Over the objections of the U.S. State Department, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt visited North Korea “in a private capacity” and told them unless they drop barriers to global Internet access, it will be harder for them to catch up economically. The Wall Street Journal reports Schmidt as having said ”We made that alternative very, very clear”.

History has shown there has yet to be a company that has won the hearts and minds of consumers and achieved continuous growth, when its primary means to competition has been the outright abuse of patent law, not the pursuit of innovation.

Well, exactly Samsung.

Morgan Stanley analyst, Katy Huberty, is reported to have told investors last week:

“Apple’s revenue and capex ex-retail stores have been 97% correlated over the past seven years and the acceleration in capex growth signals a similar acceleration in revenue growth, in our view.”

Given Apple has projected ex-retail capital expenditures of  $7.2 billion during its 2012 fiscal year, Katy’s theory suggests revenues from Macs, iPods, iPhones and iPads (and possibly other new products) would grow from $97 billion in FYE2011, to over $175 billion in FYE2012 – as detailed in the following chart:

Source: AAPL Annual SEC 10K Filings

Philip Elmer-DeWitt, on Apple’s blowout Q2-12 results:

“Analysts spent much of Tuesday predicting that the company would miss its targets – forgetting, apparently, that most iPhone sales take place overseas”.

In fact, in this most recent quarter, the Americas made up just 34% of AAPL’s total revenue – representing only $13.2b of its total revenue of $39.1b. Over the past six quarters, the Asia Pacific has doubled its share of Apple’s revenue from 13% to 26%, significantly reducing the company’s reliance on its US base.

ChangeWave Research:

A total of 84% of US companies planning to buy tablets next quarter now say they’ll purchase iPads – a 7-pt leap since the previous survey.