The numbers are simply staggering. The iPhone pulled in just over $200B in revenue for Apple last year. Just the iPhone. As a stand-alone entity, the

Apple Admits the Obvious

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2024-11-12 22:00:06

The numbers are simply staggering. The iPhone pulled in just over $200B in revenue for Apple last year. Just the iPhone. As a stand-alone entity, the device would be the 15th largest on the Fortune 500, just behind Cardinal Health and just ahead of Chevron. Yes, the iPhone is bigger than an oil company.1

That reminds me, a decade ago I wrote a post entitled: Apple, The Oil Company? Even back then, Apple was posting earnings that corporate America had never seen before. In fact, the only companies that were even close were the big oil companies. As such, my tongue-in-cheek point was that in order to keep growing the business beyond the iPhone, Apple might need to tap into the ground and become an oil company. In the intervening 10 years, they have yet to do that,2 but they have gone down a couple other paths that could have padded those top and bottom lines: cars and cash.

The car project, despite billions spent and years gone by... not so much. The various money projects have gone better, with Apple Pay seemingly taking over the world, but Apple itself becoming a bank has also hit some roadblocks.