Apple

By CIO New Zealand staff | Monday, January 11 2010

This was the year of the iPhone and Apple certainly made a splash with the international release of the 3G handset, turbo-charging growth in the smartphone market.

Global HQ: Cupertino, California, US
Website: www.apple.com
Global leader: Steve Jobs, CEO
Local leader: Tony King, MD, Australia and New Zealand
Core activity: Computers, mobile phones and digital music devices
Revenue: US$32.5 billion (FY08 ended September 27)
Key customers: Vodafone, AUT University, AT&T, Telefonica, Telstra
Corporation, Hutchison, Optus
Employees: 35,000

This was the year of the iPhone and Apple certainly made a splash with the international release of the 3G and set, turbo-charging growth in the smartphone market. The company expects to ship 32.5 million units worldwide
in the year to September 2010.

However, the iPod suffered its first ever year-on-year sales decline, suggesting the days of standalone digital music players may be coming to an end.

Apple also launched Mac OS X Snow Leopard, its first fully native Intel-based operating system. The company has been concentrating on improving and extending battery life for its laptop range. Although battery performance became the source of some negative publicity as well, after reported cases of exploding lithium batteries in the iPhone.

The health of chief executive Steve Jobs has also played on the nerves of investors, with the company’s share price hitting a 52-week high when he made a public return at a product launch in September. Rachael Bolton