As Apple ran up against the law of big numbers, the firm invested heavily in recurring revenue offerings—iCloud, Apple Music, Apple TV+, Arcade, etc. In Q4 2019, Apple’s services revenue was up 25% year over year to 23% of revenue. As a result, Apple has been recast as a software firm, and despite a negligible increase in earnings, it doubled its valuation and P/E multiple in just 12 months. Apple’s services business would stand as the 258th company on the Fortune 500, just beating out Bed Bath & Beyond.19 And on the hardware side, the company is transitioning one-off sales of its flagship
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