[askafriend]

There are a ton of ways to slice these numbers, but no matter how you slice them the result is just insane as a percentage of America and the World - which was my point.

I appreciate you pointing out an alternate methodology though.

[kelnos]

The magnitude matters a lot, though, and suggesting that Apple is more than 5% of the US GDP is incorrect and vastly overstates their contribution to the US economy.

The 1.2%/1.6% and even 0.5% figures quoted by others in this thread are still high numbers for a single company, but I submit that "more than 5%" would be a very different number (3x-20x, depending on which of the other numbers you believe) and is a gross exaggeration.