2007



Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations 

Executive Overview 

The Company designs, manufactures, and markets personal computers, portable digital music players, and mobile communication devices and sells a variety of related software, services, peripherals, and networking solutions. The Company's products and services include the Mac® line of desktop and portable computers, the iPod line of portable digital music players, iPhone, Apple TV, Xserve®, and Xserve RAID, a portfolio of consumer and professional software applications, the Mac OS® X operating system, third-party digital content through the iTunes StoreTM, and a variety of accessory, service and support offerings. The Company sells its products worldwide through its online stores, its retail stores, its direct sales force, and third-party wholesalers, resellers, and value-added resellers. In addition, the Company sells a variety of third-party Mac, iPod and iPhone compatible products, including application software, printers, storage devices, speakers, headphones, and various other accessories and peripherals through its online and retail stores. The Company sells to education, consumer, creative professional, business, and government customers. Further discussion of the Company's products may be found in Part I, Item 1 of this Form 10-K under the heading "Business." 

The Company believes that for both professionals and consumers the personal computer has become the center of an evolving digital lifestyle by integrating with and enhancing the utility of advanced digital devices such as the Company's iPods, iPhones, digital video and still cameras, televisions, personal digital assistants, and other digital devices. The attributes of the personal computer that enable this functionality include a high-quality user interface, easy access to relatively inexpensive data storage, the ability to run complex applications, and the ability to connect easily to a wide variety of other digital devices and to the Internet. The Company is the only participant in the personal computer industry that controls the design and development of the entire personal computer—from the hardware and operating system to sophisticated applications. This, along with its products' creative industrial designs, intuitive ease-of-use, and built-in graphics, multimedia and networking capabilities, uniquely positions the Company to offer innovative integrated digital lifestyle solutions. 

The Company's business strategy leverages its ability, through the design and development of its own operating system, hardware, and many software applications and technologies, to bring to its customers around the world compelling new products and solutions with superior ease-of- use, seamless integration, and innovative industrial design. 

The Company participates in several highly competitive markets, including personal computers with its Mac line of computers, consumer electronics with its iPod product family of portable digital music players, and distribution of third-party digital content through its online iTunes Store. With the introduction of iPhone, the Company has