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Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company which is headquartered in Cupertino, California. It is involved in designing, developing, and selling consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. It is one of the Big Five U.S. companies in information technology sector, which includes companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. Its hardware products consists of the iPhone smartphone, the iPad tablet computer, the Mac personal computer, the iPod portable media player, the Apple Watch smartwatch, the Apple TV digital media player, the AirPods wireless earbuds, the AirPods Max headphones, and the HomePod smart speaker line. Apple's also has a range of software products like iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS operating systems, the iTunes media player, the Safari web browser, the Shazam music identifier, and the iLife and iWork creativity and productivity suites, as well as professional applications like Final Cut Pro X, Logic Pro, and Xcode. Its online services include the iTunes Store, the iOS App Store, Mac App Store, Apple Arcade, Apple Music, Apple TV+, iMessage, and iCloud. It also has a range of other services like Apple Store, Genius Bar, AppleCare, Apple Pay, Apple Pay Cash, and Apple Card.
Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in April 1976 for the purpose of developing and selling Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. It was later incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc., in January 1977, and sales of its computers like the Apple I and Apple II, grew exponentially.
Jobs and Wozniak hired a team of computer designers and had a production line started in Jobs' garage. In 1980, Apple went public and was an instant financial success. Over the next few years that followed, Apple began shipping new computers featuring innovative graphical user interfaces, like the original Macintosh in 1984, and also Apple's marketing advertisements for its products received widespread critical acclaim. But there were some downsides as well like the high price of its products and limited application library caused problems, also there was power struggles between its executives. In the year 1985, Wozniak departed Apple amicably and remained an honorary employee, meanwhile Jobs resigned to found NeXT, also taking a few co-workers with him.
With the expansion and evolution of personal computers through the 1990s, Apple lost considerable market share to the lower-priced Microsoft Windows on Intel PC. The board then recruited CEO Gil Amelio and it was their 500 day attempt to rehabilitate the financially troubled company, reshaping it with layoffs, executive restructuring, and product focus, which led Apple to buying NeXT in 1997, solving a failed operating system strategy and bringing Jobs back to Apple.
Jobs regained leadership status and finally became the CEO in 2000. Apple swiftly returned to profit making, under the revitalizing Think different campaign, rebuilding Apple's status by launching the iMac in 1998, opening a retail chain of Apple Stores in 2001, and acquiring numerous companies to broaden the software portfolio. In the year 2007, the company was renamed to Apple Inc., reflecting its focus on consumer electronics, and launched the iPhone to critical acclaim and thus financial success. However on August 2011, Jobs resigned as CEO due to health complications, and Tim Cook became the new CEO. In the following two months, Jobs died, marking the end of an era for the company. Also in June 2019, Jony Ive, Apple's CDO, left the company to start his own firm, but made a statement that he would work with Apple as its primary client.
Now let us look at some of the stats of Apple. Apple's worldwide annual revenue accumulated to $274.5 billion for the fiscal year 2020. Apple also enjoy the distinction of being the world's largest technology company by revenue and one of the world's most valuable companies. Apple holds the 4th-largest PC vendor position in the world by unit sales as of January 2021. It also has the distinction of being the world's fourth-largest smartphone manufacturer. In August 2018, Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion and just two years later, in August 2020 became the first $2 trillion U.S. company. Apple has an enrollment of 147,000 full-time employees and maintains 510 retail stores in 25 countries as per data of 2020. It also operates the iTunes Store, which is the world's largest music retailer. As of January 2020, Apple products of more than 1.5 billion are in active use worldwide. The company also enjoy a very high level of brand loyalty and is ranked as the world's most valuable brand.
But Apple receives severe criticism regarding the labor practices of its contractors, its environmental practices and unethical business practices, including anti-competitive behavior, as well as the origins of source materials.
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