“Apple made $20 billion off of its customers last year — right under our noses,” David Goldman reports for CNNMoney. “With so much focus on how many iPhones, iPads and Macs Apple sells, it’s easy to forget that Apple continues to make a ton of money on its customers even after” the initial hardware sale.
“For the first time ever on Tuesday, Apple pulled back the curtain on its services revenue, revealing that it sold $19.9 billion worth of services to customers in 2015, up 10% from a year earlier.,” Goldman reports. “What Apple loves about its services business is that it compounds as people buy more gadgets — it isn’t tied to the ups and downs of quarterly iPhone, iPad and Mac sales.”
“Apple said its customers are now carrying around 1 billion “active” devices, which are Apple gadgets that people interacted with at least once in the past three months. ‘This is an unbelievable asset for us,’ Cook said Tuesday on a conference call with investors. ‘Because our install base has grown quickly, we have also seen an acceleration in… what has become one of the largest service businesses in the world,'” Goldman reports. “Cook noted that Apple’s services business is now larger than most Fortune 500 companies’ annual overall sales. On its own, Apple’s services would be No. 148 on the list, generating more sales than Southwest Airlines, Starbucks and the Gap.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple has a license to print money.
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