Fortune's Philip Elmer-Dewitt finds an interesting chart in a research note from ISI's Brian Marshall. Apple is bringing in far, far more revenue per employee than other US tech companies.
Marshall's takeaway: "The scale [Apple] is executing on is nothing less than astonishing". And not only does Apple beat out its tech peers, it sits above the US banks in both revenue and profit per employee for the most recent four quarters.
Apple is generating more revenue and profit per employee than the biggest banks, companies that are at least partially set up to deliver eye-popping per employee financial performance. Marshall's statement applies more broadly than perhaps he intends. Apple's performance is indeed "nothing less than astonishing", and not just in comparison to tech companies.
Contributing in part to these impressive results is Apple’s ability to outsource large portions of its production and supply chain to places like Foxconn. While this is the norm for tech companies, there is no analogy on Wall Street to the legions of low-cost non-Apple workers who assemble the products that drive Apple's revenue and profit. To use consultant-speak, Wall Street scales and leverages its business model in very different ways.
