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  ·2021-06-23
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  Apple: Does It Make Sense To Enter The Car Industry?
  Summary Apple is a great company, but has struggled to truly innovate in recent years. An Apple Car
  Apple: Does It Make Sense To Enter The Car Industry?
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While this may make sense from a technological perspective, if the Apple Car is truly innovative about the battery and autonomous driving capabilities, from a financial standpoint it may have less bright prospects.</p>\n<p><b>Background</b></p>\n<p>As I’ve analyzed in my previous article “Apple: Its Valuation Is Justified By Higher Exposure To Services”, Apple is a great long-term investment due to several competitive advantages over peers, which aren’t expected to be challenged in the coming years.</p>\n<p>However, one area that Apple has been struggling a little bit over the past few years is innovation and offering new products to consumers. The company is failing to bring anything really new to the market and competitors are pushing ahead in some areas like the folding phone that<b>Samsung Electronics</b>(OTC:SSNLF) and Huawei already have while Apple is only expected to offer a foldable phone maybe in the next couple of years.</p>\n<p>More recently, its growth strategy has been focused on wearables and services, which have increased the weight on total revenues in a significant way. Nevertheless, Apple has not launched a new major product for some years, which has increasingly led to questions about if Apple still has the capacity to innovate or if over the long term Apple will take the footsteps of other large technology companies that have lost a dominant position in their industry, such as<b>IBM</b>(IBM).</p>\n<p>There has been some speculation about new products, with the Apple Car being one of the most widely speculated products to be launched in the near future. In recent weeks, speculation has increased that Apple will indeed go ahead with the Apple Car project, as news came out about potential agreements with suppliers for the assembly of the car and the production of batteries.</p>\n<p><b>Apple Car – Product/Technological Perspective</b></p>\n<p>Even though there isn’t much official data from Apple about its car project, this is a topic that has been widely discussed over recent years and some details appear to be more or less certain regarding theApple Car.</p>\n<p>What is generally expected is that this will be an Apple-branded car, with an electric engine and autonomous driving capabilities. Also, Apple supposedly wants the car to be built in the U.S. and most likely this will compete in the high-end or luxury automotive segment.</p>\n<p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5d7baf656d54748e0064b03b97f6caa6\" tg-width=\"660\" tg-height=\"395\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p>\n<p><i>Source: notebookcheck.info</i></p>\n<p>The Apple Car may be launched in three to six years and Apple is reportedly in advanced terms with some suppliers to produce the car and its electric batteries. This means that Apple will likely take most control of hardware and software that goes into the car, but not so much about the production side of it.</p>\n<p>Indeed, there has been some news about apotential agreementbetween Apple and<b>Hyundai-Kia</b>(OTCPK:HYMPY) for the production of the Apple Car, probably in the carmaker’s assembly plant in West Point, Georgia. However, these discussions have reportedly been terminated and also there have been rumors about a potential agreement with<b>Magna International</b>(MGA) and LG for the production of the Apple Car, but so far, this still seems to be in discussion.</p>\n<p>More recently, there has been somenews regarding the battery, with a potential deal with Chinese producers in the making. Reportedly, Apple is in discussions with<b>BYD</b>(OTCPK:BYDDY) and CATL for the production of electric batteries, with building U.S. manufacturing facilities in the U.S. a condition to reach an agreement.</p>\n<p>Apple intends to make the battery a key distinctive factor of the Apple Car over competitors, favoring lithium iron phosphate batteries, instead of lithium-ion, as they are cheaper to build because they don’t use nickel or cobalt. Therefore, it is very important to select a supplier with experience in this field that has the capacity to build with good quality, something that these Chinese suppliers already have.</p>\n<p>From a technological standpoint, this is where Apple most likely can have some competitive advantage over traditional original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and<b>Tesla</b>(TSLA), with a likely deep integration with its iOS software.</p>\n<p>This means that from an ‘ecosystem’ perspective, the Apple Car may make sense, given that in the future, it is expected that cars will drive by themselves and people will spend much of their time in the car using infotainment or other electronic devices for entertainment. Obviously, this is something that may take a while to happen as it requires a ‘full driving car’ capability, which would be a significant leap forward compared to what current autonomous driving systems can accomplish.</p>\n<p>If Apple can indeed reach such a level of self-driving capabilities, it may be the first to offer a robotaxi service which would be important in the future mobility market, even though it does not necessarily mean a competitive advantage over other tech/auto companies. Tesla also has the same strategy of developing its FSD system and offer robotaxi services, while<b>Uber Technologies</b>(UBER) and other tech companies are also developing autonomous driving systems, thus competition in this field will certainly be fierce in the future.</p>\n<p>If from a technological perspective an Apple Car may make some sense due to Apple’s technological leadership and potential integration with its other products and services, from a financial perspective, it may be different.</p>\n<p><b>Apple Car – Financial Perspective</b></p>\n<p>In my opinion, Apple’s move into the car business is more an ‘ecosystem’ approach rather than pushing for a new product that can boost Apple’s financial figures in a significant way because the automotive business is a low-margin and capital-intensive business, not being particularly attractive for a company that has a very strong financial profile like Apple.</p>\n<p>The first burden to its financials is that developing a car is quite expensive and there is no guarantee of success, as Apple is entering a new market. If demand is not there for an Apple Car, this means that the company will lose billions of dollars in this project, which could instead have been used elsewhere. The automotive industry has some good examples of how things can turn out badly, like the<b>Volkswagen</b>(OTCPK:VWAGY) Phaeton model in which the German carmaker wanted to enter the luxury market, but haslost about $1 billionin this model alone.</p>\n<p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/25796c6ab6e9dc77fd3202621ee961da\" tg-width=\"283\" tg-height=\"338\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"></p>\n<p><i>Source: Wikipedia</i></p>\n<p>Even though Apple has an excellent consumer brand globally, it is not exactly the same thing to sell $1,500 smartphones and $100,000 cars. Thus, there is a significant risk for Apple that consumers may continue to prefer a Tesla, Audi(OTCPK:AUDVF), BMW(OTCPK:BMWYY), or Mercedes rather than an Apple-branded car in the high-end to luxury segment, just like it happened with the VW Phaeton.</p>\n<p>If an Apple Car does not reach enough sales volume, it means that most likely Apple will lose a good part of the money it has invested in the car’s development. It is not possible to know how much Apple is spending on research &amp; development (R&amp;D) related to the Apple Car project, but certainly, it is already spending billions per year. If the Apple Car eventually does not go ahead, this spending will not be possible to fully monetize. On the other hand, it may lead to a more advanced autonomous driving system than competitors and Apple may sell it to other carmakers, at least monetizing some part of its investment.</p>\n<p>Even assuming that the car is successful and has good sales volumes, this is a project that is expected to generate below-average profitability for Apple, being therefore a questionable path for the company over the long term.</p>\n<p>This may happen because the car industry’s profitability is not impressive, and compared to Apple’s business segments, an Apple Car should have among the lowest gross margins.In the last year, Apple’s gross margin was 38.2%, with the Products segment reporting a gross margin of 31.5% while Services had a gross margin of 66%.</p>\n<p>In the automotive business, Tesla has a gross margin of about 21%, while the German premium carmakers have gross margins between 15-20%, thus an Apple Car should not have a much different gross margin. This will clearly be a relatively low-margin product for Apple, being completely contrary to its recent strategy to push growth in the Services segment that has above-average profitability.</p>\n<p>However, the Apple Car most likely will compete with high-end models, like the Tesla Model S, and most likely Apple will not want to become a mass-market carmaker in the foreseeable future, which means that unit sales should be somewhat limited even if the car is successful.</p>\n<p>It is difficult to forecast how many cars Apple will be able to sell per year, but assuming 150,000 units per year in the first years and an average selling price of about $100,000, this will generate some $15 billion in sales per year. Considering that Apple generated about $275 billion in revenues last year, this shows that an Apple Car should have a limited impact on the company’s financial figures and a weight of less than 5% of its total revenues.</p>\n<p><b>Conclusion</b></p>\n<p>Apple is a great company and historically innovation has been one of its key strengths, a situation that has changed in recent years as the company has struggled to offer new products that make a real impact. An Apple Car seems to make some sense from an ‘ecosystem’ perspective, and if Apple is able to reach full autonomous driving capabilities, it will be ahead of competition.</p>\n<p>On the other hand, from a financial perceptive, this is not so much compelling because it requires significant investments and the automotive industry has much lower profitability than the rest of its business. Apple is a great company, but it doesn’t need to do everything and an Apple Car seems to be a project with a risk-reward profile that is more geared to the downside as it requires big financial commitments and returns may be lower than for its other products.</p>","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Apple: Does It Make Sense To Enter The Car Industry?</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nApple: Does It Make Sense To Enter The Car Industry?\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-06-23 15:25 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4436127-apple-car-does-it-make-sense><strong>seekingalpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Summary\n\nApple is a great company, but has struggled to truly innovate in recent years.\nAn Apple Car is increasingly expected to be its next ‘big thing’, but there are considerable risks.\nFrom a ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4436127-apple-car-does-it-make-sense\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"AAPL":"苹果"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4436127-apple-car-does-it-make-sense","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1128236138","content_text":"Summary\n\nApple is a great company, but has struggled to truly innovate in recent years.\nAn Apple Car is increasingly expected to be its next ‘big thing’, but there are considerable risks.\nFrom a technological perspective, it may make sense to produce a car, but from a financial perspective, it is not so much compelling.\n\nApple(AAPL) has been struggling to bring innovative products over recent years and much expectation has been created about its Apple Car project. While this may make sense from a technological perspective, if the Apple Car is truly innovative about the battery and autonomous driving capabilities, from a financial standpoint it may have less bright prospects.\nBackground\nAs I’ve analyzed in my previous article “Apple: Its Valuation Is Justified By Higher Exposure To Services”, Apple is a great long-term investment due to several competitive advantages over peers, which aren’t expected to be challenged in the coming years.\nHowever, one area that Apple has been struggling a little bit over the past few years is innovation and offering new products to consumers. The company is failing to bring anything really new to the market and competitors are pushing ahead in some areas like the folding phone thatSamsung Electronics(OTC:SSNLF) and Huawei already have while Apple is only expected to offer a foldable phone maybe in the next couple of years.\nMore recently, its growth strategy has been focused on wearables and services, which have increased the weight on total revenues in a significant way. Nevertheless, Apple has not launched a new major product for some years, which has increasingly led to questions about if Apple still has the capacity to innovate or if over the long term Apple will take the footsteps of other large technology companies that have lost a dominant position in their industry, such asIBM(IBM).\nThere has been some speculation about new products, with the Apple Car being one of the most widely speculated products to be launched in the near future. In recent weeks, speculation has increased that Apple will indeed go ahead with the Apple Car project, as news came out about potential agreements with suppliers for the assembly of the car and the production of batteries.\nApple Car – Product/Technological Perspective\nEven though there isn’t much official data from Apple about its car project, this is a topic that has been widely discussed over recent years and some details appear to be more or less certain regarding theApple Car.\nWhat is generally expected is that this will be an Apple-branded car, with an electric engine and autonomous driving capabilities. Also, Apple supposedly wants the car to be built in the U.S. and most likely this will compete in the high-end or luxury automotive segment.\n\nSource: notebookcheck.info\nThe Apple Car may be launched in three to six years and Apple is reportedly in advanced terms with some suppliers to produce the car and its electric batteries. This means that Apple will likely take most control of hardware and software that goes into the car, but not so much about the production side of it.\nIndeed, there has been some news about apotential agreementbetween Apple andHyundai-Kia(OTCPK:HYMPY) for the production of the Apple Car, probably in the carmaker’s assembly plant in West Point, Georgia. However, these discussions have reportedly been terminated and also there have been rumors about a potential agreement withMagna International(MGA) and LG for the production of the Apple Car, but so far, this still seems to be in discussion.\nMore recently, there has been somenews regarding the battery, with a potential deal with Chinese producers in the making. Reportedly, Apple is in discussions withBYD(OTCPK:BYDDY) and CATL for the production of electric batteries, with building U.S. manufacturing facilities in the U.S. a condition to reach an agreement.\nApple intends to make the battery a key distinctive factor of the Apple Car over competitors, favoring lithium iron phosphate batteries, instead of lithium-ion, as they are cheaper to build because they don’t use nickel or cobalt. Therefore, it is very important to select a supplier with experience in this field that has the capacity to build with good quality, something that these Chinese suppliers already have.\nFrom a technological standpoint, this is where Apple most likely can have some competitive advantage over traditional original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) andTesla(TSLA), with a likely deep integration with its iOS software.\nThis means that from an ‘ecosystem’ perspective, the Apple Car may make sense, given that in the future, it is expected that cars will drive by themselves and people will spend much of their time in the car using infotainment or other electronic devices for entertainment. Obviously, this is something that may take a while to happen as it requires a ‘full driving car’ capability, which would be a significant leap forward compared to what current autonomous driving systems can accomplish.\nIf Apple can indeed reach such a level of self-driving capabilities, it may be the first to offer a robotaxi service which would be important in the future mobility market, even though it does not necessarily mean a competitive advantage over other tech/auto companies. Tesla also has the same strategy of developing its FSD system and offer robotaxi services, whileUber Technologies(UBER) and other tech companies are also developing autonomous driving systems, thus competition in this field will certainly be fierce in the future.\nIf from a technological perspective an Apple Car may make some sense due to Apple’s technological leadership and potential integration with its other products and services, from a financial perspective, it may be different.\nApple Car – Financial Perspective\nIn my opinion, Apple’s move into the car business is more an ‘ecosystem’ approach rather than pushing for a new product that can boost Apple’s financial figures in a significant way because the automotive business is a low-margin and capital-intensive business, not being particularly attractive for a company that has a very strong financial profile like Apple.\nThe first burden to its financials is that developing a car is quite expensive and there is no guarantee of success, as Apple is entering a new market. If demand is not there for an Apple Car, this means that the company will lose billions of dollars in this project, which could instead have been used elsewhere. The automotive industry has some good examples of how things can turn out badly, like theVolkswagen(OTCPK:VWAGY) Phaeton model in which the German carmaker wanted to enter the luxury market, but haslost about $1 billionin this model alone.\n\nSource: Wikipedia\nEven though Apple has an excellent consumer brand globally, it is not exactly the same thing to sell $1,500 smartphones and $100,000 cars. Thus, there is a significant risk for Apple that consumers may continue to prefer a Tesla, Audi(OTCPK:AUDVF), BMW(OTCPK:BMWYY), or Mercedes rather than an Apple-branded car in the high-end to luxury segment, just like it happened with the VW Phaeton.\nIf an Apple Car does not reach enough sales volume, it means that most likely Apple will lose a good part of the money it has invested in the car’s development. It is not possible to know how much Apple is spending on research & development (R&D) related to the Apple Car project, but certainly, it is already spending billions per year. If the Apple Car eventually does not go ahead, this spending will not be possible to fully monetize. On the other hand, it may lead to a more advanced autonomous driving system than competitors and Apple may sell it to other carmakers, at least monetizing some part of its investment.\nEven assuming that the car is successful and has good sales volumes, this is a project that is expected to generate below-average profitability for Apple, being therefore a questionable path for the company over the long term.\nThis may happen because the car industry’s profitability is not impressive, and compared to Apple’s business segments, an Apple Car should have among the lowest gross margins.In the last year, Apple’s gross margin was 38.2%, with the Products segment reporting a gross margin of 31.5% while Services had a gross margin of 66%.\nIn the automotive business, Tesla has a gross margin of about 21%, while the German premium carmakers have gross margins between 15-20%, thus an Apple Car should not have a much different gross margin. This will clearly be a relatively low-margin product for Apple, being completely contrary to its recent strategy to push growth in the Services segment that has above-average profitability.\nHowever, the Apple Car most likely will compete with high-end models, like the Tesla Model S, and most likely Apple will not want to become a mass-market carmaker in the foreseeable future, which means that unit sales should be somewhat limited even if the car is successful.\nIt is difficult to forecast how many cars Apple will be able to sell per year, but assuming 150,000 units per year in the first years and an average selling price of about $100,000, this will generate some $15 billion in sales per year. Considering that Apple generated about $275 billion in revenues last year, this shows that an Apple Car should have a limited impact on the company’s financial figures and a weight of less than 5% of its total revenues.\nConclusion\nApple is a great company and historically innovation has been one of its key strengths, a situation that has changed in recent years as the company has struggled to offer new products that make a real impact. An Apple Car seems to make some sense from an ‘ecosystem’ perspective, and if Apple is able to reach full autonomous driving capabilities, it will be ahead of competition.\nOn the other hand, from a financial perceptive, this is not so much compelling because it requires significant investments and the automotive industry has much lower profitability than the rest of its business. Apple is a great company, but it doesn’t need to do everything and an Apple Car seems to be a project with a risk-reward profile that is more geared to the downside as it requires big financial commitments and returns may be lower than for its other products.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":87,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0}],"defaultTab":"posts","isTTM":true}