In the battle over business listings, Apple is going head-to-head with Google and Yelp.
But the new Apple business tool, announced Wednesday (Jan. 11) — free though it is — may have a disadvantage right out of the gate.
As reported, the new Business Connect feature lets small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) edit their listings that are displayed over Apple’s various online apps — with that edited, customizable information appearing, for example, in Siri or in the tech giant’s wallet.
We note that the January announcement represents a tweaking of the Apple Maps, and in terms of the mechanics, Connect lets these SMBs “directly manage their information (store hours, etc.,) in the interactive Apple Maps place card,” and also allowing customers to order food or make reservations directly in Maps.
Borrowing a Page From the Competition?
In these and other functions, Business Connect is borrowing a page (pun intended) from the likes of Google, which has enabled businesses to do this in search and Map.
Apple has been in the midst of developing its own search engine, as has been reported by sites such as MacRumors (billions of dollars of Google payments to Apple notwithstanding), so having a captive audience here, of sorts, would be a boon to those efforts. But as it stands now, Google, of course, is the default search engine for Apple, so it would likely take a long time to displace, or make inroads against, the likes of Google Maps and Yelp — both for the SMBs themselves and the consumers searching for them online.
Apple also has been rumored to be exploring ways to integrate ads into Maps. Having enhanced feature for Maps — through the Connect tool — might be a way to set the stage for that eventuality.
For Apple, focusing on software and on services has been a strategy that has been shaped for years and will determine the course of the company’s fortunes over the longer term. At the moment, though, headwinds abound. As has been detailed in this space, in the most recent quarter, Apple’s revenue from the services segment was $19.2 billion, up 5%. That growth rate used to be in the double-digit percentage points.
Some Headwinds in Place
CEO Tim Cook remarked on the call that “we reached another record on our installed base of active devices,” but elsewhere management has noted that digital advertising has been an area marked by softness.
Beyond the macro headwinds, the fact that Apple has been renowned for, and strives to create, its ecosystem may prove a competitive disadvantage in pursuing business listings, and eventually monetizing them. In the U.S., Apple has a roughly 50% market share of mobile phones – roughly speaking, then, within that ecosystem the revamped Maps/Business tools would reach only about 50% of the total addressable market. What will matter, ultimately, is the installed base, which will wind up underpinning the success of running ads while keeping business listings up to date.