Epic Games uses its lawsuit against apple to accuse the iPhone manufacturer of being particularly greedy. As The edge reports, expert witness Eric Barns said that Apple would have had an App Store operating margin of 77.8% in 2019, itself an increase of 74.9% in 2018. He also rejected the witness’s claims Apple that you could hardly calculate profit, pointing to the company’s financial planning and analysis group as proof.
Unsurprisingly, Apple disagreed. The tech firm said The edge the margin calculations are “quite simply” wrong and that he planned to fight the allegations at trial. The company’s own witness, Richard Schmalensee, claimed that Barnes was looking at an element of the iOS ecosystem that was skewing apparent operating margin. The real number was “trite,” he said, adding that you can’t study App Store profits without looking at the larger context of devices and services.
The company does not calculate profit and loss based on products and services, Schmalensee said.
There is no guarantee that the court will accept Barnes’ take. Apple’s overall gross profit margin has generally been high relative to much of the industry, but never so high – it was 42.5% during the period of operation of the company. last winter quarter. Apple has also tended to portray the App Store as a means of boosting hardware sales rather than a full-fledged money generator.
The testimony does more to explain how Epic is doing, however. pursue his cause against Apple as the legal battle begins on May 3. the Fortnite The creator not only wants to present Apple as anti-competitive, but to abuse its lockdown on the distribution of iOS applications to reap huge profits.
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