The Smartphone giant is looking to innovate & diversify as it enters 2020 on a solid footing
Ithas been a stellar year for the Cupertino tech giant with its stock price skyrocketing beating all its peers. Traditionally, the bulk of the revenue growth for Apple has come from its flagship product — the iPhone. For years iPhone printed money for Apple but with increased competition & squeezing gross margins, Apple’s growth began to stall around 2016. This was about the time when they realized that stagnating innovation & higher-priced phones were not going to spur the growth.
This steered the tech giant’s move towards new products & services like Apple Music, App Store purchases, iCloud subscriptions, Apple Watch, AirPods & the HomePod have given a new lease of life to the dwindling revenue of the company. This was not the end of it — Apple recently ventured into digital payments space with its Apple Card, which offers features like tracking your balances, cash-backs, payments, expenses, etc. in the associated Daily Cash App.
Apple has become the top tech company with a market cap of $1.26 trillion and a solid gains of over 85% at the time of writing (infographic below), as it steps into the new decade on a strong footing. It’s no secret that the big techs have been extending their influence vigorously beyond their initial niches. Google Bank, Facebook’s Libra & Satellite Internet projects are all part of this endeavor.
Apple’s philosophy with its upcoming ventures is a little different from the other big techs. The company has traditionally been very secretive of its projects. With a loyal customer base of its iPhone, Apple has been increasingly made moves to design and control every aspect of its products, like its own custom A-series silicon and 5G modems.
I have a feeling 2020 might be the biggest year yet for Apple. With an expected launch of the much-awaited 5G iPhone and a strong focus & shift towards services would promote vibrant revenue growth. The excitement is, however, growing around another rumored project that Apple seems to be working on these days.
As reported by Bloomberg, an early-stage project launched by Apple intends to provide satellite internet services directly to its smartphone devices without the use of any mobile networks. Pretty obvious, the company wants to get rid of its services’ dependence on local mobile networks. 12 Engineers from aerospace, satellite & antenna design industries seem to be working on the project expected to be completed within 5 years.
Other tech giants like SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper are already working on ambitious goals of launching thousands of satellites to beam broadband internet to far reaches of the planet. However, It is not clear whether Apple is interested in something on that grandiose scale or simple connectivity that could offer redundancy for its mobile devices running key services.
Not to forget, that we have been hearing of Apple’s other secretive projects as well — A pair of augmented-reality glasses and a self-driving car. While the former has a slated path to release no earlier than 2021 with references to it in the code for Apple products starting to show up in beta tests & other leaks, the latter has no solid backing except few suspicious Tesla hires.
Exciting times ahead as tech giants like Apple return to the path of innovation.
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