Apple Inc

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Apple Inc.
Type Publicly-traded corporation
Founded California, USA - 1976
Founder(s) Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Ron Wayne
Headquarters Cupertino, CA, USA
Area served worldwide
Key people Steve Jobs (co-founder and CEO), Peter Oppenheimer (CFO, Principal Accounting Officer, Sr. VP of Fin. and Corp. Controller), Timothy Cook (COO), Ron Johnson (VP of Retail), Anthony Fadell (VP of Ipod Division)
Industry technology, personal computers
Products personal computers, portable digital music players, and mobile communication devices, as well as related software, services, peripherals, and networking solutions
Services retail stores, hardware and software services
Revenue 13.93 billion USD[1]
Operating income 1.65 billion USD[1]
Net income 1.34 billion USD[1]
Total assets 10.3 billion USD[1]
Employees 21,600 (full-time)[1]
Website http://www.apple.com

Company History

The first Apple computer was designed by Steve Wozniak (a then-HP employee) and Steve Jobs. They sold fifty units of the Apple I to a local computer store in 1976, and continued to design new models, including the Apply ][+ and Lisa in the 1970s, eventually gaining investment from Xerox in 1978.[2]

Corporate Accountability

Labor

Longhua town in Baoan district, Shenzhen province, China, is dominated by the Foxconn factory and its dormitories. This facility produces iPods for Apple. It has over 240,000 employees, with plans for 300,000 in the near future. Although workers receive free housing and food, have medical benefits (the company pays 80% of expenses), and have 3 months of maternity leave, workers at the factory live in dormitories so crowded and noisy they cannot sleep properly, are forbidden from cooking or having visitors, are isolated because of the barren world outside the factory gates, and are not paid for all of their wages.[3]

Lite-On Xuji Electronics Co., Ltd. Is a keyboard manufacturer based in Dongguan, China. The factory was founded in 1995, and while Dell is its major buyer, Lite-On Xuji sells keyboards to Acer, Apple, Foxconn, Gateway, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Logitech, Microsoft, NEC, Sony, and Toshiba.[4] According to a 2008 report conducted by SACOM and Bread for All, the factory employed 3000 workers who work between 10 and 12 hours a day.[4] The factory began paying workers legal wages and overtime wages in 2008, while they had been paying illegally low wages in 2006 and 2007.[5] However, workers continue to work more than 100 overtime hours per month, well about the legal limit of 36 overtime hours monthly.[5] Due to long hours standing, repetitive tasks, and high work speed, workers suffer from swollen legs, back pain, and other repetitive motion injuries, as well as irritation from paint and paint thinner fumes [6]. Despite these problems, Xuji factory has no program in place to “identify, evaluate, and control the hazards that arise from physically demanding work.”[5] Management threatens workers who make mistakes with the possibility of the withdrawal of factory client orders. [5] Worker dormitories are very crowded and noisy, housing 16 workers per room, who must share all facilities in common and often have trouble sleeping due to noise. [7] While workers were not aware of their labor rights under the EICC, they still “expressed the urgent need” for safety training as well as shortened standing work hours or at least longer breaks and rest periods. [7]

Environment

Apple received a score of 4.1 out of 10 possible points in a recent Greenpeace International ranking, scoring positive points for releasing products free of brominated flame retardants (BFR) and PVC vinyl plastic, as well as other hazardous materials, but scored negatively on most recycling criteria.[8]

Financial Information (2008)

Ticker Symbol: AAPL
Main Exchanges:NASDAQ
Investor Website:http://www.apple.com/investor/

Shareholder % Total Shares held
Barclays Global Investors UK Holdings Ltd 4.11%
FMR LLC 3.53%
STATE STREET CORPORATION 3.20%
AXA 3.12%
VANGUARD GROUP, INC. (THE) 3.03%

Largest Shareholders[1]

Geographic scope paragraph

Country Revenue Profits Assets Employees
Country 1 Revenue 1 Profit 1 Assets 1 Employees 1
Country 2 Revenue 2 Profit 2 Assets 2 Employees 2
Country 3 Revenue 3 Profit 3 Assets 3 Employees 3
Country 4 Revenue 4 Profit 4 Assets 4 Employees 4

Sources

  1. Jump up to: 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Yahoo! Finance Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "yahoofinance" defined multiple times with different content
  2. "The Apple Museum: The Beginning", accessed July 2008
  3. Robert Weil. June 2008. "City of Youth" Monthly Review
  4. Jump up to: 4.0 4.1 Jenny Chan, the Research Team of SACOM, and Bread for All. May 2008. “High Tech – No Rights? A One Year Follow-up Report on Working Conditions in China’s Electronic Hardware Sector.” P. 30.
  5. Jump up to: 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Jenny Chan, the Research Team of SACOM, and Bread for All. May 2008. “High Tech – No Rights? A One Year Follow-up Report on Working Conditions in China’s Electronic Hardware Sector.” P. 31.
  6. Jenny Chan, the Research Team of SACOM, and Bread for All. May 2008. “High Tech – No Rights? A One Year Follow-up Report on Working Conditions in China’s Electronic Hardware Sector.” P. 31-2.
  7. Jump up to: 7.0 7.1 Jenny Chan, the Research Team of SACOM, and Bread for All. May 2008. “High Tech – No Rights? A One Year Follow-up Report on Working Conditions in China’s Electronic Hardware Sector.” P. 32.
  8. "Greener Electronics: Apple" accessed July 2008