191–200 of 551 posts
Is this something that Apple can address with more competitive pricing in China?
More competitive pricing would reduce margins. Apple has chosen to pursue high margins and high profits rather than market share. That's how it accumulated roughly $200 billion in cash.
Apple is not doomed, but I think they've taken their eyes off the ball a bit. Watch and iPad Pro are me-too products, and the switch to flat interfaces cost them a lot of differentiation IMHO. They've cheapened their brand and they don't seem to know what market they should really disrupt.
Personally I'm not interested in the watch, but the iPad Pro is far from me-too. The display on the 9.7" is outstanding, the pencil is top notch, it's light, powerful, sounds great. At this point Apple is just knocking it out of the park in tablets on every front. Nobody else makes anything that comes close.
The iPhone was a completely post-Mac product; now Apple needs a post-iPhone product, and they don't seem to know exactly what that could be. They are swinging wildly at fashionable fads from competitors (watches after Samsung, pro tablets after MS, cars after Tesla, etc etc), with little end result. But Apple is at its best when it disrupts mediocre and stalling markets (grey PCs, crappy mp3 players, stupid phones), not running after fashionable fads. They should leave "fire and motion" to the rabble and come up with new panzer designs instead.
Incredible that this is the first time in 13 years that Apple hasn't posted quarterly growth. I'm sure there will be lots of "Apple has lost its ability to innovate" articles based on this, but growing for the last ~52 straight quarters is insane. And I don't think one quarter without growth is enough evidence to conclude "Apple may be reaching the saturation point among potential customers in some countries" or "oth…
There is something fundamentally wrong with our system that "growth" is used as the main metric for assessing business success. It's growth for the sake of growth (and more $), and not deploying business to solve hard customer problems and to make the world a little bit better.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Apple may be reaching the saturation point (of the products it currently sells) among potential customers in some countries"
Apologies in advance if this is a dumb question. What is Apple's next move once it saturates the market? Or, more generally, what is the next move once you've saturated a market?
There's plenty of more options available in both the short (5yrs). They've previously had consumer product lines that included cameras, game consoles, laser printers, TVs, etc.. They could revisit those markets again, or push into business markets.
Really they could do anything.
It probably doesn't help that the subsidy model has completely changed. But personally, I think iPhone performance has hit a point where one doesn't really feel the need to upgrade right away. I was so ready to upgrade when the contract on my 4 expired. It was really a pain to use after a couple of years. But my 5S has now lasted me two and a half years and other than wishing I had more storage capacity, there's real…
Apple can and does generate a steady stream of revenue from existing devices. App Store revenue increased 35 percent year-over-year, and iCloud is also continuing to grow. Apple pay is adding 1 million new users per week. and they just announced the Apple Music has 13 million subscribers.
Apple's services unit is now the company's second largest category during the recent quarter, ahead of Mac and iPad sales
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Apple may be reaching the saturation point (of the products it currently sells) among potential customers in some countries"
Apologies in advance if this is a dumb question. What is Apple's next move once it saturates the market? Or, more generally, what is the next move once you've saturated a market?
Incredible that this is the first time in 13 years that Apple hasn't posted quarterly growth. I'm sure there will be lots of "Apple has lost its ability to innovate" articles based on this, but growing for the last ~52 straight quarters is insane. And I don't think one quarter without growth is enough evidence to conclude "Apple may be reaching the saturation point among potential customers in some countries" or "oth…
There is something fundamentally wrong with our system that "growth" is used as the main metric for assessing business success. It's growth for the sake of growth (and more $), and not deploying business to solve hard customer problems and to make the world a little bit better.
Not sure I understand. How do you grow revenue unless you're producing something that someone wants, presumably because it solves a problem and makes the world better?
If I were a company I'd pay a lot of money to find other ways to grow!
I run a repair shop. We've repaired over 3,000 Apple devices for customers. We are always chatting with our customers, so we get a ton of feedback from them about what they're doing with their phones. We hear a few things consistently: 1) Providers have switched from "free upgrades every 2 years" to a plan cost and a monthly phone cost, so people now really know how much their phone costs--and many would rather save…
Providers have switched from "free upgrades every 2 years" to a plan cost and a monthly phone cost, so people now really know how much their phone costs--and many would rather save the $30 a month than upgrade their phone. Wasn't this why Apple was quietly introducting the "iPhone Upgrade Program"? http://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-upgrade-program Seems like Apple realized the future will be a place where every…
Apple is doing just fine. But there's been no Next Big Thing since Jobs. Apple's watch is a dud. Nest's products don't work well. It's like Sony after Akio Moreta died; the company plugs on, but the light has gone out.
The last year quarter was buoyed by previous quarter supply constraints causing a lot more sales in many categories and products.
It's not that this quarter was bad (it was fine) it's that last years quarter was SO GOOD and last quarter had no major supply constraints that we see this.
Basically - Apple has got so good at the supply chain it's hurting their numbers for quarters with no new releases.
But sure, start speculating about [insert your favorite phone] and writing screeds about phone subsidies/performance/innovation/whatever. It won't be right... but you'll feel better I guess.