Apple Beats Microsoft in First Quarter Profit
Six months ago, Apple
surpassed Microsoft in quarterly revenue for the first time in nearly 15 years, marking a milestone on Apple's tremendous performance in recent years. But despite being passed by Apple in the revenue metric, Microsoft continued to hold off Apple in quarterly profits due to the high profit margins achievable with its software business.
That finally changed this past quarter, with Microsoft today announcing net profit of $5.23 billion for the first calendar quarter (third fiscal quarter) of 2011. Apple last week reported profits of $5.99 billion over the same period, which corresponded to the company's second fiscal quarter of 2011.
Apple has passed its longtime rival Microsoft in a number of metrics over the past year, beginning with market capitalization back in late May 2010. Apple's market cap is now nearly $100 billion higher than Microsoft's.
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Update — 10 a.m. Pacific Time: Apple has released iOS 27.
During its iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo event last week, Apple announced that iOS 27 will be released widely on Monday, September 14.
iOS 27 should be available around 10 a.m. Pacific Time / 1 p.m. Eastern Time today via the Settings app, under General → Software Update.
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