Above Avalon:

After a brief lull, Apple’s R&D expenditures are once again exploding higher. Apple’s 2Q18 financial guidance implies the company will soon report the largest year-over-year increase in quarterly R&D expense in its history. Management is on track to spend $14 billion on R&D in FY2018, nearly double the amount spent on R&D just four years ago. The dramatic rise in Apple R&D expenditures raises questions regarding the company’s product pipeline and whether management’s overall approach to R&D is changing.

Apple’s pace of R&D expenditures is nothing like the company has ever seen. The $14 billion of R&D expense that Apple will spend in FY2018 will be more than the amount Apple spent on R&D from 1998 to 2011.

“Something wicked this way comes…”