Apple Supply Chain
Right to the core | Official CIPS Magazine – Supply Management
Page 1 of 9
The purchasing and supply website
Right to the core
27 May 2010 | Richard Brass Tyrannical, secretive - and a huge success. Richard Brass investigates how Apple devised the ultimate supply chain In each of the past two years, AMR Research has named Apple’s supply chain the best in the world. Its operation, the supply chain consultancy says, marks “an epic shift away from the 20th-century production-efficiency mentality to a new era of value based on ideas, design and content.” And the financial results are remarkable. Quarterly revenues of $13.5 billion (£9.1 billion). Net quarterly profit of $3.1 billion (£2 billion), with earnings per share twice what they were at the same time last year. Sales of a key product more than double those of a year before, with a gross margin of over 40 per cent. A war chest of $40 billion (£27 billion) in cash and securities. That’s without taking into account Apple’s latest blockbuster, the iPad, which launches in the UK this week. Even in these cash-strapped times, consumers in the US, where it went on sale last month, camped outside stores overnight to get their hands on it at $499 (£336) apiece. It shifted half a million units in the first fortnight.
Appeal to the market From its early days as a pesky maverick annoying the big players in its industry, through turmoil, near-collapse, key departures and returns, Apple has emerged as one of the most successful money-making machines of all time. Even in a dire economic climate its ground-breaking products are lapped up by ever-enthusiastic consumers in numbers that drive other companies into frenzies of self-examination in the search for ways to emulate such formidable success.
http://www.supplymanagement.com/analysis/case-studies/2010/right-to-the-core/
10/04/2011
Right to the core | Official CIPS Magazine – Supply Management
Page 2 of 9
In the first three months of this year
Page 1 of 9
The purchasing and supply website
Right to the core
27 May 2010 | Richard Brass Tyrannical, secretive - and a huge success. Richard Brass investigates how Apple devised the ultimate supply chain In each of the past two years, AMR Research has named Apple’s supply chain the best in the world. Its operation, the supply chain consultancy says, marks “an epic shift away from the 20th-century production-efficiency mentality to a new era of value based on ideas, design and content.” And the financial results are remarkable. Quarterly revenues of $13.5 billion (£9.1 billion). Net quarterly profit of $3.1 billion (£2 billion), with earnings per share twice what they were at the same time last year. Sales of a key product more than double those of a year before, with a gross margin of over 40 per cent. A war chest of $40 billion (£27 billion) in cash and securities. That’s without taking into account Apple’s latest blockbuster, the iPad, which launches in the UK this week. Even in these cash-strapped times, consumers in the US, where it went on sale last month, camped outside stores overnight to get their hands on it at $499 (£336) apiece. It shifted half a million units in the first fortnight.
Appeal to the market From its early days as a pesky maverick annoying the big players in its industry, through turmoil, near-collapse, key departures and returns, Apple has emerged as one of the most successful money-making machines of all time. Even in a dire economic climate its ground-breaking products are lapped up by ever-enthusiastic consumers in numbers that drive other companies into frenzies of self-examination in the search for ways to emulate such formidable success.
http://www.supplymanagement.com/analysis/case-studies/2010/right-to-the-core/
10/04/2011
Right to the core | Official CIPS Magazine – Supply Management
Page 2 of 9
In the first three months of this year