Apple Makes More On iPhone Than Google Makes As A Whole

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iPhone and Android fanboys love to fill blog comments and message boards in their religious holy wars against each other. Here’s some new fuel to the fire – Apple makes more money on the iPhone alone than Google makes in the entire company. Hard to believe, but it’s true. It’s a point raised by Fortune magazine’s Andy M. Zaky.

In his own form of trolling, Zaky wrote a piece for Fortune magazine, the thesis of which is basically “Don’t worry about Android’s increasing marketshare numbers, because Apple is still gaining users.” To put it simply, Android has eclipsed the iPhone’s marketshare, generally speaking, but it’s not the end of the world for Apple because they’re losing small amounts of marketshare in a market that’s getting bigger. They’re getting a smaller piece of a bigger and bigger pie – and the smaller piece is still bigger than the piece they had before from the last pie.

But, Zaky’s damning point – the one that’s sure to stab every Android fan in the heart, is the point that the iPhone alone is making more money than the entirety of Google (search, Android, Maps – the whole kit and caboodle). Zaky writes:

For 2011, Google is expected to report about $27 billion on the top line compared to the iPhone’s expected $48.2 billion in revenue. The iPhone as a business is nearly twice the size of Google’s entire operation. This is a financial reality rarely illuminated in these so-called “platform market share” articles where Apple investors are supposed to be “deathly afraid” of the Android operating system…

Our own research shows that Zaky’s numbers are correct. In their latest 10-Q filing with the SEC, Apple reported $10.4 billion in net iPhone sales for the quarter ending on December 25, 2010. For Google, in their 10-Q filing, they reported $8.4 billion in net revenue for the whole company.

So yes, Apple is making more money with iPhones alone than Google is with the search engine and the whole nine-yards.

Still, Zaky seems to dismiss Android and Google. Yes, Mr. Zaky, Apple does know what they’re doing in the mobile space, and they have a great product that’s in no danger of going away. But, Android has become extremely popular, among consumers and manufacturers. Android phones can compete at $50 and $100 price points that the iPhone can’t. To completely dismiss the explosive growth that Android has seen in the past two years is a bit ignorant.

Hit up the source link to read Zaky’s piece for yourself.