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There are only 7 billion people on Earth. Apple is essentially making $0.14 in profit per human, per week. Of course, it's a much smaller number of very rich h
by rphlx 15y ago
There are only 7 billion people on Earth. Apple is essentially making $0.14 in profit per human, per week.
Of course, it's a much smaller number of very rich humans, probably less than 1 billion, actually buying their products.
There is a limit to how long this can continue, before every person on earth, who is so inclined and can afford it, has 1+ of every Apple product that they could ever want.
Assuming $300 per user every 2 years - with 50% margin and 1B users - they can only grow income another 44% before the growth (in real terms) is totally done.
So introduce new products? Fine, but almost every possible HW function is already in the iPhone4, and they are rapidly running out of things that current technology will enable them to improve. How many people are going to drop another $600 to get 128GB instead of 64GB? Or 1920x1080 on a 3 inch screen?
Seems like it'll be time to short pretty soon.
- olalonde 15y agoThere's still plenty of opportunity for growth on the software and content distribution side.
- rphlx 15y agoI would bet against that saving the day. iTunes and the app store bring in maybe 5 billion a year? Even at 100%/yr growth, that's not enough to smooth even a minor bump in their HW revenue. It's pocket change.
- r00fus 15y agoThere are always horizons to shoot for - the TV, wearable computing (I see Nano's on collegues' wrists everywhere at work, and that is only partly designed for that purpose), home automation, education, military and small business use are all areas where current products (perhaps newer versions) can make huge inroads. And that's leaving aside anything out of the ordinary/expected that Apple might be cooking up in their skunkworks labs.
- tjogin 15y agoAre you kidding? Apple has only half the market of smart phones (and that market itself is growing quickly), and only single digit market share in PCs. And people actually replace their phones and their PCs over a few years. They can keep this up.
- sliverstorm 15y agoUnless you can get your customers to replace their devices more quickly every release cycle, the replacement of legacy devices is not growth.
- rphlx 15y agoOr unless you can charge them more every cycle. That seems very challenging as Chinese and Indian consumers become a larger fraction of their revenue, and as Android puts constant pressure on their smartphone business.
- tjogin 15y agoFirst: iPad. Most personal usage of PC laptops are mostly performing tasks that the iPad can do. And the iPad is getting more versatile faster than regular people are using PCs for more tasks. Apple hasn't maxed out their iPad business until iPads have completely displaced PCs. Second: iPhone. While the iPhone's market share of smart phones is about half, that market is growing. The iPhone's market share of all phones is very small. Also, keep in mind that the iPhone is Apple's strongest and most profitable business. Third: Macs Apple has only single digit market share here. Loads of room for growth, even at their current astounding, competition obliterating, growth rate. By no sensible metric is Apple close to capping out.
- jmonegro 15y agoSomeone almost always ends up with those legacy devices, usually someone with a dumber genetation of phones, so at least part of that replacement cycle ends up being growth.
- sp332 15y agoIf I'm making .935 billion dollars per week, do I care if it "stagnates" at that level?