Foreign media comment: Apple CEO Tim Cook made a mistake in his calculation.
In the past 20 years, Apple has successfully grown into a world-renowned technology giant, and it can be said that the two CEOs of the past time, Steve Jobs and Cook, have contributed a lot. However, the two men have very different styles and different paths.
Steve Jobs was an inventor who always sought maximum innovation to bring Apple to the world, as he was called"The Godfather of Apple"。Cook, on the other hand, pursues extreme profits and can only be described as a technology-based entrepreneur. Now there is news that Apple's Cook has miscalculated!
Pursuing profits but declining performance.
We all know that the reason why Apple's mobile phone is relatively high is mainly because, from the beginning, it has created a high-end positioning, so Apple products have become a symbol of high-end. Of course, to do this, you must first have first-class quality, and Jobs laid the foundation for this.
Apple's excellent A-series chips and closed-loop iOS system provide a guarantee of stable and excellent performance for Apple's mobile phones.
Because of this, Apple has the lion's share of profits in the smartphone industry, and the proportion is unimaginably high. According to the latest statistics, in the fourth quarter of last year, Apple earned 85% of its profits with only 18% of the market share.
Although Samsung is the world's leading smartphone manufacturer, it can only share the remaining 15% of profits with other brands such as Huawei and Xiaomi. Isn't that unbelievable?Yes, thanks to Cook.
Apple's ability to make such high profits is a result of the current CEO's ability to operate. On the one hand, Cook is good at marketing, raising the premium on iPhones through tiered pricing to induce consumers to pay for more expensive products.
On the other hand, Cook is a master of the first chain, and has built a strong **chain around the world, striving to minimize costs.
However, at the end of the day, the ruler is short, and the inch is long. Cook wholeheartedly pursues the ultimate profit, and product innovation has decreased accordingly, as can be seen from the iPhone 14 series, even Jobs's daughter bluntly said that there is no new idea.
The iPhone 14 sold dismal from the start, finally destroying the myth of Apple's continued growth, ushering in its first decline in four years. While Cook blamed Foxconn's production capacity problems, it boiled down to a lack of innovation.
Cook has been a fixture for many years since Steve Jobs, so Apple hasn't introduced anything particularly innovative.
Change the production chain, but encounter resistance.
Apple, for example, has been developing AR VR technology for years, but it has not been very successful. There is also the Apple car, which seems to have been in a state of research and development, and has not been successfully implemented so far. However, Cook's quest for stability is also an achievement, and Apple's market value has been climbing in recent years.
In addition, Cook's continuous migration of the ** chain in confusion actually stems from Cook's mentality of seeking stability. In recent years, the United States has imposed four rounds of severe sanctions on Huawei, directly losing Huawei's mobile phone business, and Cook is also looking at this.
It can be said that Apple's dependence on the continental ** chain is very high, so Cook is also worried that he will be treated in the same way in the future.
According to relevant sources, Cook has long made a **chain backup plan and does not want to put his eggs in one basket to deal with uncontrollable risks in the future. Therefore, in recent years, Apple has been planning and promoting the transfer of the mainland ** chain.
Previously, Apple instigated Foxconn, Pegatron, Wistron and other companies to build factories in India, Vietnam and other places to continuously increase local iPhone production capacity. Apple has not only increased its high-end production capacity in India, but also shortened the time gap with the mainland's new foundry.
Some time ago, Apple was also promoting Chinese companies to build factories in India, and has recommended 17 Chinese first-class business companies to India, of which 14 have been approved.
Although Cook has been trying to get rid of the dependence on the mainland's ** chain, some time ago there was news that Apple encountered a lot of resistance in the process of increasing production capacity in India, and there was a gap in various local facilities, and there was a big gap between the quality of employees and the mainland.
Not only is the infrastructure too backward in India, but even the quality of its staff is not good. Even though Apple sent product designers and engineers from its headquarters and mainland China to train employees at its factories in southern India, the improvement in proficiency was very slow.
As a result, India is much slower to complete orders than the mainland, with a yield rate of only 50%, and the chain of apple transfer production is long.
Now, about half of Zhengzhou Foxconn's iPhone production capacity has returned to normal operation, and there is no production capacity problem, but iPhone sales do not seem to be as good as imagined, so Apple, which has always been dismissive of price reductions, has also begun to continue to reduce prices**.
As an entrepreneur, Cook is considered successful, driving Apple's market value to exceed $3 billion. But as a technology company, it is difficult to stay true if you don't focus on innovation, and now the decline in performance is the seed. That's why foreign media will say:"Apple Cook miscalculated!