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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1134553
disconnect between what companies sell and what customers buy. Companies sell objects or activities that they can make or engage in but customers buy solutions to problems. It's easy to be fooled that these are interchangeable. Conversely Apple offers solutions to problems that are viewed, classified, weighed and measured as objects or activities by external observers. Again, it's easy to be fooled that these are the same. This analysis is, of course, applicable to any company. Here I'm using Apple as a lens. This is because it's just so much easier to tell this story with the narratives and anti-narratives that are so widely disseminated. 1. The milestone of $1 trillion iPhone revenues was reached in the fourth quarter 2018 during which time the stock price of Apple fell by 40%. 2. As a result, the number of outstanding shares has decreased by 29% 3. The difference is in the way Apple accounts for App Store revenues: declaring only the 30% portion of sales that it keeps as revenues, and not including the 70% that is paid out to developers. The "billing rate" is what consumers spend, the "revenue rate" is what Apple reports. 4. They are only correlated. Purchase decisions are not *caused* by a product's existence. The real cause is a combination of need and supply and time and circumstance of purchase.