Looking Into Apple's Return On Capital Employed

Looking at Q1, Apple AAPL earned $33.53 billion, a 126.96% increase from the preceding quarter. Apple also posted a total of $111.44 billion in sales, a 72.24% increase since Q4. In Q4, Apple earned $14.78 billion, whereas sales reached $64.70 billion.

Why ROCE Is Significant

Changes in earnings and sales indicate shifts in Apple's Return on Capital Employed, a measure of yearly pre-tax profit relative to capital employed by a business. Generally, a higher ROCE suggests successful growth of a company and is a sign of higher earnings per share in the future. In Q1, Apple posted an ROCE of 0.51%.

It is important to keep in mind ROCE evaluates past performance and is not used as a predictive tool. It is a good measure of a company's recent performance, but several factors could affect earnings and sales in the near future.

ROCE is an important metric for the comparison of similar companies. A relatively high ROCE shows Apple is potentially operating at a higher level of efficiency than other companies in its industry. If the company is generating high profits with its current level of capital, some of that money can be reinvested in more capital which will generally lead to higher returns and earnings per share growth.

In Apple's case, the positive ROCE ratio will be something investors pay attention to before making long-term financial decisions.

Q1 Earnings Insight

Apple reported Q1 earnings per share at $1.68/share, which beat analyst predictions of $1.41/share.