Apple ordered by U.S. court to reveal iPhone profit margins

Apple won its recent U.S. patent case against Samsung, but the company may have to pay a price by revealing key profit details about the iPhone.
Judge Lucy Koh has ordered Apple to go public with information about its sales, earnings, and profit margins on the iPhone. As a corporation, Apple does report unit sales on its various products each quarter. But it stops short of divulging how much profit it makes on each iPhone.
Apple has maintained that revealing such information would benefit its competitors. But apparently Koh didn't buy that argument.
"Apple has not established that public availability of its product-specific unit sales, revenue, profit, profit margin, and cost data would actually provide its competitors with an advantage," Koh said in her ruling yesterday. "As evidenced by the plethora of media and general public scrutiny of the preliminary injunction proceedings and the trial, the public has a significant interest in these court filings, and therefore the strong presumption of public access applies."
Apple still has a shot to avoid going public with its data. The matter is scheduled to go to the U.S. Court of Appeals, which will render its own decision.
Koh presided over the recent patent case between Apple and Samsung in which the latter wasfound guilty of patent infringement and ordered to pay penalties of more than $1 billion. Apple has ramped up the legal battle since the verdict.

Apple ordered by U.S. court to reveal iPhone profit margins | Politics and Law - CNET News

If you have a product that has a significant profit bloat, and you reveal that, yes your customers may well go elsewhere. Especially as your competitors' products are already cheaper by a wide margin. And if your public image is built on the idea that innovation -not profit- is what drives the company, your customers are going to be pissed when they realize you've been lying to them.