“The question has haunted Apple for years,” Kevin Kelleher writes for TIME Magazine. “Is there life after the iPhone? The iPad’s introduction in 2010, three years after the iPhone, was supposed to be a robust second act. But iPad sales are softening. Meanwhile, the Apple Watch, introduced last year, has yet to find a killer app to drive sales beyond hardcore fans and early adopters.”
“So where does that leave Apple? In something of a twilight zone. By no means will it tumble the way it did in the 1980s,” Kelleher writes. “But there’s no guarantee it will see the surges it has in the past any time soon. Apple’s stock thrives after it has released a product that appeals to the mainstream.”
“Apple has a cyclical business. That is, its chief product — the iPhone — is released every two years. In the in-between years, Apple can only hope that incremental upgrades as well as sales in overseas markets like China will offset any cyclical lows,” Kelleher writes. “Apple CEO Tim Cook has hinted there are new products coming. If Apple’s earnings disappoint today, the sooner those new devices come, the better. ”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Those who look at Apple as a hardware company and only as a hardware company do not understand the company.
Apple has a massive userbase many of whom participate in the Apple ecosystem – and their participation is growing.
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TheStreet.com’s Kevin Kelleher congratulates the wrong company for killing music DRM – September 26, 2007