While Tim Cook and the rest of the Apple board may be content for Apple to take its time in launching new product categories, investors may be less patient, warns BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk. He also argued that neither the Mac Pro nor a rumored larger-screen iPhone 6 would meet market expectations of innovation.
In the investment note, Piecyk cautions that Tim Cook could face renewed investor scrutiny if he doesn’t deliver …
Piecyk appears happy with the direction Apple is rumored to be taking with new product categories – name-checking our own Mark Gurman in citing a sensor-focused iWatch as “a potentially mammoth opportunity” – his complaint focusing on the time it is taking to bring new products to market.
Piecyk also questions Apple’s strategy of focusing only on high-end products, suggesting that the company was leaving money on the table by not offering a cheaper phone, with the 5c clearly having missed the mark.
The criticism illustrates in stark terms the difference between a company with a long-term vision, and investors focused on shorter-term gains. Apple has made no secret of its strategy, and the time it takes between major new product innovations – yes, even in Steve Jobs’ day – is there for anyone to see.
The iPod launched in 2001. It was six years before the launch of the iPhone in 2007. Three more years before the iPad in 2010. There has never been a time when Apple was inventing major new products on an annual basis.
I should stress that I’m not taking issue here with Piecyk. He is accurately and eloquently describing the mentality of the market; it’s that mentality I’m arguing against. It simply strikes me as perverse to invest in a company which has become massively successful by following a clear strategy of making very few products very well, and then to complain that it is not making more and cheaper products.
