Apple’s Social Network
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Apple’s Social Network
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Re: Apple’s Social Network
#2I always enjoy Ben Thompson's insights, and I think he may have something here. But does anyone really feel comfortable that this strategy is going to keep them at the top?
Re: Apple’s Social Network
#3This strategy seems at least orthogonal, if not contradictory, to their positioning themselves as a privacy-focused company that can be trusted because their business-model is based on hard products rather than on engagement.
Re: Apple’s Social Network
#4This strategy seems at least orthogonal, if not contradictory, to their positioning themselves as a privacy-focused company that can be trusted because their business-model is based on hard products rather than on engagement.
A real world social network preserves privacy, no?
Re: Apple’s Social Network
#5It seems like apple can continue to grow ‘unit sales’ by introducing new products like the watch at a regular pace.
Re: Apple’s Social Network
#6I always enjoy Ben Thompson's insights, and I think he may have something here. But does anyone really feel comfortable that this strategy is going to keep them at the top?
They are not on top in phones or computers. Android devices outsell iPhones by a significant margin and for computers, apple basically owns an insignificant portion of the market.
Re: Apple’s Social Network
#7I always enjoy Ben Thompson's insights, and I think he may have something here. But does anyone really feel comfortable that this strategy is going to keep them at the top?
Isn’t it the only strategy to keep them at the top? Unit sales in the smartphone market have clearly plateaued for everyone, not just Apple. Future revenue growth is going to depend either on winning over somebody else’s customers or deepening your engagement with your own so they’ll find more reasons to spend more money on your products.
It isn’t really in Apple’s DNA to try to win over the low end of the market, so there’s limits to how far they could take the first strategy. The second is effectively limitless: Does anyone think personal devices can’t keep getting better / more useful / more desirable?
Re: Apple’s Social Network
#8In the essay, the "social network" stands for the new initiative of customer gatherings & sessions at Apple Stores. What Apple dubs "Today at Apple".
I'm having a hard time thinking of historical business examples where in-store "educational" events really moved the needle on sales.
Maybe one example is Home Depot stores with their free demonstrations of various home improvement tasks. Do they actually change store visits or total sales? Or are they a loss leader? I have no idea. (Home Depot isn't an exact comparison to Apple because it doesn't require buying HomeDepot-branded tools to benefit from the demos.)
Remember 20 years ago when some industry observers thought Amazon online bookstore couldn't compete with Barnes & Noble because the brick&mortar store had the sofas and lounge chairs to browse books, the cafe area, the children's area where people read aloud, etc. It turns out those in-store social experiences weren't as advantageous as people thought.
Yes, there are other customer gathering experiences that happen such as video game e-sports leagues (or LAN parties) or Harley Davidson motorcycle meetups. But those social events seem organically created bottom-up by the customers rather than top-down by a hardware company. E.g. As far as I know, the e-sports league membership isn't tied to a hardware manufacturer like NVIDIA or ATI. (A particular hardware vendor may provide sponsorship but that's not the same as membership which is what Apple's "Today at Apple" is doing.)
>, this explains CFO Luca Maestri reasoning on the earnings call for no longer reporting unit sales: [...] I just wish Apple would show it with its reporting.
I think it's interesting that even if Apple wants to keep industry analysts in the dark, other entities like Amazon and Facebook can estimate iPhone unit sales by proxy statistics.
E.g. Amazon can run data analytics on sales of iPhone accessories (how many the new iPhone Xs cases sold and how does it compare to previous iPhone 8 case sales at launch?)
E.g. Facebook's popular iOS apps used by billions can send telemetry data on the particular iPhone models hitting their servers. (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26028918/how-to-determin...)
Re: Apple’s Social Network
#9I always enjoy Ben Thompson's insights, and I think he may have something here. But does anyone really feel comfortable that this strategy is going to keep them at the top?
They are not on top in phones or computers. Android devices outsell iPhones by a significant margin and for computers, apple basically owns an insignificant portion of the market.
It doesn't matter what the market share is. As long as their margins are hefty and iOS remains the OS where consumers are willing to pay for apps etc. You don't need market share, if your margins are sky high.
Re: Apple’s Social Network
#10I always enjoy Ben Thompson's insights, and I think he may have something here. But does anyone really feel comfortable that this strategy is going to keep them at the top?
They are not on top in phones or computers. Android devices outsell iPhones by a significant margin and for computers, apple basically owns an insignificant portion of the market.
So insignificant that it's one of the most valuable companies in the world on the back of those two product categories. By the way they are on top where it matters – profit and customer satisfaction.