“It often seems that Apple investors are constantly looking to the horizon for new products, and Wall Street’s anticipation of new Apple products seems to have recently reached a fever pitch (yet again),” Bold Investor writes for Seeking Alpha. “Although Apple’s entry into new product categories is no doubt exciting for both consumers and investors, we must remember that a company’s less prominent segments are often just as central to its stability and growth as its more prominent ones.”
“I make the case that Apple’s iTunes, software, and services segment and its accessories and retail segment will grow over the next few years to become central pillars of the Apple financial edifice,” Bold Investor writes. “I fully expect iTunes to expand to become Apple’s second-largest segment, behind iPhone but dwarfing iPad and Mac. The accessories segment may well do the same in a few years, and has the potential for significant upside depending on the manner in which the growing accessories market develops.”
“As a consequence, I take the opinion that it is impossible to speak responsibly about Apple – especially Apple as a growth stock – without reference to iTunes and accessories,” Bold Investor writes. “Once we take the strength of these segments and their explosive growth into account, Apple could very well be a bargain even at currently all-time high prices – especially if Apple’s promised new product categories are successful.”
Read more in the full article here.
Android’s biggest problem right now is the lack of an iTunes equivalent. This is largely because Google prefers that everyone use their cloud-based services. If Google had an iTunes (or even a -yuck – Windows Media Player) type application, it would really help give them an actual ecosystem that could help them sell hardware and content. This problem is going to continue when they come out with Android TV later this year, incidentally. Apart from the fact that it will offer a console gaming option, iTunes will continue to make Apple TV a better option.
Amazingly, Amazon has actually tried to address this to a degree … they have desktop apps for MP3, movies and photos. Unfortunately A) the apps aren’t unified into one application with a common interface like iTunes and B) Amazon also strongly prefers you to rely on their cloud rather than your own downloaded content. So if you want to play your own content downloaded from Amazon through your Fire TV, you will need a third party app, and even then the DRM restrictions may prohibit it.
Why do you come here and speak of this android? This is a Apple centric site.
My comments are in support of the author’s thesis, which is that iTunes is a very valuable and indeed undervalued property for Apple. Because no one else – and let us face it, there IS no one else but Android, whether the Google version or the forked Amazon version – has a comparable product to iTunes, iTunes will continue to A) sell content directly (only Netflix, Amazon and YouTube generates more download traffic) and B) drive sales of Apple hardware i.e. iPads, iPhones, Apple TV etc.
Nothing beats being able to plug in your iPhone or iPad (or iPod) and have a great user interface for it. Nothing beats AirPlay. And so on. I was merely pointing out how right the writer was.
no, this is an iOS, Android, and Ballmer centric site. haven’t you noticed?
If this was some sort of Apple-censored website I surely would never read it. You can’t read about or think about one company without considering the competition.
Sure.