GDP Manipulation

[preferred u]

In a note to clients Monday, titled "Can one little phone impact GDP?," Mr. Feroli walks through the math: J.P. Morgan's equity analysts expect Apple to sell about eight million new iPhone units in the final three months of 2012.

If the phone sells for around $600, with about $200 of it counted as imported components, then $400 per phone would add to the government's measure of gross domestic product, the total value of the economy's output.

Even though consumers may not pay that much for the phone, because of subsidies from wireless carriers, Mr. Feroli explains that companies often report phone sales based on the price of the stand-alone product.


The bottom line: The new iPhone sales could boost GDP by $3.2 billion in the fourth quarter, or $12.8 billion at an annual rate. That is an increase of 0.33 percentage point in the annualized rate of GDP growth. It could be even higher, he says. Even a third of a percentage point would limit the risk the economy would grow more slowly than J.P. Morgan's fourth-quarter growth projection of 2%.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000..._sections_tech

And This from their 10K :

"

Substantially all of the Company’s manufacturing is performed in whole or in part by a few outsourcing partners primarily located in Asia. The Company has also outsourced much of its transportation and logistics management.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da...220209d10k.htm "

Just curious iPhone manufacture and content is predominately Asian
mostly Samsung and other Asian suppliers maybe a TI or broad com chip in there probably made in TSMC fabs over there as well. price avg $600.00 mostly carrier subsidized how can 2/3 of it be a domestic product? There is nothing domestic about a phone or computer manufactured in China ! A little manipulation going on here to inflate the GDP quite obviously .
Not surprising in an election year .

[whell]

I think this belongs in the "conspiracy theory" section.

For any of this to be remotely factual / possible, one would need to proceed from the assumption that a company would defer current quarter sales and delay a product launch for some reason other than maximizing value for shareholders. That would mean that the Board of Directors would need to be complicit with the decision to delay the product as well.

Also, whether the economy grows at 2%, 2.33% or 2.8% is irrelevant. Any economic growth that is insufficient to create jobs and lower unemployment (which GDP growth in the 2 - 3% range probably won't do) is not going to matter to the voters. The average voter doesn't know or care what the projected or actual GDP growth rate is. They just care about their prospects for employment and whether they can feed their family.