Another bite for Apple: The first Trillion dollar company!
Speculation of which tech giant is going to hit the 1 trillion mark first has been on going for a while now. The contenders were, you guessed it, all the tech giants that dominate the 21st century. Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple. Some people put their bets on Amazon, who's owner, Jeff Bezos, just recently became the richest man on Earth. Amazon hit the $1000 per share, last year and many thought how much longer until the "everything store" were to hit $2000? Microsoft, the oldest contender in the trillion-dollar race had been moving at a steady pace towards its goal. Under CEO Satya Nadella, not many doubted the company's ambitions. Alphabet, Google's parent company has also seen steady growth for the past 5 years, making shareholders certain about its victory. However, it turns out that in the race to a trillion dollars it takes more than slow and steady to win the race. Since Apple, with CEO Tim Cook on the reins speeded its way to hitting one trillion before the competition. It's not surprising that Apple reached the mark, first as I type this on my MacBook Air. After all the breaking news alert did come on my iPhone...
Apple takes another bite-
207.05. That is the number that apple had been hoping to see for a long time now. And that is the exact number that let Apple embed its name in history yet again. This was definitely not an easy feat to achieve for the company. It's been almost four decades since founder Steve Jobs created this company in his garage in California. To imagine the world without the iPhone, which is probably the most significant device that Apple has ever launched, is impossible. The company has come a long way from its striped and colourful logo. It has now become a lot more than just a company, instead it's an image of simplicity, brought to life as millions of iconic iPhone boxes are opened. In fact, it has changed the meaning of the word 'Apple' in itself. Decades before it referred to the red shiny fruit but, now ask to Google or anybody and Apple.inc is what comes up. I just hope I don't cry, because my MacBook isn't waterproof.
Looking back years and days-
Apple was created on the April 1st, 1976 but, the company has proven countless times that it's no joke. Oct 2001 was when Apple launched its first iPod. It was valued at a mere 6 billion. It was only in June 2007 that Apple launched its iconic iPhone and crossed it's 100-billion-dollar market value. Things only went up from there. In 2010, Apple welcomed another member to its happy "i" family, the iPad. Just last year Apple launched its pricy iPhone X and reached a 796 billion-dollar valuation. And its recent milestone is becoming the first company to reach a trillion-dollar market valuation. Apple even beat Wall Street's expectations for its recent quarter results. Something that didn't seem so likely since Apple sold fewer phones than expected. The reason behind that is the high price of Apple's recent iPhone X, which has driven most of the sales and has remained the most popular iPhone model for Apple this quarter. I guess the $999 price didn't stop people from getting in on the latest iPhone.
The ones that didn't make it-
While there is disappointment among all the other tech giants who were eyeing the same pie (now it's apple pie), most eyes are now towards Amazon. Since the competition was quite heated between it and Apple. Amazon, captures almost 49 percent of retail e-commerce sales in the US. It also values being the number one largest online store, promising you "everything". You have to give it to Amazon though, you can literally buy an afro wig for dogs on it (it comes in two sizes). So, it must be a huge let down to watch the trillion-dollar trophy go to a rival. But, the good news is that Amazon is not so far. It has a valuation of 892 billion dollars (at the time of writing this). The news is not so good for Apple though. Amazon is growing significantly faster than Apple and will not take long to catch up. This is because of Amazon's growing cloud service and its huge online retail store. In fact, Apple itself was reliant on Amazon's web services up until recently. So, Apple must speed up to stay ahead of its competition. After all, the iPhone X revenue can only go so far.
Keeping the magic alive!
There's a reason why everybody looks forward to Apple's near September launches. Why people are willing to stand for hours in lines to buy the new iPhone the day it releases. Apple has a sense of innovation, a sort of magic that makes its new products so irresistible. But, this magic has taken a long time to become real. It really began the day Steve Jobs pulled the iPhone out of his pocket, during what many regard as the best product launch ever. It wasn't just his amazing presentation, or the phone itself. As he stood there, wearing his signature turtleneck, it's the screaming fans that make Apple so phenomenal. And they cheer for truly revolutionary products like the iPhone. Now, Apple faces a lot of competition and a hard journey ahead. It is faced with the demands for censorship by the Chinese Government, competition as Huawei and other companies increase sales and most importantly it's faced with questions from the Apple fans themselves. When is the next iPhone coming out? Facebook was on its way to the trillion-dollar valuation as well, but it has shown that giants can fall as its shares fell to a mere 500 billion. Apple has grown to become a truly "fascinating company", and the journey forward is not being to be as easy as (apple) pie. However, as long as Apple keeps the spirit of Steve Jobs alive and keeps innovating, the company will keep making history. That, and the occasional ground-breaking device (like the first iPhone) would be good too!