Asymco

Here are some other analysts you may like if you’re not already familiar with them. http://www.asymco.com/ https://stratechery.com/ https://www.aboveavalon.com/ I haven’t been actively following any of them for a few years now, but collectively they plus Ben Evans really impress me.

I got to learn about disruption theory through Horace Dediu (http://www.asymco.com) who is probably one its best explainers and practitioners (the latter being why you should listen to Dediu in the first place - skin in the game).

Except this plays into the mythmaking. Apple would very likely _love_ to have a second or third profit generator. If you examine the profits taken on iPads, MacBooks, and everything else Apple does (see http://www.asymco.com) relative to the iPhone, it is a one trick pony. Hard to peel apart your "focus" when 85% of your business relies on it.

There is some more subtlety to this too. Apple's products (like most tech companies) are made by contract manufacturers, primarily Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry). What Apple does different is to buy the equipment Foxconn needs to make the products. This means there is no financial risk in that equipment to Foxconn, and that Foxconn's other customers don't get to take advantage of the equipment. I highly recommend following http://www.asymco.com/ where Horace Deidu does lots of analysis on the industry, with focus on Apple. Heck he can fairly accurately predict future Apple sales because of the capital expenditures mentioned in the previous paragraph http://www.asymco.com/2015/02/10/how-many-ios-devices-didwill-apple-sh…

The website Asymco http://www.asymco.com/category/asymcar/ , run by Horace Dediu is a great resource for understanding the declining utility of cars. In many ways I feel like the automobile industry is linked with other industries, causing it to lag behind. As of now there is a slow pace towards newer technology, but the energy industry and automobile component manufactures do not seem to follow as enthusiastically.

For 4Q16: - iPhone 7 - $650-850 - iPhone 7 Plus - $769-969 Yielded an ASP of $695 4Q2017: - iPhone X - $1000-1150 - iPhone 8 - $650-850 - iPhone 8 Plus -$800 -950 Yielded an ASP of $796 That is a year-over-year increase of 14.5%, with the only real change being the iPhone X. I agree that some movement of the ASP could be attributed to Apple only offering 2 storage sizes for the iPhone 8s, but really, the price ranges are very similar if the iPhone X is excluded. It could easily be argued that, because Apple also offered their cheapest iPhone ever in 2018, there would be more pressure for ASP to be decreasing [0]. [0] - http://www.asymco.com/2017/09/20/good-better-best/

The US government has other "loyalty programs", for example if you buy a 10 year treasury bond instead of holding cash, they'll pay out a bonus every six months. Another way to look at it is return on investment vs risk vs liquidity. Since inflation is 0-2%, cash is worth less every year, but it is easy to buy things with it. So if you have lots of cash coming in, choosing where to store it gets more tricky: http://www.asymco.com/2012/01/24/apple-added-38-billion-in-cash-last-y…

After having read http://www.asymco.com/2014/04/16/innoveracy-misunderstanding-innovatio… I think that people often misuse the term innovation. From my understanding Slack is innovative, precisely because it is useful. Its novelty is not in features but in the delivery. Yes IRC had all the features but it is hardly something one can recommend. Slack made the long process of setting up a server, shell/bouncer, dcc a matter of a few clicks. On top of that they provide a unique client for everybody which means that everybody sees the same thing. Throw in the integrations and you have a very compelling package. The features one by one are not new or revolutionary, but they were the first to push the whole deal out.

Great coverage (via twitter) from Horace Deidu of http://asymco.com: https://twitter.com/asymco Some of my favorites: * https://twitter.com/asymco/status/692106160376303616 * https://twitter.com/asymco/status/692108871012343808 * https://twitter.com/asymco/status/692111023197798401

I'd recommend listening to this podcast from Horace Dediu about how apple can differentiate themselves. http://www.asymco.com/2015/03/11/the-critical-path-143-moving-parts/#d…

I recommend the recent Asymco post about maps: http://www.asymco.com/2015/06/15/where-are-maps-going/

In addition to the other comments here, I think it must be said that you don't care mostly about share, you care about profit. Here's one smart take on this (from 1.5 and 2.5 years ago, clearly seeing where things were headed): http://www.asymco.com/2012/04/24/unforgiven-the-consequences-of-profit… http://www.asymco.com/2011/06/02/does-the-phone-market-forgive-failure… From April 2012: "The rumors swirling around RIM and LG are centered around exits and some suggest Nokia will follow. [...] Earlier last decade the exits were prompted by loss of brand value and subsequent loss of distribution. This decade disruption brought upon by mobile computing brings with it new business models centered on ecosystems and value captured through software and services."

Horace Dediu's (asymco) graph of Googles rapidly declining margins probably illustrates why Google is now resorting to this sort of thing. http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Screen-Shot-2013-07-1… And related post. http://www.asymco.com/2013/07/19/whats-an-android-user-worth/

45% is not greater than 55%. Headline is wrong. http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Screen-Shot-2013-04-1…

This and other items that Wall St. cares about, but aren't necessarily in the best long-term interest of the comapany. For example, they can now have less of a focus on margin. It's the constant quest for margin that had Dell outsource its whole company to Asus: http://www.asymco.com/2012/12/07/the-real-threat-that-samsung-poses-to…

There's a simple explanation for it: a lot of kids who don't have smartphones own iPods, and kids love playing games. According to Horace Didieu, around half of all iOS devices sold to date are iPods.[1] -- [1] http://www.asymco.com/2012/06/18/a-more-precise-measure-of-ios-install…

That's why I always wait for http://asymco.com to do the math and fact-check the data and compile a pretty chart.

Nice bit of chart manipulation by Blodget, but if you look at the 12 month view, you see that it's not an abnormal hump: http://ycharts.com/companies/AAPL If you follow Apple at all, you'd also know that Apple's P/E ratio has been extremely low for the entirety of the iPhone's history. In this chart, the historical P/E is the blue line: http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Screen-Shot-2012-10-1…

>Also, don't forget that Apple is still dominating in the profit arena. Here's a great graphic to illustrate this point (2nd chart) [1] [1]: http://www.asymco.com/2012/05/03/the-phone-market-in-2012-a-tale-of-tw…

Apple's current focus is iPhone and iPad. Microsoft has zero market share in the table market ("there is no tablet market, there is an iPad market"), and a very small share in the mobile phone market. When you are #1 in a market, you don't do comparisons. The Apple Stores are probably the best marketing the Mac can ever get. So it's better for Apple to spend money on the stores than on making TV ads for the Mac. And so they have: http://www.asymco.com/2012/06/25/the-face-and-the-brand/

Frankie, apologies, I didn't mean to suggest that you were responsible for the link-baited titles. Your title correctly reflects the sentiment of the reporting across the board: "An Apple CEO-in-waiting sells 95% of his company shares" I am heavily invested in Apple and so I follow them very closely. Data from Asymco gives me even greater confidence in their performance: http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Screen-Shot-2012-05-0…

It may be changing but these figures are from Q2 this year and are pretty supportive: http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/29/apple-captured-two-thirds-of-availabl… Morotola Mobility just posted another loss in the last few days, LG have been losing money for 2 years now with no sign of turning it round. HTC margins are "disappointing" and their share price has dropped considerably in the last few months in large part because of the competition in the market (source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/htc-profit-up-68-on-demand-for-smartp… HTC are making good profits but their margins aren't great. Samsung are doing well but I'm not seeing anyone else wooping it up but I'd love to see anything that contradicts that (I own no Apple stock and I'm really not that vested one way or the other).

Compare this to Apple whose cash reserves (~$66B) exceed the market capitalizations of RIM (~$22B), Motorola Mobility (~$9B), and Nokia (~$32B) combined. That's pretty amazing any way you think about it. http://www.asymco.com/2011/04/26/2895/ P.S. Microsoft has ~$49B cash on hand.

Really? Android is on every carrier. iPhone at the moment is only on At&t. If the iPhone were on all carriers the way Android is, Android almost certainly wouldn't be so far ahead. Hence... the iPhone is headed to Verizon. Let's follow up in a year and see where things are at then. Also, Android is on dozens of devices at different prices points. There have only been 4 iPhones... it's Apples to Oranges (pun intended). And anyways... Android isn't hurting the iPhone, it's hurting Blackberry: http://www.asymco.com/2011/01/11/for-every-att-android-user-there-are-…

> Now the Mac market share is above 20%, because eventually the people using it in schools start using it somewhere else Absolutely no kid says “I love these shitty Chrome OS laptops that I have to use in schools. Can I have one at home!” When they get to choose a computer for college at least in the US, they overwhelmingly choose Macs. And Dell overtook Apple in schools in 1999. Even back in 2010, 70% of students were choosing to buy Macs for college https://www.asymco.com/2010/08/04/70-percent-of-college-freshman-are-e… That trend has continued at least through 2020. https://www.jamf.com/resources/press-releases/new-research-finds-71-of… And saying that Linux grew from 1% to 5% in 10 years means it’s going to grow to 25% reads like every startup pitch. “We doubled from 1% to 2% in a year. At this rate we will have almost 70% of the market in 6 years!” The “Year of the Desktop Linux” has been a meme for over 25 years. https://www.howtogeek.com/676963/why-desktop-linux-still-matters/?utm_…

> I get a message on the little internet on my wrist, so I get the big internet out of my pocket to read it? “No Wireless. Less Space than the Nomad. Lame”. In the pre-Covid days. I loved being able to take my cellular Apple Watch to the gym and leave my phone in the car. I could listen to music and podcasts check my heart rate, make and receive calls and messages. I would swim with it. Run with it, etc. and leave my phone at home. You could tap quick - yes/no replies or if someone asks you do you want $X or $Y, it will give you those two choices as quick replies. You can also dictate replies. I find my phone unusable when I’m working out. I sweat like a pig in heat. Any sensitive capacitive touch display is unusable. Even now, I use my Watch as a remote for my AppleTV while I’m working out in my home gym. That’s not even to mention in December with Apple Fitness, the on screen workouts will be able to automatically activate the appropriate workout on the watch and granularly record and show your stats. My wife would often leave her phone in the car when she was out and about. As far as the phone. Even in 2007, there were already 1 billion phones being sold a year. Jobs said he wanted the iPhone to capture 1% - 10 million during the first year. Now there are close to 5 billion phones being sold a year. There isn’t really any conceivable way that anything will have the ubiquity of the smart phone market at 90%+ penetration in the developed world and even 70%+ in the…

The iPhone is as successful as it is because of the perception of exclusivity - the best, newest apps will always be on iPhone first. That argument might have worked in back in the day when the iPhone was only available on AT&T but not in a world where the iPhone is available to more people than it ever has been before. The iPhone is perhaps the single most successful product ever, with over 1 billion sold: http://www.asymco.com/2016/07/28/most-popular-product-of-all-time/ The total marketshare of Android is around 2 billion, but that's the total of Samsung, Motorola, HTC, LG, etc. None of them have individually sold a billion Android phones themselves. If they enabled more progressive webapp features, we'd start to see a lot more cross platform webapps. That would not be in Apple's interest. Do you think Apple cares more about selling a $700 iPhone or a 99¢ app? They have over a million native apps for iOS; what keeps that ecosystem strong is how Apple is able to innovate each year on new features for the iPhone, iPad and iOS, not by restricting what web apps can do. The most compelling features are things web apps aren't very good at anyway. I seriously doubt Tim Cook is losing sleep worrying about Service Workers and the like. People said the same thing about WebRTC and how it would compete with FaceTime. And now we have WebRTC in the new versions of macOS and iOS, so it's time to create reasons why other web features aren't there. Web apps have made a lot of…

A P/E ratio of 14, and the company basically tripled their numbers in ~4 years. Does Google's P/E of 35.7 suggests we can look forward to a rough 10x increase in Google's numbers over the next 4 years? No, it means that investors didn't believe there was much room for further growth at Apple[1]. They were clearly wrong! (Note that if you think that they are still wrong then there is a good opportunity to make money here!) (Also, P/E is often related to margin as well as growth potential. Google's better profit margin is a factor here). [1] http://www.asymco.com/2011/03/24/analysts-apples-growth-next-year-to-d… - the quote here is "The P/E ratio has remained at despondent levels for over two years.... The logical explanation is that pricing reflects a consensus that growth will fall off a cliff... Growth may slow to 18 percent the following year."

>> Come on, Apple didn't want DRM, labels insisted on it. https://web.archive.org/web/20080107121341/http://www.apple.com/hotnew… > The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music. "Thoughts on Music" | Steve Jobs | February 6, 2007 ----------- And I've got a bridge in Alaska to sell you. Taking Jobs 100% at his word (i.e. Apple was dedicated to DRM-free music, was in continual negotiation with the labels to strip it, and was contractually obligated to continue to use it despite their reluctance), here's how the timeline ultimately turned out: * October 23, 2001 - First iPod introduced * April 28, 2003 - iTunes Store w/ Fairplay introduced * February 6, 2007 - Job's "Thoughts on Music" letter * April 2, 2007 - EMI agrees to sell iTunes catalog DRM free (initially for slightly higher price) * ~ August, 2007(?) - Universal sells DRM-free tracks on iTunes Store competitors * January-April…

> My complaint is that the incremental improvements that Apple bring to the industry - regardless of how sleek they may be - isn't itself innovation. That's really debatable. Innovation is about bringing something new and uniquely useful to the market [1]. It is an economic term, arguably coined by economists to distinguish from invention, which often has zero economic impact. Innovations can be incremental. They might not even be technology - a small change in process or in positioning can be an innovation. Incremental things add up to a big deal. My favorite list of sources of innovative opportunity is Drucker's [2] I agree the true inventors often get forgotten about, and that's lamentable. And I'm sorry for reading into your comment too much about success. [1] http://www.asymco.com/2014/04/16/innoveracy-misunderstanding-innovatio… [2] https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/wholefarm/html/c5-10.html