Apple Newsroom, yesterday:
“Today, Apple is proud to report a remarkable, record-breaking
quarter, with revenue of $143.8 billion, up 16 percent from a year
ago and well above our expectations,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.
“iPhone had its best-ever quarter driven by unprecedented demand,
with all-time records across every geographic segment, and
Services also achieved an all-time revenue record, up 14 percent
from a year ago. We are also excited to announce that our
installed base now has more than 2.5 billion active devices, which
is a testament to incredible customer satisfaction for the very
best products and services in the world.”“During the December quarter, our record business performance and
strong margins led to EPS growth of 19 percent, setting a new
all-time EPS record,” said Kevan Parekh, Apple’s CFO. “These
exceptionally strong results generated nearly $54 billion in
operating cash flow, allowing us to return almost $32 billion to
shareholders.”
John Markoff, writing for The New York Times 20 years ago:
It may not be the last laugh, but on Friday afternoon, after the
close of the stock market, Steven P. Jobs, the chief executive of
Apple Computer, shared an e-mail chuckle with his employees at the
expense of Dell, a big rival.The message was prompted by the 12 percent surge in Apple’s stock
price last week, which pushed the company’s market capitalization
to $72.13 billion, passing Dell’s value of $71.97 billion.In 1997, shortly after Mr. Jobs returned to Apple, the company he
helped start in 1976, Dell’s founder and chairman, Michael S.
Dell, was asked at a technology conference what might be done to
fix Apple, then deeply troubled financially.“What would I do?” Mr. Dell said to an audience of several
thousand information technology managers. “I’d shut it down and
give the money back to the shareholders.”On Friday, apparently savoring the moment, Mr. Jobs sent a brief
e-mail message to Apple employees, which read: “Team, it turned
out that Michael Dell wasn’t perfect at predicting the future.
Based on today’s stock market close, Apple is worth more than
Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow,
but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve.”
Upton Sinclair coined the oft-cited maxim “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” I propose a corollary: It is difficult to get a company to see that certain of its core competencies are in severe decline when the company is making more money than ever.
