The discount may have to do with consumer technology companies’ tendency to
enjoy rapid rises and equally fast declines.
But one Apple product line seems eternally young: Macintosh computers. Thirty
years on, it is still growing. Annual revenue has reached $23bn. Computer
prices always drop but Macs drop the slowest. Unit sales are marching up.
Contrast the product that sparked Apple’s renaissance: the iPod. Apple has
protected its price but volumes are now in steady decline.
One might sum up the debate about Apple’s prospects and valuation like this:
will the iPhone and the iPad (two-thirds of Apple’s sales) drink from the
fountain of youth, as the Mac has, or prove mortal, like the iPod?
Admittedly, Apple has not lost iPod customers, but upgraded them to pricier
iPhones. But it is not written that this upgrade pattern is repeatable.
What gives the Mac line legs? Computers have a slow replacement cycle, making
it easier to justify buying a premium product such as a Mac. More important,
users get dug in with operating systems, so it is costly to switch.
The trick is to increase switching costs. It used to be that iTunes kept users
where their music was. But now Apple, Google, Amazon and others offer cloud
storage services and ways to move files from others’ platforms.
A strategy of ever-tightening integration between one company’s devices may be
more promising. If your PC, tablet, phone or whatever is an interoperative
bundle, you will tend to replace it with one of the same make (and keep
using the services from that manufacturer). Apple is nearly there but it
will need to keep pressing: Google just rolled out a tablet and home media
hub, and made much of how well they work together.
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