Not to mention that Apple ended up eating up almost all of the profits of the PC market. It really is starting to feel like history is repeating itself
Microsoft and Intel, not Apple, ended up eating almost all of the profits in the PC market.
Comparing Apple only to the manufacturers who had to deal with those two giant monopsonies who supplied the two basic requirements for a "Wintel" PC is missing the point massively.
It also makes things interesting for this time around as Google and ARM have very different business strategies than Windows and Intel did at that time.
You're right in terms of the '90s and early aughts, but I believe the commenter is referring to current market conditions. That is, "Apple ended up eating almost all of the profits in the PC market" means since about 2009 or so. Between MacBooks and iPads, Apple claims an outsized portion of the industry profits relative to its market share, as with iPhone.
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong: hasn't Apple seen its Mac line market share grow for something like 26 straight quarters? And, since they're high-end / premium devices (> $1,000), the margins (and therefore profit) are higher (again, like iPhone).
It's hard to get good figures since it's not something they generally break out, but according to some guesstimates from Asymco, Apple took in 5 Billion in revenue and made 1.1 Billion profit in Q4 2012 from selling PCs.
This is more than the top 5 Windows vendors combined, and about as much all Windows vendors combined.
Microsoft on the other hand (though interestingly they actually made an overall loss that quarter as they wrote of a 7 Billion company they purchased a few years before) made about 4 bilion revenue and maybe 2-3 Billion profit from consumer Windows sales directly and that's not counting servers, or business licences, or Office each of which is roughly of the same magnitude.
Intel's PC client group took in 8.5 Billion that quarter. Possibly half of that being profit (overall gross margin was 58%.)
So Apple makes a lot of money from PCs, Microsoft and Intel have always made more.
Note that from selling iPhones and iPads Apple recently made more profit than Microsoft, Intel and a few others combined. But for desktop and laptops, Microsoft and Intel have always claimed the vast share of industry profits unless you go out of your way to exclude these two companies from the industry.
With the difference being that, this time, Apple with full control over their entire supply chain (notably not beholden to Motorola/IBM/Intel as chip manufacturers), can outmaneuver their competitors in ways that were simply not possible even a decade ago.
