Wired
Electronic enthusiasts network report (text / Wu Zipeng) As of December EST, the global technology giant Apple’s market value has reached 2.94 trillion, and then only need to increase by 3%, Apple will become the world’s first market value to exceed 30,000 Billion dollar company. If you compare Apple to a country, it will become the world’s fifth largest economy after Germany.
In other words, there are currently 204 countries/regions with GDP statistics in the world, of which 200 countries/regions have a GDP lower than Apple’s market value, including the United Kingdom, France, India, and Russia, which are truly wealthy countries.
iPhone is already invincible
Apple’s high market value stems from its extraordinary earning power and is the world’s most profitable technology company. In fact, this is already a humble statement. According to the Fortune Global 500 list released simultaneously on August 2, 2021, in terms of profitability, Apple ranked first with a profit of 57.4 billion U.S. dollars, surpassing Saudi Aramco’s Approximately US$49.3 billion, and Japan’s SoftBank Group’s US$47 billion, are also the most profitable companies in the world in all categories.
Readers in China may have noticed the numbers on the left side of the chart, which represent the company’s global revenue rankings, which are also derived from the 2021 Fortune Global 500 rankings. As shown in the figure below, Apple ranks sixth, but from the perspective of profitability, Apple’s profits are not on the same level as the top ten other companies.
China’s iPhone plays an important role in Apple’s wealth code. In the mobile phone circle, the iPhone is also the most profitable phone. Through the following several data reports, we can very intuitively feel the profitability of the iPhone. The first is global smartphone shipments. According to Canalys’s global smartphone shipment report for the second quarter of 2021, Apple’s performance is not outstanding, only ranking third in the world, accounting for 14%.
Looking at another data report, according to the global smartphone revenue ranking for the second quarter of 2021 released by the research company Counterpoint Research, the price advantage of the iPhone has begun to appear, accounting for 40% of the global smartphone revenue.
In terms of profit, the iPhone is a direct hit. According to statistics from Counterpoint Research, the iPhone alone accounted for 75% of the global smartphone market’s profits in the second quarter of 2021.
After the release of the iPhone 12 series in 2020, an evaluation agency disassembled the iPhone 12 Pro. In terms of component details, according to the exchange rate at the time, the cost of the OLED screen was about 51.5 US dollars (about 339 yuan), A14 bionic chip + Qualcomm X55 The cost of 5G is about US$98.5 (about 647 yuan), the cost of the camera module is about US$96 (about 631 yuan), the cost of memory is about US$67.5 (about 444 yuan), and the cost of the frame shell is about US$51.5 (about 338 yuan), for a total of one unit The hardware cost of iPhone 12 Pro is about 514 US dollars (about 3380 yuan). At the beginning of the release, the release price of the iPhone 12 Pro was as high as 8499 yuan. If you do not consider other things, the profit is very considerable.
From the current market situation, after Huawei was sanctioned by the U.S. government, the iPhone has no rivals in the high-end smartphone market. If users want to buy high-end flagship smartphones, basically the iPhone is the only choice. Samsung S series and note series cannot. It has a decent impact on the iPhone.
This is clearly reflected in the sales of the iPhone 13 series of mobile phones. After Apple released the iPhone 13 series on September 14, there were a lot of online and offline promotions for this model. Apple also knows that it will consume in the Chinese market. In terms of flagship smartphones, in addition to the iPhone, other choices can only be regarded as imperfections.
According to statistics from Counterpoint Research, in October 2021, driven by the launch of the iPhone 13 series of mobile phones, iPhone sales in the Chinese market increased by 46% month-on-month. Apple also surpassed vivo to become the most sold mobile phone manufacturer in the Chinese market that month, accounting for Reach 22%. Last time, Apple ranked first in the Chinese market in a single month, and it dates back to December 2015.
Research iPhone’s invincible posture in the high-end market is an important reason for supporting Apple’s market value growth. It now seems that this situation will continue for a long time. On the one hand, as we mentioned above, Huawei, which is capable of challenging Apple, has been sanctioned; on the other hand, after Huawei withdrew from the high-end smartphone market, Samsung did not fill this market, but made the iPhone more dominant. In addition, other local Chinese smartphone manufacturers, except Huawei, have all fallen into a quagmire when they hit the high-end market. Since each brand started with a focus on cost-effectiveness, they are now moving to the high-end market, and consumers generally do not buy it.
The ecological advantage is more obvious
Of course, Apple is not only able to be so successful with the iPhone, but Apple’s ecological construction can also be called a global model. At present, Apple has formed a very benign and closed-loop development ecosystem among hardware, software, and systems.
At the operating system level, the iOS of Apple mobile phones, iPadOS of Apple tablets, and Mac OS of Apple Computers all have very good user reviews, and they communicate with each other, which greatly enhances the stickiness of users. Take the iOS on the iPhone as an example, the App software integration is very high, and the growth of the App volume in use is significantly smaller than that of the Android system. This not only increases the stability of the system, but also the user is still very smooth after using the iPhone for a long time. This is why the iPhone 13 series phones have been released, and many fans are still talking about it: My iPhone 6 Plus can still persist. Finally, Apple couldn’t stand it anymore and defined the iPhone 6 Plus as an “outdated product.”
In terms of the system, aesthetics, safety and the number of applications are also very large advantages, which makes many users feel very uncomfortable once switching the system.
Behind the system, Apple also has an iCloud, which is a cloud service system that uses Apple ID to log in, which makes many users unable to give up with the iPhone. Through iCloud, users can back up data and synchronize data, which becomes a perfect expansion of mobile phone storage. Especially when changing phones, users can easily transfer data to the new iPhone through iCloud, which is very convenient. And this is only on the iPhone side. In fact, many data on the iPhone/iPad and MacBook have been synced without feeling through iCloud, including photos, documents, memos, contacts, reminders, calendars, etc.
Third, the interconnection between Apple devices is also valued by users, causing many users to have “Apple Family Buckets.” When the iPhone, iPad, Mac and other Apple devices are under a Wi-Fi, it can be relayed in the application. For example, when a user opens a web page on the iPhone, he will find that there is an iPhone icon on the taskbar of the Mac computer. As long as you click on it, the computer will pop up the content that the user is browsing on the phone.
Apple’s official website also explains the interoperability of devices. After users log in to the Apple ID on all devices, they can use the “Continuous Interoperability” function to seamlessly connect between devices to achieve the operations in the following figure, including separation. Airdrop, automatic unlock, mark connection and intercommunication, etc.
This ecological advantage makes it easy for Apple to succeed when launching new hardware devices. AirPods and Apple Watch are obvious examples.
At present, the meta-universe concept is very hot, and Apple is expected to continue to play the role of a hardware device winner in the meta-universe. Tianfeng International analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is very influential in Apple’s research. He pointed out that Apple has begun planning for the second generation of AR/MR headsets, and the delivery schedule is 2H24. This product, which is optimized in terms of weight, appearance, battery life, and processor performance, is expected to make Apple one of the biggest winners of AR/VR virtual reality devices.
The hidden worries behind $3 trillion
Apple is undoubtedly the most successful technology company in the mobile Internet era, and the iPhone is also the most successful product in the mobile Internet era. Together with Apple’s years of polishing the ecosystem, these factors have finally shaped Apple’s $3 trillion market value. However, the signal of the change of the times is already very obvious. Both the equipment form and the software form will usher in huge changes. Apple needs to meet the competition of traditional technology giants and start-up companies in both equipment and ecology.
At the same time, some of Apple’s advantages are becoming disadvantages, such as ecology. Apple’s closed ecology has begun to cause trouble for it, and the risk of subsequent regulatory impact is not small.
But now, these worries are laid out first, let’s first meet the first company in history with a market value of 3 trillion US dollars.
Original title: Rich is an enemy country! Apple’s market value will exceed 3 trillion US dollars, exceeding the GDP of Britain, France, Russia, India and other countries
Article source:[WeChat public account: Electronic enthusiast network]Welcome to add attention! Please indicate the source for reprinting the article.
Reviewing editor: Peng Jing