iphone sales worth more than google microsoft apple inc
Apple Inc. earned more than twice as much revenue from iPhone sales than Microsoft or Google did on anything last quarter. Reuters

Apple Inc. announced that iPhone sales generated $51.18 billion dollars of revenue in its last quarter. That means, based exclusively on iPhone sales, Apple generated nearly double the total revenue that Microsoft Corp. did with all of its businesses in the last quarter ($26.5 billion).

Apple’s iPhone sales in the last three months of 2014 were more than triple Google Inc.’s total revenue reported in its last quarter ($16.52 billion). That means the iPhone is worth more than Android, Google search, Windows and Office combined. The brand is by far Apple’s most important business, bringing in more than two-thirds of its total revenue.

Other tech giants also pale in comparison: the iPhone also earned more revenue for Apple in three months in 2014 than Amazon.com Inc. ($20.58 billion) and Sony Corp. made in the entire year (about $72.35 billion).

Apple’s latest quarter follows the launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and sales may reflect holiday shopping as well as pent-up demand from customers waiting for the launch of the company’s first large-screened phone, or phablet. But the data show that in the face of concerns over declining iPad sales, the iPhone continues to allow Apple to blow past the expectations of Wall Street analysts.

The iPhone brand, if it were a company of its own, also would have earned more revenue than over 95 percent of other companies in the S&P 500. Apple may be increasingly a “phone company” reliant on iPhone business, but business is good.