Apple holding more cash than USA

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Apple now has more cash to spend than the United States government.

Latest figures from the US Treasury Department show that the country has an operating cash balance of $73.7bn (?45.3bn).
Apple's most recent financial results put its reserves at $76.4bn (?46.9bn).


If it fails to extend the current limit of $14.3 trillion (?8.7tn) dollars, the federal government could find itself struggling to make payments, and risks the loss of its AAA credit rating.

The United States is currently spending around $200bn (?122bn) more than it collects in revenue every month.

Apple, on the other hand, is making money hand over fist, according to its financial results.

In the three months ending 25 June, net income was 125% higher than a year earlier at $7.31bn (?4.6bn).

Spending spree

With more than $75bn (?35.8bn) either sitting in the bank or in easily accessible assets, there has been enormous speculation about what the company will do with the money.

"Apple keeps its cards close to its chest," said Daniel Ashdown, an analyst at Juniper Research.

Industry watchers believe that it is building up a war chest to be used for strategic acquisitions of other businesses, and to secure technology patents.

Bookstore Barnes and Noble and the online movie site Netflix have both been tipped as possible targets, said Mr Ashdown.

The company may also have its eye on smaller firms that develop systems Apple might want to add to its devices, such as voice recognition.

Apple dipped into some of its reserves recently when it teamed-up with Microsoft to buy a batch of patents from defunct Canadian firm Nortel.

The bidding consortium shelled out $4.5bn (?2.8bn) for more than 6,000 patents

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Linky


Steve should go nuts... "We're building an Apple store, on Mars"
 
I was talking about this earlier with a friend.

I suggested that Steve Jobs buy the country and relocate the seat of government.

iDaho, iOwa, iNdiana or iLlinois?

If not Bill Gates and call it the MS[SUP]TM[/SUP] of A?
 
Ever since Steve made his return in the early 90's, they've made sure they have done well financially. High margin on items helps as well.
 
I was talking about this earlier with a friend.

I suggested that Steve Jobs buy the country and relocate the seat of government.

iDaho, iOwa, iNdiana or iLlinois?

If not Bill Gates and call it the MS[SUP]TM[/SUP] of A?

:idiot:
 
Ever since Steve made his return in the early 90's, they've made sure they have done well financially. High margin on items helps as well.
Apple is somewhat strange in the tech market. It used to be that it was a low volume high margin computer company that really managed to survive only due to the graphic design and A/V industries. Now they are a high profit margin high volume in the personal electronics business and they are starting to get a larger hold on the PC market as well, I think they are #3 computer manufacturer right now? Their prices are pretty much on par with others (even in the PC sector, premium brands tend to cost about as much as Apple does and often don't include everything that Apple does) but they manage to keep their margins higher than anyone due to insanely efficient manufacturing and huge volume discounts.

Funny thing is that Apple thinks of itself as a software company (there was a huge interview with SJ and BG on all things D where it was one of the things that SJ said) and their primary focus is their OS X and iOS offerings. They are very atypical in the tech world where volume is usually king.
 
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