Apple vs MS: less than $5B to go
What jumped out at me this week following the quarterly results from Microsoft and Apple is just how close these two companies are getting in revenue terms.
I’m so used to dismissing the Apple vs. Microsoft rhetoric, for a number of reasons, of course, but also because, for years, Apple has been a fraction of Microsoft’s size. But when a poor quarter for Microsoft lines up with a record one for Apple, the story suddenly gets interesting.
Microsoft saw Q4 revenue fall 17% and come in at $13.1B, all the while taking some big hits to earnings across all businesses. During the same period, Apple had their best non-holiday quarter ever (Hello? Someone tell Apple there’s a recession on…) and recorded $8.34B for the period. What’s more, Apple is expecting next quarter to come in at $8.7-8.9B. Wow.
Apple is shaping up to be a $32B+ company this year, and is posting some impressive growth during these tough times. Where Microsoft still trounces them is in profitability, with $3.05B of that $13.1B going directly to the bottom line, a healthy 23% margin. Apple, meanwhile, eked out “only” 15.5% during the same period. Microsoft has always been a machine that prints money and this appears to show no signs of stopping.
Sure, the $4.8B difference this quarter is a *lot* of money. But another soft one from MS (they missed targets by $1B through June) and a solid one from Apple and these guys could be within a few billion of each other. I can’t remember the last time these two companies were this close.
http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090723/microsoft-disappoints/?mod=ATD_iphone
