Apple CEO appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America this morning and spoke about Apple’s valuation, U.S.-China trade.
Regarding U.S.-China trade and Apple products:
The iPhone is assembled in China, but the parts come from everywhere, including the United States. The glass comes from Kentucky, there are chips that come from the US, and of course the research and development is all done in the United States. I don’t want to speak for [the Trump administration], but I think they’ve looked at this and said that it’s not really great for the United States to put a tariff on those type of products…
I’m optimistic because trade is one of those things where it’s not a zero-sum game. You and I can trade something and we can both win. So I’m optimistic that the two countries will sort this out and life will go on.
Regarding Apple’s valuation and contribution to the U.S. economy:
From my point of view, Apple could only have been created in America. We’re a deeply American company. So we feel a tremendous responsibility to help our country. We do that in terms of creating jobs, we’ve created two million jobs in America and we want to create even more. We’re investing $350B in the country over the next five years.
As per iPhone pricing:
Most people pay about $30 a month for an iPhone or $1 a day… So arguably the product is really important and we’ve found that people want to have the most innovative product available – an, with that, it’s not cheap to do that… We want to be the best. That’s our objective. Other people want to sell the most. We’ve never been about selling the most, it’s always selling the best.
Cook on Apple Watch Series 4:
The [Apple] Watch is the most powerful thing you can have on your wrist… With the Series 4, later this year, we will be shipping the first over-the-counter EKG right on your wrist. All you do is put your finger right on the crown and hold it for 30 seconds and it performs and EKG and you can send this right to your doctor. This is unbelievable… And for those of us, I’m one of these, who’ve had a heart issue before, you go to the doctor [and] they give you a monitor to wear [and] what you’re experiencing with your heart doesn’t happen when you’re wearing the monitor and the monitor expires and [the heart issue] happens again. This thing is always on your wrist, so it’s an incredible power to have; it empowers the individual to own their health.
Cook and host Robin Roberts then proceeded to show off the Memoji feature found on iPhone X, Xs, and Xs Max.
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Direct link to video here.
MacDailyNews Take: A nice little PR segment that’ll sell more iPhones and Watches than most people would imagine.
Sorry but I watched him live on ABC and as pleasant a guy he is this was simply a lot of repetitive stuff. Not impressed. Have ordered a stainless LTE 40mm with delivery on Friday and an IPhone Max because I like the Face ID. I’m more excited about the watch than the phone to be quite honest.
So, I’ve got it. What he is saying is that average consumers won’t really feel the impact of high price as they take advantage of essentially the carriers’ financing so to speak (that alone should not justify the overpricing though). It appears that’s the first thing Apple is relying on it when it came out of his mouth as a primary reason. Cook, instead of justifying the price head-on, brought in somebody else’s effort that Apple has been taking advantage of, i.e., he is putting an onus on buying consumers, saying, hey, you guys do not have to be worried about the price as you only pay (relatively) small monthly instalment. That’s what he is saying. Granted it’s the same for every other phone mfr, but it creates ever increasing price (other guys follow it too) rather than “competitive” pricing. Easy biz for Apple (and everybody else).
But consumers would rather pay less monthly instalments for better (competitive) price, no?