If you thought that the Foxconn controversy might hit Apple hard in the wallet, well, you were wrong.
No, Apple, which already reported $97.6 billion in cash and liquid assets at the end of December, had one of the most successful product launches in the history of commerce over the weekend with its new fancy iPad 3, which ranges from $499 to $829 in price — they sold over 3 million of them. You do the math.
“The new iPad is a blockbuster with three million sold―the strongest iPad launch yet,” Apple senior vice president of marketing Philip Schiller said in a statement. “Customers are loving the incredible new features of iPad, including the stunning Retina display, and we can’t wait to get it into the hands of even more customers around the world this Friday.”
Probably not coincidentally, Apple announced earlier today that it would again start paying dividends to shareholders. It did so by sending smoke signals up into the sky by burning a few of the wheel-barrels of cash just sitting around the company’s Cupertino offices just collecting dust.