At the end of last week, Apple sent out an invitation to the media for an event on the 12th September. The event has some real significance. It is the first to be held at the new Steve Jobs Theatre in Cupertino, California and it will be the first time that non-Apple employees have entered the new Apple Park.
Next week we are likely to be introduced to the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone Edition. The iPhone Edition could be the ‘iPhone X’ in a nod to the 10th anniversary of the phone’s launch.
In those 10 years, the iPhone has had a major impact on people’s lives, and on business as a whole. Sound too farfetched? Well, consider this:
Before the iPhone was launched, Apple was Apple Computers. Its core demographic was pro users in the creative sectors who valued the Mac OS over Windows offerings. Now, as Apple Inc, the iPhone has sold over one billion units and accounts for roughly 60% of Apple’s annual earnings. Without doubt, the iPhone has transformed Apple into the most valuable company in the world.
It’s not just Apple that have been affected by the iPhone. Over the past 5 years, sales of PCs have been decreasing significantly. Since the peak in 2011, PC sales have dropped by 30% and it has seen a consolidation of the suppliers within the PC market. This is largely down to the improvement in smartphones and tablets, but it provides a perfect illustration of how our habits of consuming content, games and the like have changed.
For example, prior to the iPhone, there was no need to make sure your website was mobile friendly. To watch a movie you probably would have visited your local Blockbuster to rent a DVD. Now, over 50% of us will use Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube to watch content on our mobile devices.
Games have changed significantly over since the iPhone revolution. Think of Angry Birds and Pokémon Go as recent examples that have been taken up by mobile gamers. To illustrate how successful these games can be, Pokémon was downloaded over 750 million times, while Nintendo’s Mario franchise sold just over 500 million units.
Finally, the iPhone has also bought the world of Apple to a whole new range of businesses. Without doubt, Lease Loop’s core customers still come from the creative sectors. However, as more people use iPhones at home and became familiar with iOS, they have developed the confidence to make the move to Mac within their workplace.
We have customers who operate within these market sectors: pubs, heating engineers, business growth coaches, office food deliveries, fancy dress shops, and yes, even accountants. We are under no illusion that, without the iPhone, the chances of people from these types of industries wanting to lease a Mac within their business would be slim.
