Apple Reports High R&D Intensity, Indicates iWatch Launch

Apple released a new earning report last week, and everything seems pretty normal. But our friends over at Statista noticed that Apple reported a R&D intensity–the ratio between the company’s revenue and R&D expenditure–of 4.28%, the highest in 8 years for the company. Interestingly, the last time Apple hit a R&D intensity of more than 4% was back in 2006, right before it launched the revolutionary iPhone. If anything, this statistic firmly points to a new product line extension, most likely the impending launch of Apple wearable. Beacon technology and DRM are among other likely candidates that cut into Apple’s research fund, but recent reports seem all but confirmed that Apple is betting big on iWatch. Would the wearable market blow up like the tablet market did when Apple introduced iPad? The big spender seems pretty confident on that.