For one thing, the company noted that it spent $10.3 billion in capital expenditures in 2012, including $865 million for retail stores and $9.5 billion for other stuff, "including product tooling and manufacturing process equipment and other corporate facilities and infrastructure." Apple added that "actual cash payments" for cap ex were $8.3 billion. (Which would imply the rest was paid for...what...in kind? With iPhones? With iTunes gift cards?)
Two points here.
One, the fact that Apple is spending that kind of cash on equipment flies in the face of the idea that Apple is basically a place that invents stuff in Cupertino and then outsources everything to the likes of Foxconn. As my colleague Connie Guglielmo has noted, Apple actually buys some of the manufacturing gear used by some of the firms that make parts and finished goods for the company. The company also continues to build out new data centers - and building them is costly.
Consider also that Intel - a company widely considered to have one of the most capital intensive businesses on the planet - expects to report 2012 capital spending of $11.3 billion, just a bit more than Apple spent.
Two, Apple appears to be cutting cap ex: For 2013, the company expects to spend $10 billion, including $850 million on retail stores, and $9.15 billion on other stuff, "including product tooling and manufacturing process equipment, and corporate facilities and infrastructure, including information systems hardware, software and enhancements." Not sure how much of that total is for the company's planned spaceship-like new campus in Cupertino.
Meanwhile, the company notes that it plans to open 30-35 new retail stores in FY 2013, with 75% of those outside the U.S. That's a similar pace to FY 2012, when the company finished with 390 stores, up 33 from 357 at year-end FY 2011. That includes 18 new stores opened in the September quarter.
