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Day: May 4, 2011

The trouble with halos

The Mac grew at 28% while the overall PC market contracted at 3%. The Mac has outperformed the PC market overall for 20 consecutive quarters.

Prices increased sequentially and year-to-year.

I’ve mentioned the increasing shift of Mac mix to portables as a possible reason for the growth of the business. The Mac was one of the first to move to a portable form factor and has been pushing portability over performance for many years.

The following chart shows the relationship between growth and portable mix: Continue reading “The trouble with halos”

Combating superlatives fatigue

The following chart shows Apple’s growth for net sales and earnings over the last few years. I’ve used a grading system with color coding to show bands of growth.

It’s easy to become de-sensitized to the scope of these numbers, but it bears repeating: the growth has been steadily increasing since 2009.

These abstractions in growth can also be shown in a direct “before-and-after” view of the income statement.

This latter view gives an idea of how much bigger the company’s business is now vs. a year ago. Not just on the revenues but also the cost of these revenues and what is retained.

This story never gets old.