On Apple Getting the Cloud

Mark Rogowsky, writing for Forbes:

To look to a more visible Apple cloud success, perhaps we should consider the absolutely massive iTunes/App Store franchise, instead. There, a company who Wilson says, “[doesn’t] have anything in the cloud to speak of” has built a combination of the world’s largest music retailer and the world’s largest software store. Apple has sold more than 25 billion songs and there have been more than 50 billion apps downloaded. (Oh, and the company is also the leader in digital movie sales/rentals as well, though that business is far behind Netflix’s subscription-style offerings.)

Apple’s revenues from all those downloads would total $23.5 billion if it were accounted for as a standalone business, according to Asymco. That small part of Apple’s overall business would be #130 on the Fortune 500 if it were a standalone company. For a sense of just how much that is, Facebook — the company Wilson says will be the second-most valuable behind Google in 2020 — took in just under $8 billion last year. For having “nothing,” Apple’s producing a good deal more than nothing in cloud revenues.

★ Tuesday, 6 May 2014