The second quarter ends in less than two weeks. When it does, I expect Apple will have over $70 billion in Cash, Cash Equivalents, Short-term marketable securities and long-term Marketable Securities. That figure has been growing predictably.

Also predictable has been the decline in value of Apple’s mobile phone competitors. Most spectacularly Nokia and RIM. The enterprise values of the public companies selling 75% of all phones sold world-wide are as follows:

• Nokia $22.6b
• RIM $13.8b
• HTC $25.4b
• Motorola Mobility $4.2b

The values of the profitable phone-making subsidiaries are a bit more difficult to estimate but we can use multiples of trailing operating profits. I generously use the multiple applied to HTC (14).

• Sony Ericsson $0.21b x 14 = $3.0b
• Samsung $3.76b x 14 = $53b

That leaves valuing LG’s phone business which has not been profitable in the last four quarters. I assume a nominal value of $10b. These data points are shown in the following chart: Continue reading “Apple could buy the mobile phone industry”

The iPhone is now available in the US unlocked. Judging by the lack of reaction to the news, one would assume that this is not a significant event. I would argue however that it’s a very significant event.

What is unappreciated is that the iPhone is a very restricted product. Unlike any of Apple’s other products (iPod, Mac and iPad), the iPhone is designed to be hard to get. Apple did not make it easy in the one dimension of ease that matters most: its purchase.

Consider that many people in the world cannot buy an iPhone because it’s not available locally. In case it is, in most cases you need to sign a contract and commit to a long-term relationship with a company other than Apple. In those cases where you don’t sign a contract, you cannot use it with a service provider other than the one (arbitrarily) chosen for you.

A few have been able to buy iPhones unlocked if they lived in a few countries (UK, France, Australia, Belgium, Hong Kong[1]) but those phones could only be purchased online if sent to a local address or in an Apple retail store–of which there are not many.

Consider that in Europe alone, the following countries do not have iPhone distribution:  Continue reading “iPhone liquidity: Why an unlocked Phone in the US matters”

According to 148apps.biz, the App Store has seen over half a million apps since inception. The number of available apps, according to Apple, is now 425k. (148apps claims 402k apps available in the US store.) The history of the App store catalog is shown in the following chart (showing both US and World-wide measures).

In an interesting new post by Appsfire, APPtrition – or why app store size does not matter that much… Ouriel Ohayon makes a good point: available is very different than accepted. When comparing catalogs it’s important to distinguish between these measures. Apps are published and then unpublished for various reasons. He calls this app attrition and details the reasons it might happen.

What makes this interesting is the contrast between attrition rates on Android’s Market and those on Apple’s App Store. Continue reading “Android developers are more prolific but less persistent than iOS developers”