The Parthenon is worth less than an apple. But not just any apple, the one from Cupertino. The company founded by Steve Jobs closed yesterday's session with a capitalization of 497 billion dollars (about 380 billion euros). It's not too difficult to do the math. The aid package promised to Greece is worth 130 billion euros and the Italy-saving reform of the Monti government is around 30 billion. This means that Apple worth a bailout from Athens and almost 8 Italian measures.
The Gartner research institute, one of the most important research companies in the technology sector, this morning announced the data on the sales of mobile phones and smartphones. The company led by Tim Cook confirmed its leadership in the sale of smart-phones with the largest market share, 19% of total sales in 2011. Driven by the release of the 4s, in the last three months of 2011 Apple sold 35,5 million iPhones: a 121,4% increase over the same period last year. With a share of 23,8% of total sales in this last period of 2011, it was Apple that allowed the mobile phone market in Europe to return to positive growth and to mark an increase of 47,3% compared to the same period of 2010.
The quarterly figures are also encouraging. Combined earnings more than doubled those of the fourth quarter of 2010 to $13,1 billion and revenues increased 73% to $46,3 billion. The benefits of Apple are worth about 6% of the revenues of the S&P 500 in the last quarter of 2011 and this makes the Californian group the largest contributor to the US 500 largest company index hikes. According to many analysts, over 10% of the overall increase recorded by the S&P 500 in 2011 (+7,4%) is attributable to Apple. And today the Apple is worth about 3,8% of the index. The company also has its weight on the Nasdaq and is worth 16,6%, more than Google, Intel and Amazon combined.
Read the news on Wall Street Journal
