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Comment by Jensson

2 years ago

> Can't even imagine that scaled up to Apple size.

Have you ever dealt with a big government? Then you can imagine, Apple doesn't have as much weight as typical governments but it is close.

Typical how? Weight as defined how? Here is one way of looking at it.

First, look at purchasing power of various governments. See https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/real-gdp-purcha....

> Real GDP (purchasing power parity): GDP (purchasing power parity) compares the gross domestic product (GDP) or value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year. A nation's GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates is the sum value of all goods and services produced in the country valued at prices prevailing in the United States.

Second, look at COGS for Apple: "Apple annual cost of goods sold for 2021 was $212.981B" according to https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/cost-go.... COGS is arguably "close enough" to a nation-state's GDP to make for a useful comparison.

Given the above two, if Apple were a country with a GDP matching its COGS, it would rank about 66th, using a mix of 2022/2021 numbers from the sources above:

    1  China           $24,861B
    2  United States   $21,132B
    3  India            $9,279B
    4  Japan            $5,126B
    5  Germany          $4,523B
    6  Russia           $4,027B
    7  Indonesia        $3,246B
    8  United Kingdom   $3,136B
    9  Brazil           $3,128B
    10 France           $3,048B
    11 Turkey           $2,817B
    12 Italy            $2,478B
    13 Mexico           $2,418B
    14 South Korea      $2,289B
    15 Canada           $1,832B
    ...
    36 Switzerland        $618B
    37 Belgium            $600B
    38 Sweden             $580B
    39 Singapore          $578B
    40 Ireland            $516B
    ...
    63 Kenya              $251B
    64 New Zealand        $220B
    65 Burma              $217B
    66 Dominican Republic $207B
    67 Angola             $204B
    68 Kuwait             $192B
    69 Ecuador            $190B
    70 Belarus            $184B
    ...
    150 Namibia            $23.1B
    151 Kosovo             $21.2B
    152 South Sudan        $20.0B
    153 Iceland            $20.0B
    154 Somalia            $19.4B
    ...
    220 Palau             $248M
    221 Falkland Islands  $206M
    222 Anguilla          $175M
    223 Montserrat        $167M
    224 Nauru             $149M
    225 Wallis and Futuna  $60M
    226 Tuvalu             $55.2M
    227 Saint Helena...    $31.1M
    228 Niue               $18.7M
    229 Tokelau             $7.7M
    

But I wouldn't stop here. What happens if we compare Apple's COGS with the _technology spend_ of each of the nation-states above? If we estimate that 10% of GDP is technology-related, making it comparable to Apple, then Apple's ranking would be 15th on the list, right in front of Canada.