Apple stock - you own it, don't trade it. You will miss huge upside when trying to protect the small down side.
Yeah, that's exactly my problem. My AAPL stock is worth 4 times my total investment, but I can never bear to sell any of it. And frankly, it's too big a portion of my total assets so I can't justify buying more.
But since I don't need the cash, it's a great "problem" to have.
Same here and about to have to decide on an addition 100K in something ... something else or more AAPL that's the tough question ... to be so exposed is bad I know but I am thinking it will be more AAPL!
Brand loyalty can only last for so long. Back when I first got appliances for my house Kenmore was the brand to have. Never mind that Sears manufactured nothing and just rebranded GE, Whirlpool, Frigidaire, etc. products with just a few changes to ensure only special parts fit. Kenmore was a quality product and Sears stood behind it with parts and service availability for years. People were just as loyal to Kenmore as they currently are to Apple. Fast-forward 25 years and now you've got multiple stores selling appliances and nobody cares about Kenmore. There is no brand loyalty, people buy whatever the neighbors are buying or whatever looks good on a commercial.
Apple is going to have to innovate and introduce something in an entirely new product category to maintain its high-flying share price. Just my personal observation, but I used to see the "rich kids" all having iPhones and now see a lot of Samsung devices mixed in. Hardly any kids have iPads anymore as phones have completely replaced them for Facebook, Instagram, etc. As these kids grow up, go to college, and get employed over the next 10 years I think Apple has a serious risk of becoming just another phone manufacturer without the brand cache currently associated with it. Multiple other manufacturers will be just as good as Apple and a consumer who hasn't been locked into the Apple ecosystem won't have any compelling reason to choose it over something else. Other manufacturers, particularly Samsung, are no longer perceived as "cheap".
I'm sure Mr. Buffett has much more insight into the market than my observation which is obviously very limited, but I don't see the 8-20 year old age bracket building their lives around Apple products anywhere near as much as those that grew up earlier. Apple had the best audio player ecosystem with the iPod and iTunes, perfected the Smart Phone with the iPhone, and did the same for tablets with the iPad. Unfortunately Apple's feature and UI dominance pretty much stopped in 2014. iPods are a distant memory, iTunes is fading fast in favor of unlimited streaming services, iPhones are a generation or more behind on many hardware features and have seen very limited OS improvements, and iPad sales have been tanking for three years. Other products are just as good for those that are making their first technology purchase.
The 21-35 year old generation is locked into believing Apple is the absolute best and it will be hard to change their mind much like quite a few 60+ year old people still swear by Kenmore. Yes, some of them will buy their kids Apple products simply out of habit. But at some point, without major innovation, Apple will become a company selling a commodity. iPhone sales have plateaued since October 1, 2014. If Apple doesn't see significant growth with the iPhone 8 I suspect we will be looking back on this period as the beginning of the transition of Apple from growth powerhouse to a mature company that will have to fight to maintain market share.
As long as he has a significant investment in Apple I wouldn't expect to hear anything but praise for the company, but Mr.Buffett's expertise will be put to the test if he can recognize the point where Apple has peaked and it is time to start selling. The first time we hear of Berkshire Hathaway selling 10% or more of its Apple investment it will trigger a bloodbath on Wall Street.
mmmm... ' A complete load of tripe' would be my overall assessment of your post's merit (being as polite as possible) . So I'm guessing, correct me if I'm wrong ... you haven't made a shit load in AAPL like many of us here and this is bitterness seeping out?
Brand loyalty can only last for so long. Back when I first got appliances for my house Kenmore was the brand to have. Never mind that Sears manufactured nothing and just rebranded GE, Whirlpool, Frigidaire, etc. products with just a few changes to ensure only special parts fit. Kenmore was a quality product and Sears stood behind it with parts and service availability for years. People were just as loyal to Kenmore as they currently are to Apple. Fast-forward 25 years and now you've got multiple stores selling appliances and nobody cares about Kenmore. There is no brand loyalty, people buy whatever the neighbors are buying or whatever looks good on a commercial.
The reason Kenmore lost brand loyalty is because Sears stopped standing behind it with good service and went after the lower cost market with lower quality products.
Fast forward 25 years and brands like Bosche and Miele still retain brand loyalty. KitchenAid took a hit due to lowering quality but seems to have recovered a bit. Their service is better again. Our KitchenAid mixer died and they shipped us a replacement right away. That sort of thing builds and sustains brand loyalty.
Apple will lose the loyalty of its customers if it reduces quality and service. So far they have not. Maybe 25 years from now they might but it isn't because brand loyalty can't be maintained.
Tossing in a China jab to counter Buffet is like pissing in the wind. China has four fold the US and then some in population, and every 6 months someone is trying to break into their market, including state funded start ups. India and China early adopters will buy every last iPhone 8 they can get their hands on. Once those few hundred million are satiated they'll buy a second cheap smartphone and wait for the iPhone 9.
Carl Icahn must be kicking himself, selling AAPL when it was somewhere in the $90 - $100 range. (IIRC)
the main reason Icahn sold was because his oil bets went sour and he needed cash.
still a bad decision by him.
Actually I think Icahn investment in Apple was holding apple back, everyone know he is only interested in forcing a company to do what he wants and breaking them up so he make money. when he dumped out the stock started to head north.
He dumped but the stock didn't move until Warren dumped in over $10 Billion, thus threefold plus what Icahn invested. Then the stock has resumed it's normal upward trend.
You obviously have no understanding of technology or the stock market
I've been around long enough to see major brands in the technology sector come and go. In fact, technology is even more subject to the whims of consumer fancy than appliances. Appliances are expected to last a decade or more while the average iPhone is only about three years old. Outside of my investment in apps that may have to be repurchased there is nothing preventing me from switching to another phone manufacturer in the future if someone else offers a competitive product.
I remember Apple flying high in the '80s on the success of the Apple II series computers and I remember them teetering on the brink of bankruptcy in 1997 when Bill Gates had to bail them out. In just over a decade Apple stock went in the crapper because of mismanagement and lack of innovation, and much of that can be traced to the loss of Steve Jobs as the visionary. We're not that far away from the same thing happening under Tim Cook as he rides on the success of products developed by Steve Jobs a decade ago.
Apple isn't alone. Microsoft was knocked down and is just now regaining its luster. IBM suffered the commoditization of PCs and the virtual obsolescence of the mainframe market. 3dfx (remember the Voodoo video cards?) and Rendition had almost 100% of the 3d video card market for a few years. Gateway was the premiere PC manufacturer. Atari was the top video game console as was Nintendo. AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy, etc. were the gateways to the Internet. Netscape was the best browser. Yahoo! was the undisputed king of search engines and Internet home pages. Quicken was top-tier personal finance. All these companies fell to the idea that they made the market and the brand was king; however, just one hiccough in each of their markets spelled doom for that dominance.
Your mistake is not understanding cell phones and appliances are both consumer products and can be commoditized over time. An innovative product will inevitably be copied by others if the market is profitable. A brand is only as good as its latest product compared to the competition. It has happened to Apple before and it can certainly happen again. Apparently I'm not the one who doesn't understand the stock market. You are delusional if you think Apple is a special snowflake and is immune from the effects of lack of innovation and market saturation. The fact it is in the technology sector is irrelevant. Apple may do splendidly in the short term, but in the long term it is treading on dangerous ground as sales growth of its premiere product has started stagnating. Unless Tim Cook can find the innovative spirit of Steve Jobs somewhere in the organization Apple will follow companies like General Motors, American Airlines, U.S. Steel, IBM, and countless other companies that once had dominant market positions and fell victim to low-cost commoditization of their products.
Did I let my financial advisors talk me into selling some a year ago? Yeah. I could bemoan that fact. But mostly I'm just glad I kept the majority of my position.
Life is too short to ruminate on what one should have, could have, would have done. You just gotta look at what is in your hand at the present moment and take your best shot.
You obviously have no understanding of technology or the stock market
I've been around long enough to see major brands in the technology sector come and go. In fact, technology is even more subject to the whims of consumer fancy than appliances. Appliances are expected to last a decade or more while the average iPhone is only about three years old. Outside of my investment in apps that may have to be repurchased there is nothing preventing me from switching to another phone manufacturer in the future if someone else offers a competitive product.
I remember Apple flying high in the '80s on the success of the Apple II series computers and I remember them teetering on the brink of bankruptcy in 1997 when Bill Gates had to bail them out. In just over a decade Apple stock went in the crapper because of mismanagement and lack of innovation, and much of that can be traced to the loss of Steve Jobs as the visionary. We're not that far away from the same thing happening under Tim Cook as he rides on the success of products developed by Steve Jobs a decade ago.
Apple isn't alone. Microsoft was knocked down and is just now regaining its luster. IBM suffered the commoditization of PCs and the virtual obsolescence of the mainframe market. 3dfx (remember the Voodoo video cards?) and Rendition had almost 100% of the 3d video card market for a few years. Gateway was the premiere PC manufacturer. Atari was the top video game console as was Nintendo. AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy, etc. were the gateways to the Internet. Netscape was the best browser. Yahoo! was the undisputed king of search engines and Internet home pages. Quicken was top-tier personal finance. All these companies fell to the idea that they made the market and the brand was king; however, just one hiccough in each of their markets spelled doom for that dominance.
Your mistake is not understanding cell phones and appliances are both consumer products and can be commoditized over time. An innovative product will inevitably be copied by others if the market is profitable. A brand is only as good as its latest product compared to the competition. It has happened to Apple before and it can certainly happen again. Apparently I'm not the one who doesn't understand the stock market. You are delusional if you think Apple is a special snowflake and is immune from the effects of lack of innovation and market saturation. The fact it is in the technology sector is irrelevant. Apple may do splendidly in the short term, but in the long term it is treading on dangerous ground as sales growth of its premiere product has started stagnating. Unless Tim Cook can find the innovative spirit of Steve Jobs somewhere in the organization Apple will follow companies like General Motors, American Airlines, U.S. Steel, IBM, and countless other companies that once had dominant market positions and fell victim to low-cost commoditization of their products.
I don't argue that Apple "could" go the way of other brands which have become commoditized in the past (anything is possible in the unknowable future). However, you have presented no facts to indicate that this is likely to happen to Apple. You have used Kenmore as your primary example, which is very easily refuted as done above (they pursued low cost & sacrificed quality). You point to Apple's "Sculley & others" period, without gleaning that it was the shift in focus from 'product' to 'market' which caused the issue there. You then rhyme off a host of names of other companies, which is simply irrelevant to what Apple may or may not do.
You might think that Apple is not innovating or investing, but many others don't agree. Leading in: OS from computers to wearables, custom silicon, miniaturization of manufacturing for CE, overall CE ecosystem, camera/photo technology, quality, reliability, etc, etc, etc. Overall "computing platform" leader across mobile and fixed devices. New markets - leader in emerging wearables sector. Highest consumer satisfaction ratings. Latest product introduction - AirPods - is well rated across the board as one of Apple's typical "magical" products.
Of course Apple has to keep this up - any company trying to build & hold on to leadership usually has to. Not a lot of insight there.
You cite seeing some "kids" that used to be all iPhones and now there are some Samsung's mixed in. Well, in the circle of my kids and their friends, the opposite is true - used to be some Android phones, and now everyone has an iPhone. All they want are iPhones. So, guess our anecdotes cancel each other out.
Just because you wish something to be true, doesn't make it so.
You obviously have no understanding of technology or the stock market
I've been around long enough to see major brands in the technology sector come and go. In fact, technology is even more subject to the whims of consumer fancy than appliances. Appliances are expected to last a decade or more while the average iPhone is only about three years old. Outside of my investment in apps that may have to be repurchased there is nothing preventing me from switching to another phone manufacturer in the future if someone else offers a competitive product.
I remember Apple flying high in the '80s on the success of the Apple II series computers and I remember them teetering on the brink of bankruptcy in 1997 when Bill Gates had to bail them out. In just over a decade Apple stock went in the crapper because of mismanagement and lack of innovation, and much of that can be traced to the loss of Steve Jobs as the visionary. We're not that far away from the same thing happening under Tim Cook as he rides on the success of products developed by Steve Jobs a decade ago.
Apple isn't alone. Microsoft was knocked down and is just now regaining its luster. IBM suffered the commoditization of PCs and the virtual obsolescence of the mainframe market. 3dfx (remember the Voodoo video cards?) and Rendition had almost 100% of the 3d video card market for a few years. Gateway was the premiere PC manufacturer. Atari was the top video game console as was Nintendo. AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy, etc. were the gateways to the Internet. Netscape was the best browser. Yahoo! was the undisputed king of search engines and Internet home pages. Quicken was top-tier personal finance. All these companies fell to the idea that they made the market and the brand was king; however, just one hiccough in each of their markets spelled doom for that dominance.
Your mistake is not understanding cell phones and appliances are both consumer products and can be commoditized over time. An innovative product will inevitably be copied by others if the market is profitable. A brand is only as good as its latest product compared to the competition. It has happened to Apple before and it can certainly happen again. Apparently I'm not the one who doesn't understand the stock market. You are delusional if you think Apple is a special snowflake and is immune from the effects of lack of innovation and market saturation. The fact it is in the technology sector is irrelevant. Apple may do splendidly in the short term, but in the long term it is treading on dangerous ground as sales growth of its premiere product has started stagnating. Unless Tim Cook can find the innovative spirit of Steve Jobs somewhere in the organization Apple will follow companies like General Motors, American Airlines, U.S. Steel, IBM, and countless other companies that once had dominant market positions and fell victim to low-cost commoditization of their products.
I don't argue that Apple "could" go the way of other brands which have become commoditized in the past (anything is possible in the unknowable future). However, you have presented no facts to indicate that this is likely to happen to Apple. You have used Kenmore as your primary example, which is very easily refuted as done above (they pursued low cost & sacrificed quality). You point to Apple's "Sculley & others" period, without gleaning that it was the shift in focus from 'product' to 'market' which caused the issue there. You then rhyme off a host of names of other companies, which is simply irrelevant to what Apple may or may not do.
You might think that Apple is not innovating or investing, but many others don't agree. Leading in: OS from computers to wearables, custom silicon, miniaturization of manufacturing for CE, overall CE ecosystem, camera/photo technology, quality, reliability, etc, etc, etc. Overall "computing platform" leader across mobile and fixed devices. New markets - leader in emerging wearables sector. Highest consumer satisfaction ratings. Latest product introduction - AirPods - is well rated across the board as one of Apple's typical "magical" products.
Of course Apple has to keep this up - any company trying to build & hold on to leadership usually has to. Not a lot of insight there.
You cite seeing some "kids" that used to be all iPhones and now there are some Samsung's mixed in. Well, in the circle of my kids and their friends, the opposite is true - used to be some Android phones, and now everyone has an iPhone. All they want are iPhones. So, guess our anecdotes cancel each other out.
Just because you wish something to be true, doesn't make it so.
^^^^ (Thank you for -- hopefully -- putting an end to his blather).
Brand loyalty can only last for so long. Back when I first got appliances for my house Kenmore was the brand to have. Never mind that Sears manufactured nothing and just rebranded GE, Whirlpool, Frigidaire, etc. products with just a few changes to ensure only special parts fit. Kenmore was a quality product and Sears stood behind it with parts and service availability for years. People were just as loyal to Kenmore as they currently are to Apple. Fast-forward 25 years and now you've got multiple stores selling appliances and nobody cares about Kenmore. There is no brand loyalty, people buy whatever the neighbors are buying or whatever looks good on a commercial.
Apple is going to have to innovate and introduce something in an entirely new product category to maintain its high-flying share price. Just my personal observation, but I used to see the "rich kids" all having iPhones and now see a lot of Samsung devices mixed in. Hardly any kids have iPads anymore as phones have completely replaced them for Facebook, Instagram, etc. As these kids grow up, go to college, and get employed over the next 10 years I think Apple has a serious risk of becoming just another phone manufacturer without the brand cache currently associated with it. Multiple other manufacturers will be just as good as Apple and a consumer who hasn't been locked into the Apple ecosystem won't have any compelling reason to choose it over something else. Other manufacturers, particularly Samsung, are no longer perceived as "cheap".
I'm sure Mr. Buffett has much more insight into the market than my observation which is obviously very limited, but I don't see the 8-20 year old age bracket building their lives around Apple products anywhere near as much as those that grew up earlier. Apple had the best audio player ecosystem with the iPod and iTunes, perfected the Smart Phone with the iPhone, and did the same for tablets with the iPad. Unfortunately Apple's feature and UI dominance pretty much stopped in 2014. iPods are a distant memory, iTunes is fading fast in favor of unlimited streaming services, iPhones are a generation or more behind on many hardware features and have seen very limited OS improvements, and iPad sales have been tanking for three years. Other products are just as good for those that are making their first technology purchase.
The 21-35 year old generation is locked into believing Apple is the absolute best and it will be hard to change their mind much like quite a few 60+ year old people still swear by Kenmore. Yes, some of them will buy their kids Apple products simply out of habit. But at some point, without major innovation, Apple will become a company selling a commodity. iPhone sales have plateaued since October 1, 2014. If Apple doesn't see significant growth with the iPhone 8 I suspect we will be looking back on this period as the beginning of the transition of Apple from growth powerhouse to a mature company that will have to fight to maintain market share.
As long as he has a significant investment in Apple I wouldn't expect to hear anything but praise for the company, but Mr.Buffett's expertise will be put to the test if he can recognize the point where Apple has peaked and it is time to start selling. The first time we hear of Berkshire Hathaway selling 10% or more of its Apple investment it will trigger a bloodbath on Wall Street.
What's hilarious is people like you have been saying "[Computers] are a commodity! Apple is DOOMED!" and yet -- 40 years later, still here. And the most successful public corp in the history of the human race. Oops.
Some people never learn.
BTW, the reason the appliances brands nearly all suck equally is because they're just brands -- they've been purchased by large multi-nationals and use the same crap builds and fall apart. They're owned and managed as brands, nothing more. Happily, that isn't Apple's way of working.
^^^^ (Thank you for -- hopefully -- putting an end to his blather).
Not quite.
I'm not bashing Apple. Apple has put out a lot of innovative products of which I've gotten much use and enjoyment; my wife and I have had two iPods, five iPhones, and an iPad. I just don't subscribe to the idea that Apple can do no wrong and is inherently protected from adverse market changes. I'm most certainly not saying Apple is going to crash and burn like many companies before it, but it takes a special fool to completely deny Apple will eventually reach a pinnacle. When that pinnacle occurs is the million dollar question, but almost inevitably the stock price pinnacle will lag the revenue/market share pinnacle by at least a few years given investors are willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt.
The evidence is growing that pinnacle could be now unless Apple introduces its next revolutionary product soon. iPhone sales growth is slowing and has been pretty stagnant since the release of the iPhone 6 in 2015. Will we see a return to 20%+ growth with the release of the iPhone 8? That would mean sales in excess of 90 million phones in the December 31 quarter when the last three 12/31 quarters were all around 75 million. iPad sales have been declining since January 2014. The iPod has almost been completely replaced by the iPhone. Apple experienced it's first year-over-year revenue decline since 2003 last year. That's not necessarily a harbinger of doom, but it does tend to show a maturation of the markets in which Apple competes. Apple's new products, the watch and AirPods, are good but won't drive the double digit revenue/profit growth needed to sustain the stock price.
My comparison to other brands wasn't to say Apple was destined to follow them, it was simply to point out that a being a dominant brand at any particular point in time is no guarantee of future dominance. Brand loyalty is very fleeting without constant innovation and new products that reflect the changing consumer product market. What happened to those brands won't necessarily happen to Apple, but Apple isn't predestined to avoid their pitfalls either. Tim Cook being at the helm gives me more doubts than anything else at this point. The "shift from product to market" referenced by the previous poster as the root of Apple's problems in the '90s seems a whole lot like what Tim & co. is doing now.
I don't wish any ill will toward Apple. I own quite a bit of Apple stock through my retirement account investments in an S&P 500 index fund. What the hype surrounding Apple's stock does remind me of is the tech stock boom of 1995-1999 and the housing boom of 1990-2008. You've got people saying there is no way Apple can do anything but increase and in 20 years' time there will be nothing but regret for those that don't buy now. Apple is different from those situations in that Apple has revenue and profit to back a lot of their value up, but it still similar in that people are paying top dollar for future growth and/or product margins that may not continue at the rate they have for the past decade.
Bottom line is Apple is a good company making good products. There is no reason to think they will screw everything up royally. However, a plateau is inevitable. A world where Apple sells a consistent 200 million iPhones annually is still pretty good even if the revenue and profit growth levels off.
Comments
mmmm... ' A complete load of tripe' would be my overall assessment of your post's merit (being as polite as possible) . So I'm guessing, correct me if I'm wrong ... you haven't made a shit load in AAPL like many of us here and this is bitterness seeping out?
Fast forward 25 years and brands like Bosche and Miele still retain brand loyalty. KitchenAid took a hit due to lowering quality but seems to have recovered a bit. Their service is better again. Our KitchenAid mixer died and they shipped us a replacement right away. That sort of thing builds and sustains brand loyalty.
Apple will lose the loyalty of its customers if it reduces quality and service. So far they have not. Maybe 25 years from now they might but it isn't because brand loyalty can't be maintained.
$153.05!
I've been around long enough to see major brands in the technology sector come and go. In fact, technology is even more subject to the whims of consumer fancy than appliances. Appliances are expected to last a decade or more while the average iPhone is only about three years old. Outside of my investment in apps that may have to be repurchased there is nothing preventing me from switching to another phone manufacturer in the future if someone else offers a competitive product.
I remember Apple flying high in the '80s on the success of the Apple II series computers and I remember them teetering on the brink of bankruptcy in 1997 when Bill Gates had to bail them out. In just over a decade Apple stock went in the crapper because of mismanagement and lack of innovation, and much of that can be traced to the loss of Steve Jobs as the visionary. We're not that far away from the same thing happening under Tim Cook as he rides on the success of products developed by Steve Jobs a decade ago.
Apple isn't alone. Microsoft was knocked down and is just now regaining its luster. IBM suffered the commoditization of PCs and the virtual obsolescence of the mainframe market. 3dfx (remember the Voodoo video cards?) and Rendition had almost 100% of the 3d video card market for a few years. Gateway was the premiere PC manufacturer. Atari was the top video game console as was Nintendo. AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy, etc. were the gateways to the Internet. Netscape was the best browser. Yahoo! was the undisputed king of search engines and Internet home pages. Quicken was top-tier personal finance. All these companies fell to the idea that they made the market and the brand was king; however, just one hiccough in each of their markets spelled doom for that dominance.
Your mistake is not understanding cell phones and appliances are both consumer products and can be commoditized over time. An innovative product will inevitably be copied by others if the market is profitable. A brand is only as good as its latest product compared to the competition. It has happened to Apple before and it can certainly happen again. Apparently I'm not the one who doesn't understand the stock market. You are delusional if you think Apple is a special snowflake and is immune from the effects of lack of innovation and market saturation. The fact it is in the technology sector is irrelevant. Apple may do splendidly in the short term, but in the long term it is treading on dangerous ground as sales growth of its premiere product has started stagnating. Unless Tim Cook can find the innovative spirit of Steve Jobs somewhere in the organization Apple will follow companies like General Motors, American Airlines, U.S. Steel, IBM, and countless other companies that once had dominant market positions and fell victim to low-cost commoditization of their products.
Did I let my financial advisors talk me into selling some a year ago? Yeah. I could bemoan that fact. But mostly I'm just glad I kept the majority of my position.
Life is too short to ruminate on what one should have, could have, would have done. You just gotta look at what is in your hand at the present moment and take your best shot.
I'm buy and hold when it comes to stocks.
I don't argue that Apple "could" go the way of other brands which have become commoditized in the past (anything is possible in the unknowable future). However, you have presented no facts to indicate that this is likely to happen to Apple. You have used Kenmore as your primary example, which is very easily refuted as done above (they pursued low cost & sacrificed quality). You point to Apple's "Sculley & others" period, without gleaning that it was the shift in focus from 'product' to 'market' which caused the issue there. You then rhyme off a host of names of other companies, which is simply irrelevant to what Apple may or may not do.
You might think that Apple is not innovating or investing, but many others don't agree. Leading in: OS from computers to wearables, custom silicon, miniaturization of manufacturing for CE, overall CE ecosystem, camera/photo technology, quality, reliability, etc, etc, etc. Overall "computing platform" leader across mobile and fixed devices. New markets - leader in emerging wearables sector. Highest consumer satisfaction ratings. Latest product introduction - AirPods - is well rated across the board as one of Apple's typical "magical" products.
Of course Apple has to keep this up - any company trying to build & hold on to leadership usually has to. Not a lot of insight there.
You cite seeing some "kids" that used to be all iPhones and now there are some Samsung's mixed in. Well, in the circle of my kids and their friends, the opposite is true - used to be some Android phones, and now everyone has an iPhone. All they want are iPhones. So, guess our anecdotes cancel each other out.
Just because you wish something to be true, doesn't make it so.
^^^^ (Thank you for -- hopefully -- putting an end to his blather).
Some people never learn.
BTW, the reason the appliances brands nearly all suck equally is because they're just brands -- they've been purchased by large multi-nationals and use the same crap builds and fall apart. They're owned and managed as brands, nothing more. Happily, that isn't Apple's way of working.
Not quite.
I'm not bashing Apple. Apple has put out a lot of innovative products of which I've gotten much use and enjoyment; my wife and I have had two iPods, five iPhones, and an iPad. I just don't subscribe to the idea that Apple can do no wrong and is inherently protected from adverse market changes. I'm most certainly not saying Apple is going to crash and burn like many companies before it, but it takes a special fool to completely deny Apple will eventually reach a pinnacle. When that pinnacle occurs is the million dollar question, but almost inevitably the stock price pinnacle will lag the revenue/market share pinnacle by at least a few years given investors are willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt.
The evidence is growing that pinnacle could be now unless Apple introduces its next revolutionary product soon. iPhone sales growth is slowing and has been pretty stagnant since the release of the iPhone 6 in 2015. Will we see a return to 20%+ growth with the release of the iPhone 8? That would mean sales in excess of 90 million phones in the December 31 quarter when the last three 12/31 quarters were all around 75 million. iPad sales have been declining since January 2014. The iPod has almost been completely replaced by the iPhone. Apple experienced it's first year-over-year revenue decline since 2003 last year. That's not necessarily a harbinger of doom, but it does tend to show a maturation of the markets in which Apple competes. Apple's new products, the watch and AirPods, are good but won't drive the double digit revenue/profit growth needed to sustain the stock price.
My comparison to other brands wasn't to say Apple was destined to follow them, it was simply to point out that a being a dominant brand at any particular point in time is no guarantee of future dominance. Brand loyalty is very fleeting without constant innovation and new products that reflect the changing consumer product market. What happened to those brands won't necessarily happen to Apple, but Apple isn't predestined to avoid their pitfalls either. Tim Cook being at the helm gives me more doubts than anything else at this point. The "shift from product to market" referenced by the previous poster as the root of Apple's problems in the '90s seems a whole lot like what Tim & co. is doing now.
I don't wish any ill will toward Apple. I own quite a bit of Apple stock through my retirement account investments in an S&P 500 index fund. What the hype surrounding Apple's stock does remind me of is the tech stock boom of 1995-1999 and the housing boom of 1990-2008. You've got people saying there is no way Apple can do anything but increase and in 20 years' time there will be nothing but regret for those that don't buy now. Apple is different from those situations in that Apple has revenue and profit to back a lot of their value up, but it still similar in that people are paying top dollar for future growth and/or product margins that may not continue at the rate they have for the past decade.
Bottom line is Apple is a good company making good products. There is no reason to think they will screw everything up royally. However, a plateau is inevitable. A world where Apple sells a consistent 200 million iPhones annually is still pretty good even if the revenue and profit growth levels off.