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The most valuable company on earth. 2.2 billion devices. Cobalt mines, factory floors, and a 0.005% tax rate. Here's what nobody's reading.
Apple Inc. is the most valuable public company on earth, with a market capitalisation around US$3.4 trillion. In fiscal year 2024, the company reported US$391 billion in revenue and US$93.7 billion in net income. There are over 2.2 billion active Apple devices worldwide.
Apple is the largest single holding in the S&P 500, typically representing around 7% of the entire index.
Apple's corporate operations have been carbon neutral since 2020. Apple Park runs on 100% renewable energy. The supplier clean energy programme has committed over 16 gigawatts of clean energy across its supply chain, with more than 300 suppliers pledging 100% renewable electricity for Apple production.
Daisy can disassemble 23 models of iPhone at 200 per hour. App Tracking Transparency cost the advertising industry an estimated US$10 billion in revenue in its first year.
Every iPhone, MacBook, iPad, and Apple Watch contains a lithium-ion battery requiring cobalt and lithium. About 60% of the world's cobalt comes from the DRC, where artisanal mining operations have been documented using child labour by Amnesty International and the UN.
Apple has mapped 100% of its cobalt supply chain back to the smelter level and increased the use of recycled cobalt in its batteries.
Lithium extraction in the Atacama Desert consumes roughly 2 million litres of water per tonne, in one of the driest places on the planet.
The average iPhone is replaced every three to four years. Apple sells roughly 220-230 million iPhones per year. Global e-waste reached 62 million tonnes per year as of 2022.
In 2017, Apple admitted to deliberately throttling older iPhones with degraded batteries, paying US$113 million to settle and US$500 million in a class action.
The iPhone 16 earned a 7 out of 10 repairability score from iFixit, the highest for any iPhone. Progress is real, and it was dragged there by legislation and public pressure.
In 2010, a cluster of worker suicides at Foxconn's Longhua plant made global news. The company's response included installing safety nets around dormitory buildings.
During COVID lockdowns in 2022, workers clashed with security and fled the facility on foot, walking along highways to escape inadequate conditions.
In 2016, the European Commission ruled Ireland had granted Apple up to EUR 13 billion in illegal state aid, allowing an effective tax rate of 0.005% on European profits. In 2024, the European Court of Justice ordered Apple to repay the full amount.
Apple held over US$252 billion in cash overseas. Its reported effective tax rate sits around 15-16% versus a US statutory rate of 21%.
If you own an index fund, a super fund that tracks the market, or any diversified equity portfolio, you almost certainly own Apple shares. You didn't choose it. It was chosen by market weight.
You get the revenue and the recycling robots and the privacy features. You also get the cobalt supply chain, the factory conditions, the tax structures, and the e-waste. The S&P 500 doesn't separate the good stuff from the asterisk. It just gives you the whole company.
Apple is not a villain. It is arguably the most operationally excellent company in consumer technology. Its environmental commitments are further along than most peers. And none of that changes what happens in a cobalt mine in the DRC, or on a factory floor in Zhengzhou, or in a tax office in Dublin. Those things coexist. That's the fine print.
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