Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY)‘s CEO recently told The Australian Financial Review “The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about, is now five years old.” Thorsten Heins believes that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been “standing still” with technological advances on the iPhone. He then explained why he believes, “Launching BB10 just put us on the starting grid of the wider mobile computing grand prix, and now we need to win it.” Has Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) grown stale and will BlackBerry be able to capitalize on it?
Throughout the interview, it became obvious that Heins has respect for what Apple has done, but he always referred to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s success in the past tense. In fact, he went as far as saying, “There is a reason why they were so successful, and we actually have to admit this and respect that.” Now, I’m not one to simply say a company is great or horrible — I like to look at the facts as they normally speak for themselves. 53% of Apple’s total revenue was acquired through iPhones in 2012. Considering there as nearly $157 billion in revenue, that is a lot of money derived from something that “used to be successful,” as Heins essentially said.
With a market cap of only $7.9 billion, BlackBerry brought in $18.4 billion in 2012 revenues. While I understand the argument that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was, at one time, very successful, and it should therefore show some good figures, at what point does it become unsuccessful? Apple’s revenue in the past TTM is 5.2% greater than the 2012 revenues, and its market cap is still at a solid $427.6 billion. Combined with Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s acquisition of Motorola, Android accounted for 12.4% of Google’s 2012 $50 billion revenues. As the market share leader, Android is expected to represent 58% of all smartphone app downloads in 2013 while Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is expected to be at only 33%.
The charts below show an interesting trend among Android, RIM (BlackBerry), and Apple devices.
While iOS dropped a total of nearly 5% over the course of the year, it increased slightly with AT&T. Android increased a total of 6.4% despite losing nearly 2% with Verizon. RIM nearly disappeared off the first chart, but hasn’t yet released its highly touted BB10 in the United States.
Google, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), and BlackBerry’s Free Cash Flow yields are 5%, 10.8%, and 10.4% respectively. Although Google seems to be the most expensive stock, its YTD return is higher than both BlackBerry and Apple as its risen 13.26%. BlackBerry’s stock has grown furiously in the past six months rising nearly 103%. Comparatively, Google has risen 12.4% while Apple has fallen over 35%, as seen in the chart below.
While I respect a CEO’s ambition to provide the best products/service to its customers, I wouldn’t be quite so quick to use past tense when referring to another company’s success. Heins points out BlackBerry is “not a phone company”, but rather a “mobile computing solution.” I’d like to point out the fact that using the term “solution” to describe the combination of hardware, software, and services is just as outdated as some smartphone operating systems used by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL).
The Foolish Conclusion…
Although Apple’s stock has plummeted recently, the company is still earning money, generating revenues, and is cheaper than either BlackBerry or Google. We would all like to see something new and innovative from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still successful. With this said, I believe Google and BlackBerry provide enormous opportunity for investors at discounted prices (BlackBerry more so than Google), while Apple shows great metrics, but struggles to perform where investors need it to — its stock.
The article Apple “Standing Still”? originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Tyler Wofford.
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