Apple is in a league of its own - New York Post

It’s an Apple of a different color.

What Tim Cook and his execs pulled off this week is nothing short of amazing, as the tech giant reported record earnings and the stock on Friday came within spitting distance of a $700 billion market cap.

Let’s look at the statistics.

In terms of its market cap, Apple really is in a class by itself. The No. 2 spot is currently held by Exxon Mobil at $375 billion. That’s quite a lead for Apple — not too many can hold first place in anything by essentially doubling the second-place finisher.

The prime mover for Apple is that it has monstrous revenues and earnings to back it up.

For the quarter, sales rose to $74.6 billion from $57.6 billion. That’s a 30 percent increase over an already enormous base.

As other global companies report softer earnings because of dollar strength, you’d expect at least a little softness on Apple’s bottom line for international sales. But no mention on the earnings call.

Apple did something no other company has ever accomplished: It made $18 billion in a single quarter. That’s up 37.4 percent from the mere $13.1 billion it made just a year ago in the same quarter.

This type of growth is off the charts, but what really sets Apple apart is it pays a dividend, usually not a sign of a growth stock, but a safe insurance company.

Apple has returned some $57 billion to shareholders in just the last 12 months through a massive stock buyback plan and dividends, and it still holds $180 billion on its balance sheet, which discounts its stock price since a third of it could be subject to taxes if repatriated.

(Considering this: If Apple were in an acquisitive mode, it could buy IBM for $150 billion and have $30 billion left over).

These robust returns were at the polite spurring of Carl Icahn — its largest shareholder.

Apple has already made Icahn billions; he’s been a shareholder since August 2013. Icahn believes the company should trade near $200 a share, giving it a $1.4 trillion market cap — and yet his tone is one of admiration not agitation.

Even Uncle Sam was given something to smile about as the company guided for a 26.3 percent tax rate for next quarter.

Nothing about Apple is normal. There is no way one company should be able to change the culture of a country. It helped us fit a jukebox, laptop camera and cellphone all in our pocket via a device thinner than a wallet.

So why shouldn’t Apple break the mold of value companies, too, by actually benefiting from increasing its already massive buyback and dividend?

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