Darth Vader: Apple is finished!

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Yesterday was the day of presentation of results from Apple and as always, half the world stopped to see if its harmful results were confirmed: 

• Apple has stopped growing and goes irretrievably destruction. 

• Manufacturers mostly competing against Apple with commodity products, which are so used luegono like yours. 

• Manufacturers, except in the category of Samsung smartphones, not money making products or flagships whose sales do not exceed harmful and expensive iPhone 5c. 

But... that reality does not spoil a nice story against Apple!

Judge a company so severely for his "disappointing" quarterly results is extremely shortsighted. Guided by the expectations of Wall Street or a perpetual and constant growth, and expect a new category every two or three years at the level of iPhone is a mistake. First, because it is impossible, because it ignores second how innovation works. But still and all, sales of the iPad have had a drop of 16%, a drop of 19.48 to 16,350,000. Enough to tell that story: Apple is finished!

The key to the Apple's strategy is in the long run

"If your bearings in the long run, the interests of customers and shareholders are aligned" - Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon. 

The real question we should ask is whether Apple is oriented in the long term or otherwise endeavors to squeeze the company to satisfy Wall Street. And if we step back and strive to look at the forest instead of the tree, we see that Apple's strategy is called ecosystem: 

• An ecosystem creates loyalty to the company that controls it, because your customers are captive. 

• It's harder to get a customer who is really into it, change device. The more you invest in the ecosystem, the harder it is to change totally platform. 

• The user benefits translate into comfort and integration of different devices. 

Apple is placing their pieces on the chessboard with utmost patience and undistracted

And how can we know that Apple is building a robust ecosystem? At the conference of shareholders yesterday, Tim Cook shared many details: 

• Even I was surprised by the growth of iTunes accounts to 800 million. If we consider that at WWDC Apple said last year he had accumulated 575 million, we have a growth of 225 million. Here it seems that Apple itself may increase the growth rate.

• We are interested in the number of credit card accounts, the chances of Touch ID and Cook's statements about the possibility of including a system of mobile payments.

• ITunes sales for the quarter were 5,200 million, growing 24% and a cumulative 70,000 million downloads of apps. It is estimated that the App Store has generated 85% more revenue than Google Play in the March quarter. 

• The iPad generates traffic to 4 times the sum of all Android tablets, although its market share.

• The Apple Stores are present in 15 countries and have recently opened stores in Brazil and Istanbul. They have reported plans to double its stores in the next 3 years. 

• Apple bought 24 companies in the last 18 months. Some are more important than others such as Authentec, which was the technology that allowed the iPhone 5s fingerprint sensor.

All these data confirm us that the Californian company has always done: enhancing ecosystem services and to place the chess pieces in the right place. Quarter after quarter, device to device and year to year. Think long term, 5, 6 or even 7 plays later from what we see now, like the great masters of chess.

But iPad sales have fallen!

Yes, iPad sales have fallen and are not good news. Is it important? Yes. Apple would want a perpetual growth? Of course. But we must not read too much into one quarter. You can afford a drop in a quarter that is relatively bland in terms of sales (the next so often) when compared with Christmas because it has an ecosystem that protects it from these falls and allows it to counter the blows.

Those who say that Apple is finished, ignore the rest of positive data were confirmed in yesterday's conference:

• Sold 43.7 million iPhones when were planned 38 million. 

• Mac 4.1 million, slightly above estimates of about 4.03 million. 

• 66% of new activations iPads come from new customers. 

• Taiwan, Indonesia and Brazil have a double-digit growth. 

• Mac 4.1 million, slightly above estimates of about 4.03 million. 

• 66% of new activations iPads come from new customers. 

• Taiwan, Indonesia and Brazil have a double-digit growth. 

• India and Vietnam have doubled their sales. 

• 85% of buyers 4s in China are new to Apple. 

• There is also a 69% 5c buyers in China who are new. 

• A large percentage of these users come from China Android. But we had not been in a third of the buyers of the new iPhone Galaxy S5 come?

These data are particularly interesting given the saturation of developed markets. Apple is growing with more affordable terminals (but still scored in the high range) in China and India and part of Southeast Asia is a good sign. It shows that there is a market premium interested in their high-end products. 

It will be very interesting to see how Samsung and Apple face the growth of regional brands in the Chinese and Indian market, as the renamed Mi or Micromax. But we'll see in the future.