Why is Apple forced to make new stuff even everybody is closing doors and they make 13 billion dollars per quarter?
What if Apple only makes more money than Sony/Google/Dell/HP/Moto/LG/Asus combined instead of Sony/Google/Dell/HP/Moto/LG/Asus/Microsoft combined?
What if S5 outsell the 5s? What's wrong in not being the most lucrative public company in the world for few years, like everybody else? What if they only make 1 billion dollars instead of 13?
Why can't Apple stay 4 years without new product categories, like they did between 98 and 01, 01 and 07, 07 to 10? Thanks. Forgive my ignorance.
Because the expectations (analysts are paid WELL to address) are YOY growth. Apple could choose to try and sell less products every year and still sell a LOT and make a LOT of profit. But
shareholders want growth. What made years without product categories still yield growth was launching in other markets sooner than historical norms.
Turn back the clock and the big launch used to be America followed by a few other countries, followed by a few more. They might get 6+ months in before they roll out to still other countries. Now they can't get enough volume out of that strategy so they roll out to more countries faster. Why? They need to do so to try to beat the previous quarter's numbers.
So why not just keep accelerating that? That's finite. Look at Coca Cola. They're having a hard time with growth because they are basically everywhere. They don't have any more virgin markets of size. Instead, they are playing games of trying to make new products go in established markets and/or trying to squeeze more profits out of (shrinking) packaging tricks. Is Coca-Cola a growth stock? No.
Apple is marching toward that destination- where the big reveal will come with "available everywhere today" and that will mean everywhere (globally). Why? Because they need to be selling everywhere to try to support shareholder expectations of ever-increasing growth. Some of "us" take reports like this personally- like the analysts are attacking Apple- but all they're trying to do is forecast sales and sales don't automatically go up every year just because "we" adore Apple (buyers generate the revenues that drive sales). Buyers are finite.
This is why they need new categories. Like Coca Cola, the existing mix of products is marching toward everybody having one that wants one. At the same time, the tech within is getting advanced enough to reduce the drive for everybody to feel the need to upgrade as often as they have in the past. What Apple needs is something else to sell to the market- that is not the same product mix and that is not a close variation of the same product mix. I describe the growth drivers like this:
2001: iPod
2007: iPhone (6 year gap)
2010: iPad (3 year gap)
2012-3: needed something else (2-3 year gap)
2014: needed something else (1-2 year gap)
In other words, if Apple's sustained (amazing) growth is tied to big innovations, the pace of big innovations must accelerate. Apple needed something completely new about 2 years ago, and something completely new again about now. Instead, we've mostly seen variations of the same "big 3" which I wouldn't describe as completely new (just incremental). One might say the Mac Pro is closest to "completely new" but it's priced such that only a tiny slice of a market for a desktop will opt to pay up for that so it can't generate enough revenue to drive a next leg up in growth (much like a line of diamond-encrusted, platinum iPhones- if launched- can't command enough volume to do the same). So they need mainstream-accessible, completely new. We haven't seen that since iPad.
Apple needs new, big innovations to start rolling out, faster and faster. Or, they, we, analysts, etc need to accept that Apple is shifting from a growth company to an income company like Coca Cola and quit carrying expectations for amazing YOY growth. Griping and calling analysts stupid doesn't change revenue numbers. Only buyers change revenue numbers. If Apple's YOY growth is hugely important to us individual consumers and "we" own the latest of everything Apple puts out, we've more than done our part. Apple just needs a lot more of us to show up. Or Apple needs to deliver something else(s) that makes "us" want to buy that something else(s) too.
