And that is revenue. Guess margins is the main question.

eyelidlessness · on Nov 30, 2020

That’s pretty easy to ballpark. Everything Apple does targets a whole package 25-30% margin. If the services aren’t generating that margin, the hardware is making it up. Last I heard the iPhone is on that margin target, as are all or nearly all macs. So it’s pretty reasonable to assume the services are pretty close in line.

toyg · on Nov 30, 2020

Services actually hover in the 60% gross margin, vs 30% for hardware. But they sell so much hardware that the overall profits are still 80% from that.

Source: https://sec.report/Document/0000320193-19-000119/

Dylan16807 · on Nov 30, 2020

> whole package margin

> If the services aren’t generating that margin, the hardware is making it up.

I really don't like that way of looking at profits.

Going by that standard, if you sell a thousand dollar device with $260 in margin and no software, everything is great.

But then if you add on $600 in software to increase your margin to $330, that's bad somehow?

eyelidlessness · on Nov 30, 2020

Huh? I wasn’t making a value judgment at all, just observing Apple’s historical behavior. That is how they look at profit. And they move all sorts of revenue around to make certain price points more appealing. Mac mini gets cheaper at entry level, macOS is free. To the extent those are lower margin, they make it up in services or other hardware lines.

Dylan16807 · on Nov 30, 2020

Huh? I wasn't judging you at all, just insulting Apple's historical behavior, how they look at profit.