Two years ago, the speculation race was on as to whether or not Apple would be the first company on the planet to hit over $1 trillion in market cap. A year ago, there was speculation that Google might bump them off and beat them there.
Now, according to emerging repots, it looks like Apple will get to flirt with $1 trillion — though it won’t be in its market cap (necessarily).
Asymco’s Horace Dediu, however, is predicting that Apple will cross the $1 trillion mark this year in terms of revenue generated by iOS and get one step closer to that elusive 13-digit market cap.
Dediu notes that at least 1.2 billion iPhone units have been sold during the last ten years, making it the “most successful product of all time.” But beyond its individual success — the iPhone brought forth the iOS empire of toys: iPod touch, the iPad, the Apple Watch and Apple TV, whose combined total unit sales will reach 1.75 billion units over 10 years. This total is likely to top 2 billion units by the end of 2018.
Dediu noted that if current predictions hold, then revenue from iOS product sales will hit $980 billion around 2017’s halfway mark.
And, he notes, Apple also has other revenue streams to build out from — because of the prominence of iOS. Apart from hardware sales, Apple has also brought in more than $100 billion in terms of sales from its services sector, including things like apps, subscriptions, and media.
Taken together, it seems almost impossible that Apple will not cross that $1 trillion mark, according to Dediu.
Dediu’s research also noted that there are 17.5 trillion iPhone sessions per year, with 48 billion per day.
There is a temptation to think that such a business is fragile and will be disrupted. Challengers appear daily and the number of iPhone “killers” is not measurable. And others have been killed in the mobile game — and almost overnight. Anyone remember BlackBerry?
And though the world is waiting for those looking to disrupt Apple — just last year, for instance, Apple passed the 1 billion iPhones milestone, also noting that it has 1 billion total active devices, including iOS devices, Mac, and Apple TV. They remain quite beloved by their fanbase.
The achievement comes in the same year as the 10th anniversary of the iPhone and the company will also most certainly use the $1 trillion statistic to its advantage in marketing and keynotes.