Gross margin doesn't tell you much about their level of investment. Gross margin is only revenue minus COGS (i.e. hosting, support, potentially infra teams). To understand further investments you'd have to know R&D or at least Opex broken out for Apple Services (which AFAIK they do not share).
SaaS typically expects 80% gross margin, so Apple is not out of line here.
> To understand further investments you'd have to know R&D or at least Opex broken out for Apple Services (which AFAIK they do not share).
Total R&D for the entire corporation was $9 billion compared to $29 billion just in Services revenue. How much of that R&D do you think the crApp Store needs, compared to the hardware and the operating systems? https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2025-q4/FY25_Q4_Consol...
> SaaS typically expects 80% gross margin, so Apple is not out of line here.
App Store is essentially an online retailer (or consignment store), not SaaS. Apple is selling software written by other developers.
lapcat|1 month ago
Total R&D for the entire corporation was $9 billion compared to $29 billion just in Services revenue. How much of that R&D do you think the crApp Store needs, compared to the hardware and the operating systems? https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2025-q4/FY25_Q4_Consol...
> SaaS typically expects 80% gross margin, so Apple is not out of line here.
App Store is essentially an online retailer (or consignment store), not SaaS. Apple is selling software written by other developers.