Apple Under Tim Cook’s Reign: No More Wow Effect, Now It’s a Steamroller.
The real challenge in the future may come from the antitrust authorities.
On the tech planet, Apple's keynotes are the closest thing to a raucous rock concert. The audience is hoping for the “one more thing”, the ultimate breakthrough. And in the weeks that follow, fans lay siege to the Apple Store.
Since Steve Jobs' death, however, Apple has struggled to recapture the “wow effect” that the Apple founder created when he introduced the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Everyone still remembers the day when Steve Jobs, as a perfect showman, opened a banal envelope on stage that contained the ultra-thin MacBook Air.
Four iPhone 14, three Apple Watch, and the latest AirPods Pro ...
The new models unveiled by Apple on September 7, 2022, have attractive features but are more or less what observers expected. And the mysterious Apple “mixed reality” headset that is heating the spirits will probably not be presented until next year.
If the firm is making fewer waves and has lost the “wow effect” that made its legend, it has on the other hand switched to another mode under Tim Cook's reign: the steamroller effect. This is not to the displeasure of financiers and investors.
In 2021, Apple has concentrated 44% of the revenues from the sale of smartphones in the world. And more than 50% of Americans now use an iPhone, according to a recent study by Counterpoint Research.
This impressive expansion by Apple is the result of a thoughtful strategy. Apple has built a closed ecosystem where it controls everything: hardware, software, and applications. This certainly puts off a fraction of consumers who are attached to a certain idea of an open Internet, but on the whole, it works like a charm for Apple, whose every new feature is as much an argument for entering its galaxy as a reason not to leave it (the Apple Watch does not work without an iPhone, etc.).
And Apple's diversification into services (music subscription, games ...) shows promising results. 25% of its sales now come from there!
The turn taken by Apple with the connected watches is however perhaps the most clever. The firm has obliged itself to make its product pass the demanding validation process of the American drug agency. The FDA validated its detection of atrial fibrillation, a form of cardiac arrhythmia. In doing so, Apple is laying a solid foundation in connected health, a market with great potential.
In the decades to come, Apple Health may even end up being more profitable than the iPhone.
Apple's challenges are to keep its development in China on track, conquer the strategic Indian market, and avoid alienating regulators, especially in the US and Europe. Apple is clinging to its tech rebel T-shirt, a posture on which the brand was built, with the slogan “Think different”.
But this posture has worked so well that Apple is now a pillar of the establishment with the largest market capitalization. At these heights, abuse of dominance is the accusation to avoid at all costs. The price of success. Tim Cook will have to maneuver skillfully in the future to continue to make Apple prosper while avoiding this pitfall.
However, investors have full confidence in Tim Cook's ability to meet this challenge. What he has shown since he has been at the head of Apple gives him full credit.
Some reading
The Amazing Story Behind Apple’s Choice of the Name Macintosh in the Mid-1980s. Still and always a story of apples …
Crypto.com Error in Your Favor, You Receive $7.2M Instead of $68. What Do You Do? This is the true story of an Australian user.
Elon Musk’s Love for Dogecoin Could Cost Him a Lot of Money. Some Plaintiffs Are Suing Him for $258B. This will add a little more controversy around the founder of Tesla.
After the “Great Resignation”, the “Quiet Quitting” … How to Motivate Employees in the Long Term? This is the equation to solve for companies with new generations.
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