since it doeans't make much sense to bring it into the USA and buying HTC or Samsung - thats stupid stupid and would not be allowed, the next best thing might be to spend some of it buying spectrum. Getting the iPad out from under carriers around the world and creating an Apple network for their devices. I'd start with the UK. Also buy up content for the Apple TV and Apple HDTV. Trouble is a lot of this content is owned by US companies. Sony has a lot of it though.
Also going after rights to soccer, sport and so on would really add to the allure of iOS and put pressure on Netflix, Hulu etc as well
Imagine Apple having the exclusive rights to most of NBA, Golf, The Masters, World Tennis Grand slam, English soccer, Formula One. The list is endless and thats mainly the English market, what about South America and Asia. Most of these wouldn't cost more than couple of billion each for multi year deals and they could make money back by selling through iTunes.
I think they will buy (or do a cash deal with) a provider like Direct TV. Like they did with AT&T for the iPhone. Apple will make the new iTV the standard for one provider, with lots of new services and ease of use. And acquire lots of content deals in the bargain.
Start with one provider and then expand. Sell Direct TV and move on to another. Today Direct TV has a market cap of $31B, and Apple could finance a good portion of the purchase price; it would probably take about 10% of their cash to get this rolling. Direct TV's PE is about 14, so Apple would be earning a lot more than they are currently with their cash holdings.
Ummm... move jobs back to the US and build the iPhone here?
The fact that they employ Sinclair Jungle-esque slave labor camps in China sickens me.
As an American, I would love this. But Apple's CEO and board isn't looking at the interests of Americans- it's in the interest of the shareholders. It's a company- that's how it works. You can always not invest or not support their products- that's all we can do. I like their products too much.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zoetmb
No...I don't think that's correct. I think you get to deduct the taxes that you paid overseas when you bring the money home. Any tax experts here?
They do. They would be in the 35% tax bracket in the US. So if they paid 17% tax in country X, they would only pay 18% (for easy math) at home as their previous 17% is deducted. So they will pay no more than 35% for having the money in the US. But a previous poster was right when he said why bring it back- they have 34 billion in the US now and they aren't doing anything with it.
Ummm... move jobs back to the US and build the iPhone here?
The fact that they employ Sinclair Jungle-esque slave labor camps in China sickens me.
Yes, that would be nice. Unfortunately not logistically feasible. The production lines needed to produce 411,000 iPhones a day last quarter to keep up with demand. Where would you build such a facility? We're would you get the production workers, the engineers, and everyone else to do this. Yes in time, maybe in 10 years you could move this operation here. Then you would have all the delays due to environmental studies, union activities, U.S government mucking about, not to mention all the politicians fighting for the chance to land a gold mine like this in their state. Maybe 20 years.
What Apple could do is set up a smaller operation to make U.S. made products available to those willing to pay more for the distinction. It would be interesting to see how many Americans would actually speak their position with their wallets.
How about they give it all to the big banks. They have fallen on hard times as of late. There senior managers have not been very creative lately in figuring out how to get more of their customers. I really do feel bad for them. Come on Tim step up and do the right thing here.
Yes, that would be nice. Unfortunately not logistically feasible. The production lines needed to produce 411,000 iPhones a day last quarter to keep up with demand. Where would you build such a facility? We're would you get the production workers, the engineers, and everyone else to do this. Yes in time, maybe in 10 years you could move this operation here. Then you would have all the delays due to environmental studies, union activities, U.S government mucking about, not to mention all the politicians fighting for the chance to land a gold mine like this in their state. Maybe 20 years.
What Apple could do is set up a smaller operation to make U.S. made products available to those willing to pay more for the distinction. It would be interesting to see how many Americans would actually speak their position with their wallets.
With 97 Billion in the bank and 13 billion in profit this is easy.
The workers exist here in the states. The only reason people say they don't is that they'd rather use cheap slave labor and they're trying to rationalize it.
If they built the factory here they'd have to turn people away the demand to work there would be so high,
Yes, that would be nice. Unfortunately not logistically feasible. The production lines needed to produce 411,000 iPhones a day last quarter to keep up with demand. Where would you build such a facility? We're would you get the production workers, the engineers, and everyone else to do this. Yes in time, maybe in 10 years you could move this operation here. Then you would have all the delays due to environmental studies, union activities, U.S government mucking about, not to mention all the politicians fighting for the chance to land a gold mine like this in their state. Maybe 20 years.
What Apple could do is set up a smaller operation to make U.S. made products available to those willing to pay more for the distinction. It would be interesting to see how many Americans would actually speak their position with their wallets.
It was recently estimated that manufacturing the iPhone in the USA would cost $46 more than doing it in China. With gross margins of 45% on a $600 device (about $260 gross profit on each 16G phone), that would be affordable for Apple.
Rather than us paying $246 for a 16G iPhone, perhaps Apple could suffer a smaller profit, like only 30%, which would exceed every other electronics company? After all, if little ole Brazil can insist (successfully) that Apple manufacture iPhones and iPads there, why not the USA? Because we don't care if the 99% have good jobs, that's why.
It was recently estimated that manufacturing the iPhone in the USA would cost $46 more than doing it in China. With gross margins of 45% on a $600 device (about $260 gross profit on each 16G phone), that would be affordable for Apple.
Rather than us paying $246 for a 16G iPhone, perhaps Apple could suffer a smaller profit, like only 30%, which would exceed every other electronics company? After all, if little ole Brazil can insist (successfully) that Apple manufacture iPhones and iPads there, why not the USA? Because we don't care if the 99% have good jobs, that's why.
How about they give it all to the big banks. They have fallen on hard times as of late. There senior managers have not been very creative lately in figuring out how to get more of their customers. I really do feel bad for them. Come on Tim step up and do the right thing here.
With their cash now, they could buy Citibank outright. Not that they should!
They do have a ton of cash and one thing is for sure...they have enough business sense that they aren't going to give away stuff for free as much as we would like them to.
For example, they could easily give the latest Mac operating system for free. I personally would like to see them do this to decrease the segmentation in the market. It is honestly a support nightmare...they could resolve it by giving Leopard away for free so that PowerPC users can be at the latest available, and Lion for free.
At least with iOS 5 they made that a free update so there will be relatively minor segmentation except with those older devices that they dropped support for.
I am of course disappointed that with all of this money they can't justify the cost of keeping Rosetta in Lion for PowerPC compatibility, or even making iBooks Author work with Snow Leopard. Apple lost a lot of my respect with those moves. I use that info to remind myself that Apple is just a corporation that doesn't have my best interests in mind.
It is honestly a support nightmare...they could resolve it by giving Leopard away for free so that PowerPC users can be at the latest available, and Lion for free.
Then they'd have to give away Snow Leopard for free and maintain crap telling people that they can't get Lion, can't get Snow Leopard, etc. No.
Quote:
I am of course disappointed that with all of this money they can't justify the cost of keeping Rosetta in Lion for PowerPC compatibility,
Yes, that would be nice. Unfortunately not logistically feasible. The production lines needed to produce 411,000 iPhones a day last quarter to keep up with demand. Where would you build such a facility? We're would you get the production workers, the engineers, and everyone else to do this. Yes in time, maybe in 10 years you could move this operation here. Then you would have all the delays due to environmental studies, union activities, U.S government mucking about, not to mention all the politicians fighting for the chance to land a gold mine like this in their state. Maybe 20 years.
What Apple could do is set up a smaller operation to make U.S. made products available to those willing to pay more for the distinction. It would be interesting to see how many Americans would actually speak their position with their wallets.
Where would you build such a facility? Texas
We're would you get the production workers, the engineers, and everyone else to do this. With 18% unemployment (including discouraged workers) which equals millions of Americans, I don't think that woudl be much of a problem.
Then you would have all the delays due to environmental studies, union activities, U.S government mucking about, If Samsung can build a $5B fab in Texas for the A5 and A6 in less than a year, I don't think this will be a problem.
You are just one of the "negos" (as I used to say in grade school). America has the first or second largest manufacturing sector in the world (depending upon who's numbers you are using). The hurdles here are comparable (but NOT the same) as in any other country. Look at the government corruption, roadblocking and graft in China. They just finally approved the iPhone 4S, after months of delay!
I agree and disagree. I've listened to the last few of these and today there seemed to be a lot more energy and emphasis on the use of Apple's cash "being actively discussed." Listen to the tone of voice - I heard excitement in Tim's voice when talking about (I think specifically) aquisitions. Do others agree?
Absolutely.
Apple wants to do something with the cash. I'm guessing dividends because the executive team doesn't want to be a mega-corp being in all kinds of businesses. They want to be focused with a small set of core businesses related to each other and integrated in a meaning way.
My guess is the only thing holding this up is favorable repatriation terms. Look for an announcement in Obama's state of the union speech tonight. No mention of anything along these lines may mean Apple will sit on the cash for a while or spend it abroad.
I hope Apple doesn't feel the need to spend their cash or give it to shareholders. Apple could be struggling financially 10-20 years from now. Or maybe not. You never know what the future holds.
RIMM is going to be a lot less expensive in a year or so. Or for that matter maybe tomorrow.
Tomorrow Heins is going to announce that, in light of Apple's quarterly earnings report, Research in Motion is closing up shop and giving the money back to the shareholders.
On the tax issue, it rather dents the argument that allowing a tax holiday to allow them to repatriate money held offshore so they could spend it in the US, when Apple have ~$34bn in the US that they aren't doing anything with.
I say they should give a large chunk of it to their employees. Money going into the hand of people who will spend it (as opposed to giving amounts to execs that can't possibly spend it all) would help the economy.
Comments
since it doeans't make much sense to bring it into the USA and buying HTC or Samsung - thats stupid stupid and would not be allowed, the next best thing might be to spend some of it buying spectrum. Getting the iPad out from under carriers around the world and creating an Apple network for their devices. I'd start with the UK. Also buy up content for the Apple TV and Apple HDTV. Trouble is a lot of this content is owned by US companies. Sony has a lot of it though.
Also going after rights to soccer, sport and so on would really add to the allure of iOS and put pressure on Netflix, Hulu etc as well
Imagine Apple having the exclusive rights to most of NBA, Golf, The Masters, World Tennis Grand slam, English soccer, Formula One. The list is endless and thats mainly the English market, what about South America and Asia. Most of these wouldn't cost more than couple of billion each for multi year deals and they could make money back by selling through iTunes.
I think they will buy (or do a cash deal with) a provider like Direct TV. Like they did with AT&T for the iPhone. Apple will make the new iTV the standard for one provider, with lots of new services and ease of use. And acquire lots of content deals in the bargain.
Start with one provider and then expand. Sell Direct TV and move on to another. Today Direct TV has a market cap of $31B, and Apple could finance a good portion of the purchase price; it would probably take about 10% of their cash to get this rolling. Direct TV's PE is about 14, so Apple would be earning a lot more than they are currently with their cash holdings.
Ummm... move jobs back to the US and build the iPhone here?
The fact that they employ Sinclair Jungle-esque slave labor camps in China sickens me.
As an American, I would love this. But Apple's CEO and board isn't looking at the interests of Americans- it's in the interest of the shareholders. It's a company- that's how it works. You can always not invest or not support their products- that's all we can do. I like their products too much.
No...I don't think that's correct. I think you get to deduct the taxes that you paid overseas when you bring the money home. Any tax experts here?
They do. They would be in the 35% tax bracket in the US. So if they paid 17% tax in country X, they would only pay 18% (for easy math) at home as their previous 17% is deducted. So they will pay no more than 35% for having the money in the US. But a previous poster was right when he said why bring it back- they have 34 billion in the US now and they aren't doing anything with it.
Ummm... move jobs back to the US and build the iPhone here?
The fact that they employ Sinclair Jungle-esque slave labor camps in China sickens me.
Yes, that would be nice. Unfortunately not logistically feasible. The production lines needed to produce 411,000 iPhones a day last quarter to keep up with demand. Where would you build such a facility? We're would you get the production workers, the engineers, and everyone else to do this. Yes in time, maybe in 10 years you could move this operation here. Then you would have all the delays due to environmental studies, union activities, U.S government mucking about, not to mention all the politicians fighting for the chance to land a gold mine like this in their state. Maybe 20 years.
What Apple could do is set up a smaller operation to make U.S. made products available to those willing to pay more for the distinction. It would be interesting to see how many Americans would actually speak their position with their wallets.
Yes, that would be nice. Unfortunately not logistically feasible. The production lines needed to produce 411,000 iPhones a day last quarter to keep up with demand. Where would you build such a facility? We're would you get the production workers, the engineers, and everyone else to do this. Yes in time, maybe in 10 years you could move this operation here. Then you would have all the delays due to environmental studies, union activities, U.S government mucking about, not to mention all the politicians fighting for the chance to land a gold mine like this in their state. Maybe 20 years.
What Apple could do is set up a smaller operation to make U.S. made products available to those willing to pay more for the distinction. It would be interesting to see how many Americans would actually speak their position with their wallets.
With 97 Billion in the bank and 13 billion in profit this is easy.
The workers exist here in the states. The only reason people say they don't is that they'd rather use cheap slave labor and they're trying to rationalize it.
If they built the factory here they'd have to turn people away the demand to work there would be so high,
"If you build it they will come."
Yes, that would be nice. Unfortunately not logistically feasible. The production lines needed to produce 411,000 iPhones a day last quarter to keep up with demand. Where would you build such a facility? We're would you get the production workers, the engineers, and everyone else to do this. Yes in time, maybe in 10 years you could move this operation here. Then you would have all the delays due to environmental studies, union activities, U.S government mucking about, not to mention all the politicians fighting for the chance to land a gold mine like this in their state. Maybe 20 years.
What Apple could do is set up a smaller operation to make U.S. made products available to those willing to pay more for the distinction. It would be interesting to see how many Americans would actually speak their position with their wallets.
It was recently estimated that manufacturing the iPhone in the USA would cost $46 more than doing it in China. With gross margins of 45% on a $600 device (about $260 gross profit on each 16G phone), that would be affordable for Apple.
Rather than us paying $246 for a 16G iPhone, perhaps Apple could suffer a smaller profit, like only 30%, which would exceed every other electronics company? After all, if little ole Brazil can insist (successfully) that Apple manufacture iPhones and iPads there, why not the USA? Because we don't care if the 99% have good jobs, that's why.
It was recently estimated that manufacturing the iPhone in the USA would cost $46 more than doing it in China. With gross margins of 45% on a $600 device (about $260 gross profit on each 16G phone), that would be affordable for Apple.
Rather than us paying $246 for a 16G iPhone, perhaps Apple could suffer a smaller profit, like only 30%, which would exceed every other electronics company? After all, if little ole Brazil can insist (successfully) that Apple manufacture iPhones and iPads there, why not the USA? Because we don't care if the 99% have good jobs, that's why.
Amen.
How about they give it all to the big banks. They have fallen on hard times as of late. There senior managers have not been very creative lately in figuring out how to get more of their customers. I really do feel bad for them. Come on Tim step up and do the right thing here.
With their cash now, they could buy Citibank outright. Not that they should!
For example, they could easily give the latest Mac operating system for free. I personally would like to see them do this to decrease the segmentation in the market. It is honestly a support nightmare...they could resolve it by giving Leopard away for free so that PowerPC users can be at the latest available, and Lion for free.
At least with iOS 5 they made that a free update so there will be relatively minor segmentation except with those older devices that they dropped support for.
I am of course disappointed that with all of this money they can't justify the cost of keeping Rosetta in Lion for PowerPC compatibility, or even making iBooks Author work with Snow Leopard. Apple lost a lot of my respect with those moves. I use that info to remind myself that Apple is just a corporation that doesn't have my best interests in mind.
It is honestly a support nightmare...they could resolve it by giving Leopard away for free so that PowerPC users can be at the latest available, and Lion for free.
Then they'd have to give away Snow Leopard for free and maintain crap telling people that they can't get Lion, can't get Snow Leopard, etc. No.
I am of course disappointed that with all of this money they can't justify the cost of keeping Rosetta in Lion for PowerPC compatibility,
It's eight years old. Move on.
Yes, that would be nice. Unfortunately not logistically feasible. The production lines needed to produce 411,000 iPhones a day last quarter to keep up with demand. Where would you build such a facility? We're would you get the production workers, the engineers, and everyone else to do this. Yes in time, maybe in 10 years you could move this operation here. Then you would have all the delays due to environmental studies, union activities, U.S government mucking about, not to mention all the politicians fighting for the chance to land a gold mine like this in their state. Maybe 20 years.
What Apple could do is set up a smaller operation to make U.S. made products available to those willing to pay more for the distinction. It would be interesting to see how many Americans would actually speak their position with their wallets.
Where would you build such a facility? Texas
We're would you get the production workers, the engineers, and everyone else to do this. With 18% unemployment (including discouraged workers) which equals millions of Americans, I don't think that woudl be much of a problem.
Then you would have all the delays due to environmental studies, union activities, U.S government mucking about, If Samsung can build a $5B fab in Texas for the A5 and A6 in less than a year, I don't think this will be a problem.
You are just one of the "negos" (as I used to say in grade school). America has the first or second largest manufacturing sector in the world (depending upon who's numbers you are using). The hurdles here are comparable (but NOT the same) as in any other country. Look at the government corruption, roadblocking and graft in China. They just finally approved the iPhone 4S, after months of delay!
We could do it within a blink of the eye.
1. Save up all the money.
2. Buy Earth.
3. Start Federation of Planets.
That might explain why everyone uses tablets in the 24th Century.
Seriously, Apple should buy RIM so that it can enter Enterprise market. ......
RIM is very cheap now.
RIMM is going to be a lot less expensive in a year or so. Or for that matter maybe tomorrow.
I agree and disagree. I've listened to the last few of these and today there seemed to be a lot more energy and emphasis on the use of Apple's cash "being actively discussed." Listen to the tone of voice - I heard excitement in Tim's voice when talking about (I think specifically) aquisitions. Do others agree?
Absolutely.
Apple wants to do something with the cash. I'm guessing dividends because the executive team doesn't want to be a mega-corp being in all kinds of businesses. They want to be focused with a small set of core businesses related to each other and integrated in a meaning way.
My guess is the only thing holding this up is favorable repatriation terms. Look for an announcement in Obama's state of the union speech tonight. No mention of anything along these lines may mean Apple will sit on the cash for a while or spend it abroad.
I hope Apple doesn't feel the need to spend their cash or give it to shareholders. Apple could be struggling financially 10-20 years from now. Or maybe not. You never know what the future holds.
Dividends! Dividends!
RIMM is going to be a lot less expensive in a year or so. Or for that matter maybe tomorrow.
Tomorrow Heins is going to announce that, in light of Apple's quarterly earnings report, Research in Motion is closing up shop and giving the money back to the shareholders.
On the tax issue, it rather dents the argument that allowing a tax holiday to allow them to repatriate money held offshore so they could spend it in the US, when Apple have ~$34bn in the US that they aren't doing anything with.
I say they should give a large chunk of it to their employees. Money going into the hand of people who will spend it (as opposed to giving amounts to execs that can't possibly spend it all) would help the economy.
its the shareholders money