Even though their recent quarterly financials were panned by Wall Street as “disappointing,” Apple holds the top spot among the most profitable U.S. companies by a comfortable margin.
The $13.1 billion in profit Apple posted for the first quarter of 2013 is the most profitable quarter for a tech company in history, just edging out the record $13.06 billion set in the first quarter of 2013 — also by Apple.
Apple’s $13.1 billion in profit is 31% more than the $10 billion of its closest competitor, oil giant ExxonMobil. The oil conglomerate did briefly pass Apple in market cap following investors’ negative reactions to the most recent quarter.
According to statistics portal Statista the only two companies to ever post a higher quarterly profit than the Cupertino firm are ExxonMobil and Russian energy giant Gazprom, which posted $16.2 billion in profit for the first quarter of 2011.
Apple currently sits 34.7% below its all-time high of $700 per share.
Among technology companies, Apple earned more than twice the $6.4 billion of its nearest competitor, software giant Microsoft. Even if you also throw in the $5.8 billion earned by IBM, Apple still beats their combined total by nearly a billion dollars.
