Comment by ioasuncvinvaer
Comment by ioasuncvinvaer 13 hours ago
Apple is an ad company now though
Comment by ioasuncvinvaer 13 hours ago
Apple is an ad company now though
Their net profit was a little over $100 billion last fiscal year. They get $20 Billion+ in pure profit from Google being their default search engine.
That’s 20% of their profit
Google paying Apple to be the default search engine is not the same as Apple selling $20 billion worth of ads to track you.
Google isn’t just paying Apple $20 billion, it’s based on click throughs on ads in Safari. Apple is very much getting paid based on the ad economy.
The point is that Apple will make money any way that it can, including ads. That's why iOS privacy is worse than its competitors. You can't install an app without telling Apple because if you could, Apple wouldn't be able to monetize you as well. You can't get your location without also telling Apple because if you could, Apple wouldn't be able to build its location services as easily. No such problems on Android.
As long as you don’t count the $25 billion that Apple gets from Google.
That seems like a stretch. Even in Europe where people can choose to use different app stores, few people actually do. So few, in fact, that one of the alternative app stores recently shut down.
Have you considered that people just like Apple's products and services?
What does whether they’d go bankrupt or not have to do with whether they’re an ad company?
They sell third party ads: companies unaffiliated with Apple pay Apple to advertise on Apple platforms.
They’re an ad company. Just because it’s currently a small slice of their total revenue doesn’t make it untrue.
What matters is that the parent comment said “Apple is an ad company now,” as if that negated all the privacy and security stuff they do.
Making some cash on ads doesn’t have to rely on targeted tracking. That only matters if ads are an existential part of your business, and without huge ad revenue growth, your company is dead.
I guess it’s also a financial company, since they have a branded credit card?
Apple's ad revenue was 1% of its total in 2024. It was estimated to be 2-3% in 2025.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2024-q4/FY24_Q4_Consol...
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/10/30/apple-4q-2025-earnings/