Apple reported its latest quarterly earnings this week, and, as always, the key number was iPhone sales. The company sold 50.8 million of its flagship product this past quarter — that’s a ...

British firms’ $35.1bn of sales trumped those of French ones, at $23.2bn, though the figures swing from year to year as contracts for new warplanes are signed and delivered.

Sales of cassettes and CDs already far outstripped those of 12-inch glossy black platters. In the 1990s vinyl almost vanished altogether. In 2005 a mere $14m-worth of records were sold in America.