Imagining a multinational corporation as a country isn't that far-fetched. Video games and science fiction have explored the idea, and in real life we can make some compelling comparisons. Take Apple: its annual net profits are the envy of many governments, along with its influence and popularity. If the "Republic of Apple" were to exist tomorrow, where would it rank in the world?
I know some users are annoyed by the phrase giant of Cupertino but I use it only to describe what Apple is today. There are plenty of reasons to reject what the company offers: the extraordinary proprietary nature of its hardware, its addiction to planned obsolescence, and the fact that it has turned the Apple brand into a kind of cult. However, it's hard to question its success when you plug certain data into the equation. Its market capitalization has exceeded 800 billion dollars, making it again the number one in the market. Shareholders have shown concern over the decline in net profits... but those were 45.7 billion dollars last year. To be honest, Apple could function as a country if it wanted to, so let's play around and put the company in that hypothetical role.
Apple has approximately 116,000 employees, which as a population would be almost identical to Kiribati, an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. If Apple decided to blow everyone away and distribute its 2016 profits among its employees, each would receive just over 380,000 dollars. When we view Apple's revenue as gross domestic product, it places it between the Czech Republic and Finland (though the value changes depending on who's measuring, the IMF or the World Bank), and if we do the same with its net earnings, it would rank above countries like Serbia, Panama, or Jordan.
The iPhone Engine
How did Apple achieve all this? Obviously, any opinion, vision, calculation, or interpretation must bow to the magic word: iPhone. In the first quarter of this year, Apple sold nearly 52 million smartphones, one for every inhabitant of South Korea. In 2016, the total reached 212 million. That sales pace doesn't just let Apple defend its chilling market capitalization, but also stash away over 250 billion dollars in cash... which of course is spread around the world (you know, taxes).
The Human Cost
At the same time, the 'Republic of Apple' would suffer brutal income inequality. So-called top executives have an average base salary of 2.7 million dollars a year, while a software engineer hovers around 170,000, and the lowest positions revolve around 32,000 dollars a year. However, this falls apart when we remember that Apple does all its manufacturing in China. That translates into millions of employees under the influence of companies like Foxconn and Pegatron, who receive less than two dollars an hour under shifts of up to 72 hours a week. The sum of components in an iPhone 7 reaches 219.80 dollars, with a profit of 424 dollars each (without discounts)... but the labor cost is just five dollars per unit.
