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Apple puts less of its takings into R&D, hires more sales cultists

Knows its own business model best

Apple funnelled an extra billion dollars into research and development in 2012, but as a percentage of its takings in the last year, the spend on R&D actually went down.

The iPhone maker spent $3.4bn on boffinry in the past twelve months, which is 2.18 per cent of its $156bn revenue for the year ended 29 September. In 2011, $2.4bn was spent on research and development, which is 2.22 per cent of its $108bn revenue from that year.

Samsung's figures for 2012 are not out yet, but the South Korean electronics giant reportedly spent 6.2 per cent of its revenue on research in 2011.

Microsoft and Google are thought to have spent approximately 12 per cent of their revenue on research and development.

Apple filed 10K paperwork detailing its annual financial performance to the US watchdog SEC yesterday. In the headline results, Apple announced a profit of $41.7bn and sales up 45 per cent from the year before.

The company's staff count was up 12,400 from 2011; 8,400 of the new staff work in the retail wing of the biz. Apple employs 72,800 full-time employees, 42,400 of them in retail. Last year it employed 60,400 full-timers, with 36,000 in retail.

The exit of iOS chief Scott Forstall was noted by Wall Street, which gave Apple shares a kicking when the markets opened yesterday after a two-day hurricane-induced hiatus.

Apple's stock fell to a three-month low after the day's trading as analysts reacted badly to the exit of the exec and the concentration of power in the hands of Apple's old guard. ®

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