Apple's iPhone Business in Perspective

When Apple holds its highly-anticipated keynote on Wednesday, millions of people will be watching, curious what the world’s arguably most secretive company has to unveil. But even though much of the attention ahead of the event has been focused on what Apple may present besides the new iPhone models (a giant iPad? a revamped Apple TV?), it’s the iPhone presentation that is most important to Apple’s future.

After the first iPhone was released in 2007, it quickly became Apple’s largest cash cow, accounting for 69 percent of the company’s revenue in the 2014 holiday quarter. Today’s chart illustrates how huge the iPhone business really is. In the past quarter, Apple generated more revenue selling iPhones than Google, eBay and Facebook did combined.

So whatever Apple’s upcoming keynote has in store, the company’s investors will probably be happy as long as the new iPhones are received positively.