Apple has long said that it wants to run its app and media stores at break-even, but the volume of transactions on iTunes has become so huge (check out the graph, above) that even at a tiny margin, Apple appears to be making a substantial profit on content. This data comes from mobile analyst Horace Dediu. Here’s his breakdown of Apple’s profits on bits, not atoms:
Apple $AAPL has long said that it wants to run its app and media stores at break-even, but the volume of transactions on iTunes has become so huge (check out the graph, above) that even at a tiny margin, Apple appears to be making a substantial profit on content. This data comes from mobile analyst Horace Dediu. Here’s his breakdown of Apple’s profits on bits, not atoms:
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Now, next to a net income of over $40 billion in 2012, that’s still hardly game-changing. But it appears that the well-worn trope—that Apple is a hardware company that practically gives away everything else—is no longer true.
