Should Apple rename itself “Apple Phone?”
I ask that with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, of course. But if the company’s name were supposed to reflect its actual business — as it once did — you could make a strong case for tacking on that “phone.”
For years now, Apple overall success has been driven by the growth in sales of its iPhones. And sales of phones have comprised more than half of Apple’s sales for the last two years.
But the continued ballooning growth of its phone business — coupled with the diminishment or relative stagnation of its other product lines — has reached the point where you could say that Apple is basically a phone manufacturer that just happens to sell a few other products.
Take its most recent quarter, which Apple announced on Monday. In the period that ended Dec. 27, Apple sold $51.2 billion worth of iPhones. Those sales comprised nearly 69 percent of the company’s total sales for the quarter — a record portion by a long shot. Indeed, Apple was so successful at selling iPhones during its first fiscal quarter that if it had sold nothing else — no iPads, no Macs, nothing — its total sales would still have been the third highest it had ever recorded.
Apple’s success clearly shows what myself and others supposed — that there was huge pent-up demand for the larger-screened iPhones that the company introduced in September. Indeed, Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones in the holiday quarter. That was not only a record number, but it was 89 percent more than the company sold in its fiscal fourth quarter of last year. and 46 percent more than it sold in the year-prior period. By contrast, in the quarter after Apple introduced the iPhone 5s in 2013, its sales only grew 7 percent compared to the prior year’s quarter.
When Apple dropped the “Computer” in its corporate name 8 years ago, Steve Jobs made a cogent argument and concise argument: the company was no longer just a computer company. At that time, the company’s iPods were a significant product line that in some quarter brought in more money than its Mac computers. And Apple had just introduced the iPhone and the Apple TV, devices it hoped would become major product lines in their own right.
Now the company has come full circle in a way. While it still makes other things — including a Watch that will debut soon — Apple has only one that really matters. But what a heck of a product that is.
Photo of Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus devices courtesy of the company.
