Revenue and future business model
Apple as a company has gained a strong momentum during the last 15 years, with the introduction of the iPod and the iPhone series specifically. As of 2018 the iPhone sales accounted for over half of the company’s revenue, although this number has been declining for several years [22]. Even though hardware sales, such as the iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple Watch etc. has been the financial backbone for the company throughout their existence, an increasing revenue stream the past few years has been software and cloud related. This pivotal strategy resonates well with the declining sales of the iPhone and may prove to be a successful endeavour with the emerging technologies such as 5G, computer learning and artificial intelligence, as the company tries to capture a larger share of the emerging markets.
Conclusion
To conclude we will go back to where we started and see how our analysis of Apple fits with our definition of a business model. As we have briefly visited the revenue stream of the company, we can see that their value traditionally – and still account for – hardware sales, where the iPhone is the dominant product. Apples value proposition we have argued is their hardware and software design, where user friendliness is core. Their customer targeting is mainly through their branding strategy, but also through keeping their customers through a locked-in ecosystem. As a final conclusion, Apple can be summed up in these words. Quality, innovative and user friendly.
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