FEATURE
TheiPod Classic was
a huge hit for Appleuntil late 2004, when they shot up
like a rocket. The fourth financial
quarter of 2004 is actually the
moment before the iPod rocket
exploded. It is, in fact, the last
quarter in which the Mac was the
majority of Apple’s business. (That’s
right – the Mac has been a minority
component of Apple’s overall
revenue for 15 years.)
The revenue mix in late 2004
was 52 percent Mac, 23 percent iPod, and 25 percent
other products. In the fourth quarter of 2002, Apple
sold 836,000 Macs, more than it was selling five years
earlier. But it also sold two million iPods, a number that
would double in the next year.
Apple was growing overall, too. The growth in
iPod sales meant that Apple generated $2.35 billion
in revenue – but only $106 million in profit. Apple’s
explosion in profit growth was to lag behind its
explosion in revenue growth, at least a little bit.2009: The iPhone takes off
In 2009, the Mac was doing better than five years
earlier, and by a lot – Apple sold 2.6 million Macs in the
fourth quarter of 2009, three times the number it sold
during that quarter five years earlier. And yet, for all