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  3. Never before has so much money been made by a single firm in such a short period of time. On January 27th Tim Cook, the boss of

Never before has so much money been made by a single firm in such a short period of time. On January 27th Tim Cook, the boss of

admin2015-07-13  71
问题     Never before has so much money been made by a single firm in such a short period of time. On January 27th Tim Cook, the boss of Apple, announced that it had made $ 18 billion in its latest financial quarter. Apple’s telephone-number-sized profit stemmed largely from sales of its hugely popular iPhone, which accounted for over two-thirds of its $74.6 billion revenue. Chief executives rarely admit to being shocked by their companies’ performance, but Mr. Cook said it was "hard to comprehend" the extent of the interest in Apple’s products. He noted that, on average, 34,000 iPhones were bought every hour of every day during the latest quarter.
    Apple is the world’s largest company by market capitalisation(总值)as well as its most profitable. Strikingly, it has risen to greatness using a rather old-fashioned business model: selling highly desirable objects at fat gross margins, which hit almost 40% in the latest quarter. The tech industry has bred numerous software-based firms, such as Google and Facebook, that don’t have to worry about shifting goods around, yet they make much less than the Colossus of Cupertino. Amazon handles lots of physical goods, but loses money.
    Another thing that sets Apple apart from the tech pack is its success in conquering China. While rivals have been frustrated there, Apple has just become the largest force in China’s smartphone market measured by units shipped, according to Canalys, a market-research firm.
    Any failure in China could hurt Apple. The company’s overall dependence on the iPhone is another risk. But these are early days for the iPhone 6, Apple’s latest device, whose bigger screen takes the firm into the "phablet"(平板手机)category of larger phones that are wildly popular with customers. Some iFans also point out that Apple’s share of the smartphone market is small compared with devices using Google’s Android operating system. So it has plenty of room to grow.
    Mr. Cook said this week that its much-anticipated smartwatch will go on sale in April. Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies, a consulting firm, thinks Apple could sell 22m -24m in the first 12 months after the launch, producing billions of dollars of new revenue. Sanford C. Bernstein, a research firm, reckons the watches will have a higher-than-average gross margin, which predicts good profits. Apple should be able to make more money from software and services, too.
It is implied in the passage that______.
选项 A、Apple’s online store of software apps is always busy
B、Apple’s smartwatch will reduce its dependence on the iPhone
C、shifting goods around eats away at Amazon’s profits
D、the outlook of software-based firms is quite uncertain
答案C
解析 推理判断题。本题考查对全文内容的推理分析。第二段最后两句提到，科技行业培育出了众多以软件为基础的公司，如谷歌和脸谱，他们不必担心货物流通，但他们赚的钱比“库比蒂诺的巨无霸”(库比蒂诺，苹果公司总部，位于美国旧金山)要少得多。而亚马逊处理大量的实体产品，却处于亏本状态。由此可知，处理大量的实体产品使得亚马逊的收益受损，故C)为答案。A)“苹果公司的软件应用程序在线商店总是很忙”，原文并未提及，故排除；文中第四段第二句提到苹果公司对iPhone手机的全面依赖无疑是另一个风险。而B)“苹果公司的智能手表将降低公司对iPhone手机的依赖”是对原文的错误推断，智能手表的推出与苹果公司对iPhone手机的全面依赖无关，故排除；第二段提到了众多以软件为基础的公司，如谷歌、脸谱以及亚马逊，并对他们的收入状况进行了介绍，但并未描述这些公司的前景，因此D)“以软件为基础的公司前景十分不确定”属于过度推断，故排除。
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