Never before has so much money been made by a single firm in such a short pe

游客2024-02-05  19

问题     Never before has so much money been made by a single firm in such a short period of time. On January 27th Tim Cook, the boss of Apple, announced that it had made $ 18 billion in its latest financial quarter. Apple’s telephone-number-sized profit stemmed largely from sales of its hugely popular iPhone, which accounted for over two-thirds of its $74.6 billion revenue. Chief executives rarely admit to being shocked by their companies’ performance, but Mr. Cook said it was "hard to comprehend" the extent of the interest in Apple’s products. He noted that, on average, 34,000 iPhones were bought every hour of every day during the latest quarter.
    Apple is the world’s largest company by market capitalisation(总值)as well as its most profitable. Strikingly, it has risen to greatness using a rather old-fashioned business model: selling highly desirable objects at fat gross margins, which hit almost 40% in the latest quarter. The tech industry has bred numerous software-based firms, such as Google and Facebook, that don’t have to worry about shifting goods around, yet they make much less than the Colossus of Cupertino. Amazon handles lots of physical goods, but loses money.
    Another thing that sets Apple apart from the tech pack is its success in conquering China. While rivals have been frustrated there, Apple has just become the largest force in China’s smartphone market measured by units shipped, according to Canalys, a market-research firm.
    Any failure in China could hurt Apple. The company’s overall dependence on the iPhone is another risk. But these are early days for the iPhone 6, Apple’s latest device, whose bigger screen takes the firm into the "phablet"(平板手机)category of larger phones that are wildly popular with customers. Some iFans also point out that Apple’s share of the smartphone market is small compared with devices using Google’s Android operating system. So it has plenty of room to grow.
    Mr. Cook said this week that its much-anticipated smartwatch will go on sale in April. Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies, a consulting firm, thinks Apple could sell 22m -24m in the first 12 months after the launch, producing billions of dollars of new revenue. Sanford C. Bernstein, a research firm, reckons the watches will have a higher-than-average gross margin, which predicts good profits. Apple should be able to make more money from software and services, too. [br] The author cites Mr. Cook’s words in Para 1 in order to______.

选项 A、show how popular iPhone is
B、show how much money Apple makes
C、reveal how smart chief executives are
D、reveal how the company is run

答案 A

解析 事实细节题。本题考查作者引用库克先生所说的话的意图。该段倒数第二句提到,首席执行官们很少承认对公司的表现表示震惊,但库克先生却表示市场对苹果产品的着迷程度让他“难以理解”。接着在本段最后一句指出,他特别提到,在最近的财务季度期间,平均每天的每个小时都要卖出去34,000台iPhone手机。由此推测,作者引用库克先生所说的话旨在表明iPhone手机的受欢迎程度,故答案为A)。B)“显示苹果公司赚了多少钱”、C)“显示首席执行官们有多聪明”和D)“显示公司是如何运营的”都不是作者的真正意图,故排除。
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