Big Apple

Nevertheless, Apple continues to innovate. When Apple announced the launch of the iPhone at Macworld 2007 on January 9, 2007, Apple shares hit an all-time high of $97.80. The iPhone is being eagerly awaited with more than one million potential customers, according to Randall Stephenson, Chief Operating Officer, AT&T, the U.S. carrier that has the exclusive deal to sell the phone. Shipments will begin in June 2007 across the U.S. (and later globally) of two versions of the iPhone, a $499 phone which has four gigabytes of flash memory and an eight gigabyte phone priced at $599. Apple’s aim is to sell ten million iPhones by end-2008 within and outside the U.S.

Apple TV is another Apple gizmo poised to create a niche for itself. Apple has over the years built a brigade of products, embellishing its own innovations, and Apple TV is another step in that direction. Allowing iTunesbased digital media to migrate from the computer to a TV screen, Apple TV could add between $5.3 billion and $11.4 billion in market cap to its parent company, according to analyst Jonathan Hoopes of ThinkEquity Partners. “While Apple bills this device as a large-screen accessory for viewing photos, videos and music that reside on Macs or PCs that have iTunes, we think Apple TV is much more,” says Hoopes. He estimates that the device will be present in between 10.7 million homes in the next five years (that’s the low estimate) and 30 million homes – the high estimate. If Apple morphs the TV into a DVR,movie-rental device and video game console, it could make competitors break out into a cold sweat.

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