPhone sales won’t support the company indefinitely. They’re putting much more emphasis on other devices (Watch, AirPods), Apple Music, healthcare services, and the Apple Car than they used to and those segments are growing fast. They’re also promising to launch a new Pro line next year and I very much hope it’s worth waiting for.

As an Apple fan in the mid-late 90s, this is a fucking miracle that, despite what they’ve become (I wouldn’t describe myself as a “fan” anymore), puts a small amount of warmth and pride in my heart. We did it! We kept them going, and they “won”! And without Jobs they’ll probably blow it again, but the market is mature enough now that there will always be other options.

Is there a rule of online discussions that someone has to claim this on every Apple thread, always?

I mean, I was coming here to make such a snarky remark, but you beat me to it.

Now I feel obsolete as planned.

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Well then, it’s a good thing they killed off the App Store Affiliate Program, or they may have gone under. /heavy s

(edit) Just found this… it’s fun: http://whatifiboughtappleinstead.com/

Can you provide actual net profit numbers for those businesses?

Apparently! But when people are willing to pay, as was recently stated in the Android thread, 20x as much for a phone that really does very little more, what else is there to say?

I am neither an Apple employee nor a business analyst with that information, so of course not. What I am is an Apple shareholder who’s aware of where they’re shifting their resources and what segments they’ve said have been growth areas for them.

iPhones do not cost 20 times that of a comparable Android device, by any possible measurement.

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Not even my observation, it was said in the recent Android thread by someone who picked up a Moto E4 for $50 prepaid to tide them through while their iPhone was being repaired.

Projects and resources devoted do not necessarily equal profits. if I recall correctly GE a while back looked great, but it turned out to be a profitable bank with dozens of unprofitable manufacturing businesses attached. When banking imploded so did GE.

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