The computing device will NEVER be good enough. There will always be advancements that will move a large chunk of the market to upgrade. Specific form factors of computing devices do get commoditized, but not computing devices in general. And that's why it was so important for Apple to get into the wearables game.
The real vision of Apple should not be to keep growing unit sales per year. The real vision is to grow the user base and then keep increasing services revenue. Every year Apple should add more services to the ecosystem to grow revenue. Chasing higher and higher unit sales is a fools game. The real goal for Apple is too have 1 billion users by 2017, and 1.5 billion users by 2020.
Then each year they would just need to add services to the ecosystem. Either by internal development or acquisition. These are the services I'd like too see Apple add to the ecosystem by 2020:
1. Netflix - buy them 2. Bank / Creditcard - buy a bank if necessary 3. Security Monitoring 4. Expand Cloud services 5. Search and online ads 6. Cars 7. Auto insurance 8. Medical equipment 9. Real Estate transaction services 10. Live TV content 11. Video sharing - buy Vimeo
With 2 billion users the company will get growth simply from services revenue. At that point hardware sales is just the icing on the cake. This is the VISION that Tim Cook should be preaching to Wall Street.
I see where you're going with this now. You want Apple to build up a massive user base and then monetize that user base with services revenue. You want Apple to become like Google and Facebook. I will give you credit for going all-in on the idea that Apple should just throw in the towel and show Wall Street exactly what it wants to see because Wall Street sure does love the word "user base."
But the problem with buying growth in the user base is that after a certain point, the cost of each additional percentage point in user base growth will exceed the revenue growth that that additional percentage point in user base generates. It's the law of diminishing returns. This drop-off is even more pronounced when it comes to services that have low barriers to entry. For example, cloud storage is turning into a price war. 5GB of storage space from Google is the same as 5GB of storage space from Dropbox or Amazon.
In summary, I'm glad you're not the CEO of Apple.
I am also glad nay fecking ecstatic Sog isn't the CEO of Apple.
One of my concerns with Apple is like all technology: soon you will reach a point when for the price people around the world will say their phone is fast enough with sufficient features that upgrades will mean less and less. Might be interesting to see the age of who owns iPhones and how frequently they upgrade. Eventually you reach a point of good enough.
People have been saying this for decades.
From PC, laptop, tablet, smartphone.
The computing device will NEVER be good enough. There will always be advancements that will move a large chunk of the market to upgrade. Specific form factors of computing devices do get commoditized, but not computing devices in general. And that's why it was so important for Apple to get into the wearables game.
The real vision of Apple should not be to keep growing unit sales per year. The real vision is to grow the user base and then keep increasing services revenue. Every year Apple should add more services to the ecosystem to grow revenue. Chasing higher and higher unit sales is a fools game. The real goal for Apple is too have 1 billion users by 2017, and 1.5 billion users by 2020.
Then each year they would just need to add services to the ecosystem. Either by internal development or acquisition. These are the services I'd like too see Apple add to the ecosystem by 2020:
1. Netflix - buy them 2. Bank / Creditcard - buy a bank if necessary 3. Security Monitoring 4. Expand Cloud services 5. Search and online ads 6. Cars 7. Auto insurance 8. Medical equipment 9. Real Estate transaction services 10. Live TV content 11. Video sharing - buy Vimeo
With 2 billion users the company will get growth simply from services revenue. At that point hardware sales is just the icing on the cake. This is the VISION that Tim Cook should be preaching to Wall Street.
Hey! It took a couple of weeks but I finally found s Sog post I agree with wholeheartedly! Services is the future and I like the list - well, at least the top 8!
In a best of all possible worlds we'd have an Apple as great as it is, most profits, most valuable, best products etc. AND soaring stock value. However, your idea of booting Tim based on the lack of the latter doesn't take into account the former, which without Tim might not be the case.
Sorry, but with a product like the iPhone even I could be CEO and report record breaking profits.
Tell me exactly all the great decisions Tim Cook has made? Most of the decisions have been stupid but Apple still sells like crazy. Hell, you could have NO CEO and Apple would still destroy the competition.
Here are some of Cooks errors the past 3 years:
1. Taking way to long in bringing in a larger iPhone. This allowed Samsung to gain massive share on high end phones. 2. Decision to keep selling 16GB phones. 3. Not updating iPadMini 2 years ago, and iPadAir this year 4. Not allowing expandable memory on iPads 5. Releasing Macbook with a single port 6. Horrible interface on AppleMusic 7. No 4k on AppleTV 8. All AppleTV games need to be compatible with remote 9. Not closing the deal on live TV package 10. AppleWatch interface is confusing 11. Sticking to the 2 year phone cycle. 12. Extremely weak base level iMac and MacMini
I'm not sure how many of these decisions were actually Tims's decision, and I'm not sure they are all errors! Or are you going to claim that since he is the CEO, he is responsible for ALL of these decisions - whether he actually made it or not - but if that's your stance, you've also got to give him credit for any and all the good decisions that have been made - and I suspect you are loathe to do that!
Bullet #1 about the larger iPhone? That's not an error. It was Steve that was resistant to that. Tim made it happen as soon as he could. So that's not a negative, that's a positive. 2, 4, 8, 11 and 12 are also debatable as to whether they were errors or not. It's clear that you think so - but not everyone will agree.
5,6 and 7 are the only items that I completely agree are errors (and possibly #3). Having said that, I also know that even though I strongly agree with #7 - there are several people here that will disagree that it was an error.
You keep saying that Tim Cook should be replaced. I disagree wholeheartedly - but I'm curious. Who do you think should take his place? How about the guy from that Sapphire factory...I think he might be looking for work.... Maybe we could bring in co-CEO's like RIM used to have? Or should we just promote Jony, Phil or Eddie?
Berenberg Bank on Monday let go of Adnaan Ahmad, an analyst known for making some of the bleakest forecasts for Apple stock, with a price target well below $100.
This is truly the end of all things.
An analyst actually got fired for being wrong. The global economy won’t last much longer.
Without the sacred opinions of Apple analysts, how will we possibly know when we should be doing the exact opposite of what they tell us to do?
And yet this dumb fuc's price target is closer than 90% of Wall street analyst.
His target was $85 so he's about $22 short of his target price. The average Wall Street target is $145 which is $38 short of the target. So actually this guy is more accurate about Apple then most of Wall Street.
If people listened to him for most of 2015 they would have been better off. From mid January you would have been better off listening to Ahmad and selling your stock. I wish I did.
Bottom line is Tim Cook is the worst CEO on Wall Street. Other CEO's are given way worse situations and way worse revenue growth. Yet they figure out how to stabilize and grow the stock price. Apple grows revenue by 35% and profits by 40% and the stock is tanking like a piece of shit. Tim Cook can't even figure out how to stabilize the stock with $250 billion in the bank. What a worthless CEO he has proven to be. I hope the BOD finally fire his ass so he can spend time supporting gay rights and equality. We need a CEO at Apple who puts his priority on the COMPANY. Cook has time to spew about gay rights yet has not 5 minutes to refute supply chain rumors that has cost Apple shareholders and employees over $160 billion in value?
All it would take was Cook to refute supply chain rumors a few weeks ago and the stock would be at $125-$130. But he does not give a shit about shareholders. He gives shareholders a big middle finger time and time again. And you wonder why shareholders are scared to hold the stock? Cause the gate keeper of the company is a crappy leader.
Go ahead and piss on Ahmad. But I won't be surprised if next year the stock plummets to $95 and his price target of $85 will be the most accurate in the entire Wall Street. Ahmad is wise. He knows Tim Cook has no idea how to control the message on Wall Street. I wished I listened to him and dumped all my shares in Jan, Feb, Jun, or Sept this year. Can't wait to dump my shares once this hits $110. I won't buy Apple shares again until Tim Cook is fired.
I mean seriously. How the hell can you mess up the stock with 45% EPS growth? You do that by wasting your time on gay rights and not defending the stock from a barrage of lies.
You can't wait to sell? Damn! It's day-traders and short term investors like you that are responsible for Apple stock price being where it's at! You shouldn't have even invested in AAPL if you weren't prepared to hold it for the long-term!
i wish Tim Cook had taken the company private so people like you would be forced to hold it a reasonable length of time instead of rushing to sell at the first little negative blip. If you had a 5-year horizon on your investment, why do you care how much it drops in any given 6-month window?
Doesn't seem like you have much of a stomach for equities - perhaps you'd do better playing with some mutual funds or GIC's....
/s
It’s now late January 2022 and @sog35 ‘s angry rant has aged as well as a glass of milk on a Phoenix sidewalk in July.
In fairness 2015-16 was a little bit of a duff time for Apple, certainly with the Mac, and the iPhone's were in a bit of a catch up mode in some areas.
But rants about short term performance are often destined to be ridiculed when the long term results start to pay dividends.
Would be interested to know if sog actually dumped his shares at $110. Doubt it, but if they did then more fool them.
Comments
(I also think Tim Cook is doing a fantastic job.)
I'm not sure how many of these decisions were actually Tims's decision, and I'm not sure they are all errors! Or are you going to claim that since he is the CEO, he is responsible for ALL of these decisions - whether he actually made it or not - but if that's your stance, you've also got to give him credit for any and all the good decisions that have been made - and I suspect you are loathe to do that!
Bullet #1 about the larger iPhone? That's not an error. It was Steve that was resistant to that. Tim made it happen as soon as he could. So that's not a negative, that's a positive. 2, 4, 8, 11 and 12 are also debatable as to whether they were errors or not. It's clear that you think so - but not everyone will agree.
5,6 and 7 are the only items that I completely agree are errors (and possibly #3). Having said that, I also know that even though I strongly agree with #7 - there are several people here that will disagree that it was an error.
You keep saying that Tim Cook should be replaced. I disagree wholeheartedly - but I'm curious. Who do you think should take his place? How about the guy from that Sapphire factory...I think he might be looking for work.... Maybe we could bring in co-CEO's like RIM used to have? Or should we just promote Jony, Phil or Eddie?
But rants about short term performance are often destined to be ridiculed when the long term results start to pay dividends.
Would be interested to know if sog actually dumped his shares at $110. Doubt it, but if they did then more fool them.