Research archive for AAPL

The products that made Apple what it is today are the iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and iMac. However, we sometimes forget about the additional products that helped them become the most valuable company in the world. These include the fast-growing services business, wearables, and other accessories.

Apple reported a robust set of numbers last night, with revenue of $83 billion, a record for a June quarter. Sales of Macs, iPads, and wearables were down, but that was more than made up for by solid growth in the services division. A shortage of computer chips hampered Mac sales.

The first generation iPhone went on sale on the 29th of June 2007. At the time some Steve Jobs haters said it was all just hype, but people lined up outside Apple Stores to get their hands on this new, ground-breaking device.

The MacBook Air was among the first Macs to transition to Apple silicon, the very powerful and efficient M1 chip. Last night Apple launched an even better model of the MacBook Air, which will run on the improved M2 chip.

From the outside, Apple may seem like a simple business. Make 4 or 5 really good products, sell a lot of them, add in some software services, and reap the rewards. Simplicity is a good thing these days.

On Thursday, Apple released its best set of results for a non-holiday quarter. I'm not going to go into the numbers today, but I want to draw your attention to how revenue is generated, and how their different divisions performed in the latest quarter.

As an avid gamer, when I think of "video games", the first thing that comes to mind, is a PC or game console like my Playstation 5 or an Xbox. However, smartphones and tablets are the dominant platforms as more players frequent the mobile versions of all games.

The list of the world's most valuable companies is dominated by North America, and Apple is currently sitting at the top spot. Apple surpassed the $2 trillion market cap threshold for the first time in 2020, a historic milestone that only the oil giant Saudi Aramco had crossed before. Since then, Microsoft joined Apple in the prestigious club; we're still waiting on Amazon and Google to get their act together!

Apple is rumoured to be working on a new device featuring a large foldable display that can serve both as a laptop and a tablet. This iPad-Mac hybrid will have two 20-inch folding displays, with functionality based on touchscreens, creating a keyboard and trackpad.

The rise of Apple is one of the most remarkable stories in business history. In 1982, the company went public at a valuation of less than $2 billion. All it had to its name was an 11.5 kg computer that looked like a microwave. However, over the next three decades, Apple expanded its offering and its value grew steadily.

Apple is by far our most important holding. It's the most widely-held stock, and has the highest aggregate value across client portfolios (over $60 million). So, we await its quarterly earnings reports with great anticipation.

When Steve Jobs launched the iPhone in 2007, I wonder if he realised how big the product would become. The iPhone and its associated app store are the central reason that Apple is worth $3 trillion today. Part of Apple's genius was to resist the urge to create all the iPhone apps in-house. Instead, they allowed outsiders to develop them, in a very regulated and secure environment.

Apple announced that developers have made over $260 billion cumulatively in revenues since the launch of the App Store in 2008, that's up by a record $60 billion from a year ago. App Store sales during the 2021 holiday season rose by double digits, partly thanks to over 745 million paid subscribers embedded in the Apple ecosystem.

b>Apple is the gift that keeps on giving. I remember when Apple's market cap reached $500 billion and some analysts argued that it could not get much bigger off of such a high base. The same was said when it reached $1 trillion and $2 trillion.

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