Perspective: Apple is now Worth More Than Greece

Apple doubled profit and revenue year-over-year in the last quarter, earning more money in Q1 2012 than the company was worth just eight years ago.

At over $400 billion, Apple is now worth more than Greece, owing largely to the immense and growing popularity of the iPad, according to CNN Tech.

Just let that sink in for a moment.

Apple’s record earnings were led by 15 million iPads sold just in the last quarter. Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an earnings call yesterday that the tablet market is now larger than the entire desktop PC market, and predicts it will soon overtake the entire PC market. Apple has sold 55 million iPads since its launch in April 2010.

Apple’s first-quarter profit of $13.1 billion was equal to their revenue in the fourth quarter of 2010 –  just a year and a quarter ago. That burgeoning profit allowed Apple to set aside $38 billion in cash reserves in the past year alone. Now Apple has $97.6 billion in cash and equivalents — more than all but 52 companies in the entire world.

Apple likely sold three times as many iPads as Amazon sold Kindle Fires, and at twice the price. Asked about the impact of lower-cost tablets, Apple CEO Tim Cook said they haven’t noticed any impact, either positive or negative, from the Kindle Fire being on the market.

Just to give some perspective, Apple brought in more than four times the profits of Walmart in the most recent quarter, though the much larger company reported revenue more than twice that of Apple.

(Related: Is Starbucks Transforming into a Complete Beverage Brand?)

Apple only passed Microsoft in terms of revenue in October 2010, when Apple posted $20.34 billion. In Microsoft’s most recent quarter, the company saw record revenue of $20.9 billion — less than half the $46.33 billion Apple reported.

Apple didn’t surpass Microsoft in terms of profit until April of last year, and yet Apple’s net income this past quarter was $13.06 billion, nearly double Microsoft’s $6.62 billion.

Hewlett-Packard has long held the revenue crown, but is expected to concede its top spot in the computing kingdom when it reports earnings in about a month.

Apple’s iTunes Store alone generated 50 percent more revenue than all of Yahoo! did last quarter, while Apple paid third-party app developers more than double Yahoo’s overall profits. Furthermore, Apple’s first quarter profits exceed Google’s entire revenue for the last quarter, $13 billion to $10.6 billion. In fact, Apple’s profit for the entire year now beats Google’s revenue for the same period of time.

Apple sold 1.4 million Apple TVs last quarter, roughly half as many as they sold for the entire previous fiscal year. With 37 million iPhones sold in the last quarter, Apple is now the largest smartphone maker. And Apple is now selling twice as many iPads to K-12 schools as Macs.

If yesterday’s after-hours gain holds in regular trading today, Apple’s market value could grow to $437.1 billion, more than Exxon’s $417.9 billion market capitalization as yesterday’s close, again rising to the top of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

[Editor’s note: the above is a cross post that originally appeared on Wall St. Cheat Sheet.]