Apple Sales Gain Slowest Since ’09 as Competition Climbs

I have no knowledge of the financial world, so maybe someone can help me with this and what it means... Apple is now a $50b/quarter company, with a $480b (edit: now $430b) market cap and $140b in cash. Surely this means that, within a few years, Apple will have enough cash to buy itself? This seems like a dangerous situation for a company to be in.<p>For whatever reasons, there seems to be little confidence in Apple lately, but it can't be denied that they're still making substantial growth quarter over quarter. Is this current situation not unsustainable?<p>Edit: thanks everyone for the explanations, it's very much appreciated

If anyone's confused by the stock price, it's simple. Profits are flat since this time last year. This time last year the stock was around $420 and that's where the stock is heading today.

It also recorded its largest quarterly revenue.

We've seen this before, we'll see this again.<p>Apple may do better in tablets than Samsung, or Microsoft, or LG, or Toshiba, or whoever. Apple may do better in phones than Nokia. Apple may do better in laptops than Dell or Asus.<p>Sadly, that isn't enough--with sufficiently tight margins, they need to do better than !Apple (better than all competitors, not any competitor), and in the long run, that's not going to happen. They're going to get pushed out by more competitors in hardware, and honestly I don't think their software play is good enough to save them.