“Apple seems to have some big things cooking up,” Dan Gallagher reports for The Wall Street Journal. “Whether they are big enough is the $10 billion question.”
“That’s how much Apple spent in research and development for the fiscal year ended Sept 24. It is an eye-popping sum, greater than the annual revenue of about 43% of the companies on the S&P 500 roster. It is also a 25% increase from the previous year,” Gallagher reports. “Still, all things are relative for the world’s largest company. Apple’s R&D spending was less than 5% of its total revenue for the year. That is the lowest by far among the 10 largest tech companies by market cap.”
“To be sure, simply throwing money around doesn’t guarantee innovation,” Gallagher reports. “Still, $10 billion shows some fairly sizable bets on the table. Apple can easily afford more.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple gets more bang for their R&D buck than any of the other top 10 tech companies.
“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have.” — Steve Jobs
When the Macintosh was introduced, IBM was spending 100 times more on R&D than Apple.
We have the strongest pipeline that we’ve ever had and we’re really confident about the things in it. But as usual, we’re not going to talk about what’s ahead. – Apple CEO Tim Cook, October 25, 2016
SEE ALSO:
Analysts: Apple’s innovation will pay off… eventually – October 26, 2016
A radically different Apple looms; R&D reveals the company’s largest pivot yet is coming – May 11, 2016
Apple’s massive R&D expenditure indicates myriad projects in the pipeline – April 27, 2016
Apple gets much more bang for its R&D buck than Google and other tech companies – November 30, 2015
Massive R&D increase suggests Apple is working on something huge – May 4, 2015