Monday 26 May 2008

Are Apple Relying Too Heavily On PC Sales?

I read an article in the Wall Street Jounal outlining the importance of the iPhone to Apple. I found one paragraph in particular quite interesting:

Mace, a onetime Apple executive, parses the company’s most recent earnings report to point out that iPod unit growth has essentially ground to a halt–up only 1% from the same quarter the prior year. (Mac unit growth was 51%.) He adds that it’s risky for Apple to rely on the relatively mature PC market for such a big part of its growth.

There has been a lot of talk about the move to Cloud Computing and the threat this poses to Microsoft's desktop business. I haven't heard anyone mention the dangers it poses to Apple. If future sales of Microsoft software and Operating Systems are going to be affected by Google and other online services then you have to think that the Apple environment is going to be hit just as hard if not harder and with such a reliance on Mac sales for growth Apple need another major market. With iPod sales levelling and the prospect of Mac sales declining the iPhone is going to be vital to Apple's growth in the future. Looking at the new models in the mobile phone market such as Samsung Soul and Steel you have to think that Apple are going to have to give the iPhone a radical makeover soon in order for it to compete with non-Apple fan boys. Apple need to seriously start considering the future because beautiful but expensive and stuck in the past will not save them when the market shifts. Apple online services?

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