Apple doomed… to make money, hand over fist, judging by Q1 2015 results
iPhone maker reports biggest quarterly profit ever, by any public company
Ongoing narrative surrounding Apple never really seems to change, as technology pundits clamour to party like it’s 1995. Apple is doomed and beleaguered, and every quarter we see predictions that it’s sure to abruptly find itself in a tailspin at some point very soon.
That certainly didn’t come with Apple’s Q1 2015 results, which weren’t only a record for Apple, but for any public company, ever. Previous record holders dealt in oil and gas, but Apple and its gadgets blazed past with a mammoth US$18billion in profit.
To break that down in terms that are a touch less abstract, that’s over US$8million per hour, every day, even when Tim Cook’s asleep and Jony Ive is locked in his white room.
iPhone up; iPad down
Naturally, however, it’s some kind of legal requirement to somehow flip all this success into negative spin, so we should point out: iPad sales declined (21.4 million, down 4.6 million on the same quarter last year), which pundits have argued could be down to ‘cannibalisation’ from the iPhone 6 Plus; Apple’s share of the smartphone market remains utterly dwarfed by Android; and the iPod now sells so poorly, it’s been relegated to ‘other products’ in Apple’s financials.
We should therefore probably stop before noting: if anyone’s going to ‘steal’ sales from your company, it’s probably best if it’s another part of your company; marketshare doesn’t count for much unless you’re making profits; and even the iPod, on death’s door, remains a multi-hundred-million dollar business per quarter.
Doomed…
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