Liz Gannes

Recent Posts by Liz Gannes

China Now Accounts for 16 Percent of Apple Revenue

One of the standouts from today’s Apple earnings call was the level of insight new CEO Tim Cook gave into Apple’s emerging markets, particularly its blockbuster growth in China.

China, which is the company’s second-largest market, accounted for 16 percent of Apple’s sales during the past quarter, with $4.5 billion in revenue, a year-over-year increase of 270 percent.

By comparison, in fiscal 2009 China accounted for only 2 percent of Apple revenue. Now “the sky is the limit,” Cook said.

Meanwhile, Cook said, Brazil was up 118 percent year over year, Russia looks “promising” and the Middle East should be a “significant opportunity.”

Apple is not launching as full an assault in other countries as in China, Cook noted. The company’s approach in China is basically the same as in the U.S., with six retail stores, 200 approved resellers, an online store and advertising. Other countries only have “portions of that” so far, Cook noted.

Around the world, Apple has 40,000 iPad points of sale, 50,000 for the iPod and 120,000 for the iPhone, Cook said.

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said Apple plans to open 40 new stores in fiscal 2012, with three quarters of them outside the United States.

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Just as the atom bomb was the weapon that was supposed to render war obsolete, the Internet seems like capitalism’s ultimate feat of self-destructive genius, an economic doomsday device rendering it impossible for anyone to ever make a profit off anything again. It’s especially hopeless for those whose work is easily digitized and accessed free of charge.

— Author Tim Kreider on not getting paid for one’s work