Apple R&D spending flat for the first time in over a decade — sort of

Considering all the other tech companies significantly increased R&D with Covid and then laid all those people off after Covid, I think Apple is doing just fine with no real cutbacks in R&D ever.

Also 8 billion dollars in R&D per quarter is not small by any measure.

InspiredCode said:

Considering all the other tech companies significantly increased R&D with Covid and then laid all those people off after Covid, I think Apple is doing just fine with no real cutbacks in R&D ever.

Also 8 billion dollars in R&D per quarter is not small by any measure.

But it isn't as if those companies didn't get return on those investments. When it comes to R&D, it's as important as marketing.

I alway wonder what does "R&D" mean. What it contains... And I would love to know how and for which projects Apple spends 8 Billion USDs EACH QUARTER. I imagine all of the CPU team's work is filed under R&D. But is the iOS and MacOS team as well? Honestly, just curious. An amazing amount of money.

InspiredCode said:

Considering all the other tech companies significantly increased R&D with Covid and then laid all those people off after Covid, I think Apple is doing just fine with no real cutbacks in R&D ever.

The quarterly results from a couple of other big techs announced this week and last isn't showing the R&D cutbacks you're claiming, at least the ones I've looked at. If anything the research and associated costs have expanded.

By the way, pre-PIP's are sometimes substituted for layoffs to avoid negative press. Nothing illegal about it, but it is another way to accomplish much of what a lay-off would: Reduce head-count.

imat said:

I alway wonder what does "R&D" mean. What it contains... And I would love to know how and for which projects Apple spends 8 Billion USDs EACH QUARTER. I imagine all of the CPU team's work is filed under R&D. But is the iOS and MacOS team as well? Honestly, just curious. An amazing amount of money.

Over the years most of the so-analysts have said Apple is in trouble because they don't spend as much as their competition on R&D, however over the last 25 years Apple certainly have been more effective in how they spend their money when compared to Microsoft, Google, and Meta who all have wasted vast sums of money on giant acquisitions which in most cases don't come close to living up to expectations. (Apples largest acquisition to date three billion dollars for Beats)

Microsoft's recent acquisition of game company Blizzard for 69 billion dollars will just fade away into the breeze in time most of the programing/art-work/animation talent is hired on short term contracts in the gaming industry so most of money spend bought a facade.