Followups: Apple is about to change its business model
Apple tops its clean energy goals with new supplier commitments
by Apple PR 2019.04.11
Apple… has nearly doubled the number of suppliers [including Foxconn and TSCM] that have committed to run their Apple production on 100 percent clean energy… Because of this partnership… Apple will exceed its goal of bringing 4 gigawatts of renewable energy into its supply chain by 2020, with over an additional gigawatt projected within that timeframe. This comes one year after Apple announced that all of its global facilities are powered by 100 percent renewable energy…
Manufacturing makes up 74 percent of Apple’s carbon footprint…
The company also [completed its] $2.5 billion Green Bond allocations… to 40 environmental initiatives around the world [and] approximately 66 percent of the renewable energy Apple uses comes from such endeavors.
Apple opens Material Recovery Lab in Austin to study future recycling processes, and expands iPhone recycling program to more 3rd party retail stores
by Apple PR 2019.04.18
Apple today announced a major expansion of its recycling programs, quadrupling the number of locations US customers can send their iPhone to be disassembled by Daisy, its recycling robot…
Apple has received nearly 1 million devices through Apple programs and each Daisy can disassemble 1.2 million devices per year… In 2018, the company… helped divert more than 48,000 metric tons of electronic waste from landfills.
The iPhone and Apple’s Services Strategy
by Ben Thompson (Stratechery) 2019.09.11
It does feel like there is one more shoe yet to drop when it comes to Apple’s strategic shift. The fact that Apple is bundling a for-pay service (Apple TV+) with a product purchase is interesting, but what if Apple started included products with paid subscriptions?
That may be closer than it seems. It seemed strange yesterday’s keynote included an Apple Retail update at the very end of the keynote [announcing that you can now pay for both new iPhones and Apple Care on a monthly basis — essentially subscriptions amortized in monthly installments. This] is another step towards assuming that Apple’s relationship with its customers will be a subscription-based one.
To that end, how long until there is a variant of the iPhone Upgrade Program that is simply an all-up Apple subscription? Pay one monthly fee, and get everything Apple has to offer. Indeed, nothing would show that Apple is a Services company more[.]
Tim Cook suggests iPhone upgrade plans are akin to the idea of a “prime subscription” and says Apple sees it as a major growth area
by CNBC 2019.10.30
[On the company’s 2019q3 earnings call, the CEO mentioned that] Apple is laying the groundwork for an iPhone subscription… Apple would bundle hardware upgrades with services like iCloud storage or Apple TV+ content and hardware for a single monthly fee. This would let it switch iPhone sales from a transactional model to a subscription model, potentially driving the stock price up without having to increase product sales or prices dramatically.
See also:
Apple is considering bundling News+, Apple TV+, and Apple Music as soon as 2020 to attract subscribers (Bloomberg)
Apple is planning to launch a monthly subscription service by 2023 for the iPhone and other hardware that could tie into Apple One bundles and AppleCare (Bloomberg)
