It's all in the SEC filings (as Dave-Z mentions above) and they reveal a fair amount in their conference calls.
Apple's operating margin is 28.67% per
Yahoo Finance.
"Operating Margin is a ratio used to measure a company's operating efficiency. It represents the difference between the Total Revenues and the Total Operating Costs divided by Total Revenues, and is expressed as a percentage. Total Operating Costs consist of: (a) Cost of Goods Sold (b) Total (c) Selling, General & Administrative Expenses (d) Total R & D Expenses (e) Depreciation & Amortization and (f) Total Other Operating Expenses, Total."
R&D is not part of COGS, it's a separate line item in their consolidated statement of earnings. Those are the engineering and design items listed above.
There's a separate line item for SG&A. That covers advertising. That also covers things like employee salaries, the electricity bill for their bricks-and-mortar stores, the gold leaf toilet seat liners in Jony Ive's private bathroom (just kidding), etc.
Profit margin is Operating Margin minus taxes.
Apple is pretty profitable compared to other hardware electronics companies (Samsung, Acer, HP, Dell, etc.); they're publicly disclosed numbers attest to it.
At some point, you may wish to learn how to read a public company's financial earnings statements. Public companies are
required by law to disclose a certain amount of information on their operations, so shareholders (including prospective investors) have some sort of understanding on the management's effectiveness in operating the company.
If you ever decide to invest (whether it be directly in the form of equities, or indirectly through mutual funds), you are highly advised to learn a bit about reading financials.
Missed out on Staples. Being a student I can really only buy when on sale too. Where did you go?
