Some people think Apple will slow down in terms of growth. I don't, in fact I think most investors are sleeping on how much expansion Apple is due for in the coming years.
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Apple's R&D budget is insane. $21 billion dollars invested into research and development last year alone and if trends continue that number will only rise.
In any of these new markets they’re expanding into, they won't be the first. An important thesis of my argument is that that's a good thing. When you look at their product history, whether it was the iPod, iPhone, Airpods, Mac, etc. It's always just been a more refined and unified version of the best product on the market at the time. Thanks to their brand loyalty and heavy focus on R&D they can afford to wait out other companies and enter products fields much later than others. Therefore the expansion I think they're taking most seriously is in virtual reality, EV's, and healthcare. Those first two fields in my eyes would be a guaranteed success, but as I'll get into later depending on what direction they go healthcare may be a bigger obstacle.
Augmented and Virtual Reality: Apple Glasses and Apple VR seem to be not too far in the future. This article says Apple is working a headset with augmented AND virtual reality, which is way different than the current Occulus Quest. While I think Meta will eventually come out a very impressive headset, considering the negative sentiment around Meta and how out of touch they are with consumers, I see companies like Apple and Microsoft building on what Meta created and making Occulus irrelevant. Apple VR could be the first headset purchase for a lot of people.
The Apple Car: It definitely exists, and it might not dust Tesla, but definitely won't be bad and it'll probably make meme companies like Lucid, NIO, and Rivian obsolete (because who in their right mind would value a company 90 times above their earning without seeing a working vehicle yet). Also Elon Musk pretty much laughed in this interview when the reporter asked whether they're taking the Apple Car seriously. He said of course they are, Apple's stealing valuable engineers away from him. The real question can Apple make this car affordable and not sell the tires separately from the car?
Healthcare: Here's where things could get tricky. Amazon, JP-Morgan, and Berkshire Hathaway already tried to do healthcare with a company called Haven, and it failed after 3 years. If those guys couldn't figure it out, I'll be honest there's not much confidence for Apple. The only part of me that thinks this could be something different is that the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook has repeatedly stated that Apple's biggest contribution to mankind WILL be through healthcare. In this piece from the Wall Street Journal, Apple has really envisioned a future in healthcare. They’ve said they're working towards more subscription revenue through health-monitoring services with the Apple Watch, with their end goal being eventually primary care services with Apple employed doctors at their own clinics. All I'm saying is Apple has the money and they have the people, and if I HAD to bet on one of the big tech companies breaking into healthcare, I'd probably bet on Apple.
They also still have room to grow with Apple TV+, Apple Music, and Apple Pay which are all recurring subscription revenue that grew 32.9% compared to last quarter, which more importantly is only 21% percent of their total revenue. iPhones, Macs, and accessories are still growing at a monstrous pace in Asia, especially in China and Japan. And they've done very well at dodging controversy. So whatever Apple releases next, I'm sure a lot of people will buy it. Consumers are gonna keep adding Apple products to their ecosystem of Apple devices and Apple is gonna keep growing and keep growing and keep growing.
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