The main evidence you give in support of that claim is that the service doesn't have a lot of customers. But that is true for literally just about every other Apple acquisition. Apple buys technology and talent in the early stages or in component form. Like Tim Cook said there's 70+ other examples of tech & talent acquisitions to look at, and this is just another one of them.

It makes sense financially for Apple, sure, but only in the sense that it doesn't lose them money to purchase the attached headphones business. That business would not even register as a blip in their future growth to be the main goal of the deal.

His other quote was how he was looking forward to Iovine & Dre working on revolutionizing the music industry. That's not about headphones.

How did you arrive at the 15% margin figure?

($3 billion purchase price [1] / 14.9x AAPL P/E ratio [2]) / $1.3 billion 2013 Beats headphone sales [3].

We are asking how much in earnings (E) would Beats need to earn to give a $3 billion price (P) no more than a 14.9x P/E ratio. We then turn those minimum earnings E and turn them into a quick-and-dirty margin by dividing E by sales.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/technology/apple-confirms-...

[2] https://www.google.com/finance?q=aapl&ei=_0qGU5C_BabzsgeenYH...

[3] http://nypost.com/2014/05/27/apple-cuts-purchase-price-of-be...