“Apple is at the threshold of becoming the largest US-based technology company and may soon become the largest technology company in the world,” Eventide writes for Seeking Alpha.
“This post details the unit sales for the Apple iPhone, iPod and Macintosh personal computers over the most recent eleven fiscal quarters and iPad unit sales for the five fiscal quarters the product has been in commercial release,” Eventide explains. “Apple’s dynamic growth is fueled by three major product lines while the Apple iPod, once Apple’s flagship product line, slowly fades into history as the product that sparked the company’s renaissance and set the stage for what is now the Apple industrial era.”
Advertisement: Limited Time: Students, Parents and Faculty save up to $200 on a new Mac.
Eventide reports, “In Apple’s current fiscal year (FY 2011) ending in September and the fiscal year beginning at the end of that month, unit sales of the iPhone and iPad will generate more than two-thirds of the company’s reported revenue. Both of these products were introduced to the market within the past five years. The popularity of Apple’s iOS-based devices, including the Apple iPod touch, has masked the fact that the Macintosh line of personal computers has become a more than $20 billion global business and in FY 2012 close to 20 million Macintosh computers may be sold.”
Much more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “David E.” for the heads up.]
The article cites the iPod as “the product that sparked the company’s renaissance and set the stage for what is now the Apple industrial era.”
I thought it was the original iMac or OS X: everything Steve was cooking up at NeXT.
Neither the iMac nor Mac OS X sparked a renaissance.
The iPod, iPhone and iPad sparked interest in Apple products. Prior to those devices the Mac platform was still in the doldrums.
The original iMacs stopped the hemorrhaging, and provided the cash-flow for Apple to reach the next step 😉 in its renaissance, OS X. OS X was the foundation, but not the spark. The iPod was the spark where mass-market adoption of an Apple product first became a reality.
^^ This. +1
+2
iPod is the correct analysis. iMacs were good, and OS X was good, but both were updates to legacy products. The iPod was Steve Jobs’ first step in the re-invention of Apple. The little mp3 player was an early declaration that innovation was back at Apple, and that the war was no longer Win vs Mac or Intel vs PPC. The new war was to be about moving the computer off the desk and lap, into people’s hands and pockets.
When you think about how long ago that started with the iPod, Apple had the patience of Jobs to slowly advance their tech agenda. And wait on hardware that would make the software work the way they wanted. And I think that’s where Microsoft failed most is not paying attention to the fact the hardware was coming along to enable all kinds of software innovations. They weren’t planning for the future, were not challenging themselves. Microsoft is a company more than happy to go with the status quo as long as stagnating tech still brings them in loads of money. Why endanger their revenue streams? This is why they will fail and now the threat of a caught up Apple, with the one-two punch of huge financial resources and no fear of huge change, has put the fear of God into them. Apple potentially at the crossroads of winning the whole game right from under them in their fearlessness.
But as always we hope Ballmer stays, for as long as it…
I bought AAPL before and after the original iPod was released! Best thing I ever did. Ride the Apple Tsunami!
Toss up between the iMac and OSX
Easily OSX, in my opinion.
Apple Stores sparked the company’s renaissance. Prior to the stores Apple products used to hide at the back of computer shops covered in dust, which didn’t exactly shout “Buy Me!!”.
Exactly
On the verge of becoming the largest us tech company? What tech company is larger? I guess they are judging by number of items?
Yea, there are different ways of measuring “largest” or “biggest”.
Name the biggest waterfall in the world and you get five different answers. All correct answers.
iPod for me was the fire under the rocket of Newton III. Now known as the iPhone.