Tuesday, February 5, 2013

About Apple's Attack on the Living Room

At Seeking Alpha, a new Jaded Consumer article has been published called Is Apple's Threat Real In The Living Room? It's a link-rich look at Apple's impending push into HDTVs' and consoles' business segments.

Upshot: Forbes thinks it'll double Apple's stock, but the timeline to producing the revenues Forbes suggests aren't the 2013 calendar year so some caution should be employed in assessing just how huge the impact will be as Apple attacks a new market with tens of billions in revenues in it.

3 comments:

Michael Dance said...

Another excellent well reasoned article. I gather Apple have signed deals with 10? major motor vehicle manufacturers (not Ford) re the provision of Siri as an in-car system. Do you have any views on how they plan to monetise this.

Jaded Consumer said...

@Michael Dance,
While I have no access to the actual agreements, Apple could easily be positioning Siri as Google does its web portal: as the gatekeeper to information search. If everyone's searches go through Apple, Apple will both rise in influence as a mediator of information and improve in intelligence regarding customers' wants and needs (which in turn improves its search capability).

If Apple manages to make money in Search, it'll gall Google something awful: Apple's products are online much more and are used more, suggesting that Apple potentially enjoys more opportunity.

mgdance@mac.com said...

Thank you. Eating Google's lunch would be prize enough but I wonder if there is a further angle here which reflects the point you made in the related article where you imply [Apple's push in the living room] is part of developing their ecosystem and creating barriers to exit and entry too : "Apple's living-room push won't just enhance Apple's massive media marketing machine, but will increase use of other Apple hardware because the ecosystem makes them more useful - more valuable to users - in combination." One further, perhaps slightly farfetched, thought; Apple may also provide the "screens" which could be detachable i.e. iPads which can be detached by the vehicle owner and used like any other iPad but obviously with enhance SATNAV. In this case Apple could sell exponentially more of these devices - one per car. Conversely, this could have a negative impact on direct sales of these devices. Please keep up your articles they are always a pleasure to read though I appreciate they require considerable thought and effort