Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) continues to win consumers and tons of market share with its various iProducts (iPhone, iPod, etc.) along with the ecosystems that come with these products (iTunes, App Store, etc.). Can the company keep it up? There are newer competitors who are offering huge catalogs of music downloads that work with any brand of music player (including the iPod and iPhone), but that hasn't stopped Apple from rolling over competing services in the past.It's all about the marketing and consumer experience more than the breadth of selection and feature bloat. Always has been, and most likely always will. Yes, there are stepped-up competitors like Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) who have continually increased their efforts to take market share away from Apple's online content offerings. What has it done? Basically, nothing. Add to that Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY)-owned Napster.
Even Microsoft Corporation.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) misguided Zune could not wrestle much market share away from Apple, even with a compelling hardware music player and a decent content store competitor. If there are any competitors who want to seriously dent Apple's stranglehold on digital content, it will take more than a "me too" approach -- even with a superior-designed product. A shift buoyed by an incredible marketing effort is just the beginning of what it will take. Until then, Apple will reign king over digital content distribution. And, its shares will sit pretty just like they've done since the start of 2009 -- even in a recession.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-01-2009 @ 8:35AM
Beltway Greg said...
Brian, what is your problem? Apple is the best company in the world both fundamentally and in regard to its overall operation. It survives and posts its best non-holiday quarter in history in the midst of a redepression and we have to constantly be subjected to a veritable dump truck load of negative economic verbal rocks that are backed-up and dumped on our beloved Apple on a daily basis from the crew at blogging stocks.
Oh, ignore my last. This is a positive post.
Good on you mate!
BTW, buy Exxon and COP, it's time.
5-02-2009 @ 7:45AM
pk said...
This is Great For Music & For Many More.
http://www.iphonechamps.com/blogs/mobile.html