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Sunday, January 29, 2012

Show is going on!

Apple reported its highest quarterly revenue and profits number ever. It briefly surpassed  Exon Mobil as the most valuable company in the world. Its cash reserves are sufficient to buy the top tech companies (refer pic) at 10% premium. Its revenues are greater than GDP of 105 countries in the world. And its profits are equivalent to the profit of Google, Intel, Microsoft and Yahoo combined. The picture below from WSJ summarizes it accurately.

Putting this into perspective with something I wrote in 2009 - The show must go on. Well indeed the show is going on.  Since then Apple's revenue have grown from a modest $10 Billion to $46billion in the quarter ending 31st Dec 2011. Cash reserves have grown from $28 billion to $97 Billion and gross margins have increased substantially.

And of course the juggernaut keeps amazing us each day. Apple has continuously kept changing their business model before people could fathom and created an enchanting eco-sphere for all their products and services. IT JUST WORKS!! And thats where the idiosyncratic Steve comes in. He was able to see/approve the model, much before anyone else could. Tim Cook, handpicked by Steve Jobs himself has taken over the reigns seamlessly. And he is got a tremendous team in Phil, Scott, Oppenheimer and Williams to take on the mantle. 

But its still too early to do away with the concerns raised in my earlier post - The current product portfolio and product pipeline can easily sustain the momentum for roughly another 2-3 years. And things will be pretty smooth till that time. Apple though needs to continously reign over and change the paradigm as it has been doing. It has got some amazing people who are capable of doing that but will they be crazy enough to do it? The answer I am hoping will be YES!!

P.S: I had a brief debate with Ankush on which company has bigger impact on our lives - Apple or Google. Well my obvious answer is Apple simply because they created the PC world in which the need for Google arose. And even if people don't use Apple products directly most of the tech products today are reflection of Apple's though leadership in design and technology. So, vote you heart out  on the Poll available on the right nav of the blog. 

2 comments:

Ankush Singla said...

Bhai, going by your logic, IBM should be the one selected for making biggest impact to the human mankind for inventing computers. 'cause Apple followed the process started by them.

Yuvraj Singh said...

IBM never universalized the concept of PC. Apple did! And technically they never invented Personal computer (PC). They invented only Computer if you will. Apple was the first company which believed that Personal computer can be used by general public and that it has far more reaching impact on the world. If for IBM, only the select few would have access to the computer even today!