So Apple has around one billion customers. When you look at global income distributions there are not that many more people that actually have enough income to afford their products. Practically speaking while they may grow their customer base a bit further, they cannot double it without making far cheaper products or the world’s population becoming a lot more equally distributed income-wise.
The consequence of this is that they have to lean into inequality: get their existing high income customers to pay them more money. This is why services are such a good strategy and they are so unwilling to give up on that revenue, and it is also why they are planning to launch very expensive (and therefore high profit) new product categories like vr goggles and cars targeted at their existing customer base.
Apple is so ridiculously big that it is fun to map them back onto the world economy. Their yearly revenue is 0.4% of the world economy. Their market cap is 0.6% of global wealth. But that does present a real challenge to Tim Cook to keep growing. If apple doubles again they will be 1% of the world economy. Does that make sense for what amounts to a luxury brand?
And the problem for them is as they shed the luxury brand and become mass market general computing... the antitrust regulations will just keep accumulating, increasing the pressure. A vicious cycle.
The consequence of this is that they have to lean into inequality: get their existing high income customers to pay them more money. This is why services are such a good strategy and they are so unwilling to give up on that revenue, and it is also why they are planning to launch very expensive (and therefore high profit) new product categories like vr goggles and cars targeted at their existing customer base.
Apple is so ridiculously big that it is fun to map them back onto the world economy. Their yearly revenue is 0.4% of the world economy. Their market cap is 0.6% of global wealth. But that does present a real challenge to Tim Cook to keep growing. If apple doubles again they will be 1% of the world economy. Does that make sense for what amounts to a luxury brand?