Putting Apple’s Monster Quarter Into Perspective

As you probably heard, Apple today announced first-quarter earnings (its first fiscal quarter is Sept.-Dec.). And you probably also heard that it was a blowout quarter — beating even the most aggressive analyst estimates.

Here are the main bullets. More important, I’ve included below a few factoids put together by MG Seigler at TechCrunch that put these numbers into perspective. Some of them are simply mind blowing.

The main points:

— Revenue: $46.3 billion
— Profit: $13.06 billion
— Gross margin: 44.7%
— Cash or cash equivalents on hand: $97 billion
— Revenue from Retail Stores: $6.1 billion
— iPhones sold: 37 million
— iPads sold: 15.4 million
— iPods sold: 15.4 million
— Macs sold: 5.2 million
— Total iOS devices sold to date: 315 million

Now for some context, a few notes of comparison to other companies, industries and historical earnings announcements:

— Apple added $38 billion in cash to its reserves just in the past year alone. Apple’s cash hoard alone is worth more than all but 52 companies on Earth

— Apple earned more money last quarter than the entire company was worth (in terms of market cap) just eight years ago

— Walmart has more than double the revenues of Apple, but Apple has more than four times the profits of Walmart.

— Apple’s profits place them on this exclusive list of the most profitable quarters among corporations. You’ll note that Apple is the only company on the list that’s not an oil and gas company.

— Microsoft’s most recent quarter saw record revenue of $20.9 billion. Again, Apple came in at $46.33 billion. Microsoft’s net income was $6.62 billion. Apple’s was $13.06 billion.

— The iTunes Store alone generated 50 percent more revenue than all of Yahoo did last quarter

— The amount Apple paid to third-party developers via the App Store last quarter ($700 million) is more than double Yahoo’s overall profits.

— Apple’s profits for the last quarter exceed Google’s entire revenue for the last quarter. Apple’s profit for the entire year now beats Google’s revenue for the entire year.

— Apple’s stock popped nearly 10 percent from where it closed at the end of the day. Since then, it has settled back into the $450-a-share range. That surge also pushes Apple well beyond the $400 billion market cap — and once again past Exxon as the most valuable public company in the world.

— At over $400 billion, Apple is now worth more than Greece.

— Apple’s profit last quarter was $3 billion more than all of Hollywood’s gross box office receipts for all of last year.

— With 37 million iPhones sold last quarter, Apple is now the largest smartphone marker, besting Samsung’s (guesstimated) 35 million.

Simply remarkable