While the global economy is still on shaky terrain, Apple is having a good 2012. In the first quarter, the tech behemoth sold 35 million iPhones-an 88 percent increase from last year, representing 59.7 percent of Apple's overall sales-and 11.8 million iPads. These sales nearly doubled Apple's profits, and sent Apple's stocks up 7 percent, up $40.55 to $600.83 yesterday. Demand for the newest model of the iPad has led to shortages, and the product remains the company's fastest-growing one-since the first iPad hit the market in 2010, they've sold 67 million. It took the company 24 years to sell a comparable number of Macintosh computers. The company's cash reserves, now totaling $110 billion, could fill 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools with dollar bills, as The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal points out.
"It is mind-boggling that we could do this well," Chief Executive Tim Cook said in a Wall Street analyst conference call.
The Latest
- EU braces for battle over 2013 budget The Financial Times
- The Chamber of Secrets The Economist
- Why the United States Isn't Europe The Atlantic
- James Cameron's Trillion-Dollar Question Bloomberg Businessweek
Chart of the Day
European Union members signed a pledge to keep their 2013 budgets within targets to keep deficits in check, but that is going to mean further austerity measures that could spell more bad news for the economy. "Achieving deficits of no more than 3% of GDP by next year is not achievable for a large number of euro-zone countries," said Marie Diron, Oxford Economics' director of macroeconomic forecasting. "In many cases, this crisis is the opportunity to implement structural changes to public finances that would have not been possible otherwise. But pursuing fiscal objectives at all costs is extremely damaging to growth."
Reason to Get Out of Bed in the Morning
Filling in for frequent news slow jammer Bri-Williams, President Barack Obama-the "Preezy of the United Steezy"-put an R&B spin on his student-loan stump speech on Jimmy Fallon last night.
-NBC
