Apple vs Dell: Revenue, Profit and Business Model
Apple reported $416.2B of revenue in FY2025 and $112B of net income. Dell reported $113.5B of revenue in FY2026 and $5.9B of net income.
Latest financial snapshot
Financial summary
Apple
Apple's fiscal 2025 results describe a hardware business with software margins. Net sales rose 6 percent to $416.2 billion, net income reached $112.0 billion, and total gross margin was 46.9 percent, split between 36.8 percent on Products and 75.4 percent on Services. Services revenue of $109.2 billion, up 14 percent, is the reason the blended margin keeps rising. Cash generation is the other defining feature: operations produced $111.5 billion in fiscal 2025, and Apple returned $89.3 billion through share repurchases and $15.4 billion in dividends, after announcing a new repurchase authorization of up to $100 billion and raising the quarterly dividend to $0.26 per share in May 2025. Research and development came to $34.6 billion, 8 percent of net sales, and cash plus marketable securities stood at $132.4 billion at year end.
Dell
Dell's fiscal year ends in late January or early February. Revenue fell from $102.3 billion in fiscal 2023 to $88.4 billion in fiscal 2024 as post-pandemic PC demand faded, then recovered to $95.6 billion in fiscal 2025 and a record $113.5 billion in fiscal 2026, when net income reached $5.94 billion, operating cash flow topped $11 billion and $7.5 billion was returned to shareholders. Fiscal 2027 has accelerated: Q1 revenue was $43.8 billion (up 88%) and Q2 revenue was $47.0 billion (up 58%), with Q2 diluted EPS of $6.34. In September 2026 Dell raised full-year fiscal 2027 guidance to about $192 billion in revenue and $25.50 in non-GAAP EPS. The balance sheet still carries debt from the 2016 EMC deal, though leverage has fallen through the VMware spin-off and cash generation.
Revenue and profit by year
Apple
| Year | Revenue | Net income | Margin | Growth | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | $416.2B | $112B | 26.9% | +6.4% | Source |
| FY2024 | $391B | $93.7B | 24.0% | +2.0% | Source |
| FY2023 | $383.3B | $97B | 25.3% | -2.8% | Source |
| FY2022 | $394.3B | $99.8B | 25.3% | +7.8% | Source |
| FY2021 | $365.8B | $94.7B | 25.9% | +33.3% | Source |
| FY2020 | $274.5B | $57.4B | 20.9% | +5.5% | Source |
| FY2019 | $260.2B | $55.3B | 21.2% | -2.0% | Source |
| FY2018 | $265.6B | $59.5B | 22.4% | +15.9% | Source |
| FY2017 | $229.2B | $48.4B | 21.1% | +6.3% | Source |
| FY2016 | $215.6B | $45.7B | 21.2% | — | Source |
Where the revenue comes from
Apple
- iPhone~50%
iPhone net sales were $209.6B in FY2025, up 4%, and the phone is the entry point into Services, accessories, AppleCare, iCloud and App Store spending.
- Services~26%
Services covers the App Store, advertising, cloud, AppleCare, payments, media subscriptions and licensing. FY2025 net sales were $109.2B, up 14%, at a 75.4% gross margin against 36.8% for Products.
- Mac and iPad~15%
Mac net sales were $33.7B and iPad $28.0B in FY2025, driven by Apple silicon refreshes, education, creative work and enterprise adoption.
- Wearables, Home and Accessories~9%
Apple Watch, AirPods, Vision Pro, home devices and accessories were $35.7B in FY2025, down 4%, and they deepen iPhone attachment.
Dell
- Client SolutionsMajor
Revenue from commercial and consumer PCs, workstations, peripherals, and related support.
- Infrastructure SolutionsMajor
Revenue from servers, storage, networking, AI infrastructure, and data-center systems.
- Services, Support, and Financing
Supporting
Revenue from warranties, support contracts, deployment, managed services, and financing tied to hardware and infrastructure sales.
Business model and strategy
Apple
How it makes money
Apple sells hardware at premium prices and keeps the software, distribution and payment layers on top of it. The iPhone is the entry point, at $209.6 billion of fiscal 2025 net sales, and it pulls customers into iOS, iCloud storage plans, App Store purchases, AppleCare and accessories.
Growth strategy
Growth now comes from monetizing an installed base of more than 2.5 billion devices rather than from unit growth alone. Services rose 14 percent to $109.2 billion in fiscal 2025 on the App Store, advertising, iCloud, AppleCare, payments and subscription media, and Apple packages them through the Apple One bundle.
Competitive advantage
Apple's advantage comes from owning the parts other phone makers buy. It designs its own silicon, the A20 Pro in iPhone 18 Pro and the M5 in Mac and iPad Pro, plus the operating systems, the app store, the payment layer and the retail channel, so hardware, software and services are tuned to each other.
Dell
How it makes money
Dell makes money by selling hardware plus attached services and financing. The Infrastructure Solutions Group sells AI-optimized servers built around Nvidia (and some AMD) accelerators, traditional PowerEdge servers, networking and storage to enterprises, cloud service providers and governments; in Q2 fiscal 2027 ISG produced $31.8 billion of revenue and $4.8 billion of operating income.
Growth strategy
Dell's growth strategy has three parts. First, win AI infrastructure share by shipping GPU-dense, liquid-cooled rack systems (PowerEdge XE servers with Nvidia Blackwell-generation GPUs) to neoclouds, sovereign AI programs and large enterprises, packaged as the Dell AI Factory.
Competitive advantage
Dell's edge is breadth and scale in enterprise relationships. It can sell a customer everything from 10,000 laptops to a liquid-cooled GPU cluster with storage, networking, deployment and financing under one contract, and support it worldwide.
Questions about Apple vs Dell
Which company has higher revenue — Apple Inc. or Dell Technologies Inc.?
Apple Inc. reported $416.2B (FY2025), while Dell Technologies Inc. reported $113.5B (FY2026). By last reported revenue, Apple Inc. is the larger business, with Dell Technologies Inc. reporting a smaller revenue base. Note: these are from different fiscal years and are not a direct like-for-like comparison.
What is the market cap of Apple Inc. vs Dell Technologies Inc.?
Apple Inc.'s market capitalisation stands at $4.98T, while Dell Technologies Inc.'s is $360.0B. Apple Inc. carries the higher market valuation, reflecting investors' expectations of its future earnings power relative to Dell Technologies Inc..
Which is more financially efficient — Apple Inc. or Dell Technologies Inc.?
Apple Inc. generates $2.51M / employee in revenue per employee, while Dell Technologies Inc. generates $1.17M / employee. Apple Inc. shows higher revenue efficiency per headcount, though this reflects business model differences — capital-light software companies routinely outperform labour-intensive manufacturers on this metric.
How do Apple Inc. and Dell Technologies Inc. make money?
Apple Inc. and Dell Technologies Inc. generate revenue in fundamentally different ways. Apple Inc.: Apple sells hardware at premium prices and keeps the software, distribution and payment layers on top of it. Dell Technologies Inc.: Dell makes money by selling hardware plus attached services and financing.
Which company is valued higher relative to revenue — Apple Inc. or Dell Technologies Inc.?
On a price-to-sales (P/S) basis, Apple Inc. trades at 12.0x P/S and Dell Technologies Inc. at 3.2x P/S. Apple Inc. commands a higher revenue multiple, typically indicating that investors expect faster growth or higher future margins compared to Dell Technologies Inc.. A higher multiple is not inherently better — it may also signal that the stock is priced for perfection.
Is Apple Inc. bigger than Dell Technologies Inc.?
By last reported revenue, Apple Inc. ($416.2B (FY2025)) is the larger company compared to Dell Technologies Inc. ($113.5B (FY2026)). Revenue scale is one dimension of size — market capitalisation, employee count, and geographic reach are also relevant depending on the context.
Figures come from each company's filings and the sources linked beside them. Amounts reported in another currency are shown in US dollars at an approximate rate and marked with ~. Back to the Apple vs Dell overview