- Chief Executive Tim Cook said the company was focused on growth – so much so that he was prepared to take the wraps off some new products. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a joke. “I’m just kidding. I gotta have some fun,” Cook said.
- He told shareholders that employees are working on great new products, some of which may be viewed as “extensions of what we’re already doing,” while others are “things that you can’t see.” Maintaining secrecy is important, he said, because talking about the future gives competitors a road map of Apple’s plans and the company is “getting ripped off left, right and sideways.”
- Cook reiterated a promise that Apple’s board will consider expanding a plan to purchase up to $60 billion of its shares by 2015, and planned an announcement within 60 days.
- A NCPPR representative asked Mr. Cook to commit right then and there to doing only those things that were profitable. A visibly angry Tim Cook said: “When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind. I don’t consider the bloody ROI.” He said that the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader. […] He didn’t stop there, however, as he looked directly at the NCPPR representative and said, “If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock.”
- Five months after its release, 82% of Apple’s 800 million mobile devices are running iOS 7, the latest version of its mobile operating system.
- Apple TV, the set-top box that the company has called a “hobby” in the past, generated more than $1 billion in revenue from hardware and programming in the past fiscal year.
- Cumulative sales in Brazil, Russia, India and China reached $30 billion in the past fiscal year, compared to $4 billion a “couple of years ago” for those emerging markets. The growth into those countries comes amid slowing growth in North America.
- Apple said it sends “several billion” messages on its iMessage service every day. Apple said users also send 15 million to 20 million FaceTime messages every day.
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