R&D spending at Apple has been accelerating faster than Apple’s share of the global smartphone market.
In the weeks that preceded Apple’s introduction of new iPhones, iPads, and the forthcoming Apple Watch, quarterly spending on research and development hit a new all-time high for Apple.
Revealed this week in the company’s 10-K filing with the SEC, Apple spent a staggering $1.7 billion on research & development last quarter.
All told, Apple’s total expenditure on R&D in fiscal 2014 stands at $6 billion.
In the filing, Apple noted that it “continues to believe that focused investments in R&D are critical to its future growth and competition in the marketplace and are directly related to timely development of new and enhanced products that are central to the Company’s core business strategy.”
Apple, of course, didn’t reveal how much it plans to spend on R&D this quarter, but the company says it expects “to make further investments in R&D to remain competitive.”
