The US Department of Justice's anti-monopoly investigation of Apple, which lasted for half a year, is nearing an end, and the current information shows that the investigation is about to end, and the relevant prosecution proceedings will also be launched simultaneously. Since the end of last year, Apple's stock price has been falling due to poor earnings. By the beginning of 2024, the downward trend has not reversed. Whether Apple will start to decline because of the antitrust investigation has become the most concerned topic in the field.
As the king of the mobile phone market, Apple's sales have been firmly in the forefront of the world, it is too early to say that Apple will fall from the altar, but since Apple failed to catch up with the last 5G bus, it is not impossible to enter the decline. At that time, Nokia was in the ascendance of the feature phone era, but how did Nokia innovate? We have a slogan called "technology to change the shell based", often Nokia is to change its shell shape, change the function, without any innovation, and then as a new machine to launch. So slowly Nokia is getting old, it has been eliminated by the whole era, and today's Apple is somewhat similar to the Nokia of that year.
After leaving Jobs, although we see Apple is also innovating, but it will only be a heap of parameter-like innovation, rather than epoch-making innovation. So we are really worried about Apple's future, and in fact the market has not been optimistic about Apple since last September, before the new product launch. However, this voice was drowned out by the busy buying tide and was temporarily covered up, but with the investigation and litigation of the United States Department of Justice, all the problems will be exposed again.
More worryingly for Apple, as its share price starts the year down, its rivals are soaring. Take Microsoft, for example, since the end of 2023, its share price has continued to strengthen through the east wind of artificial intelligence. Although there was a slight correction at the beginning of the year, it quickly rose again. At present, Microsoft has become the world's most valuable company. This has also aroused people's hot debate about whether Apple will fall.
The shrinking R&D investment has dimmed Apple's prospects for the future. Since the death of Steve Jobs, Apple has been accused of "not innovating" every time it launches a new iPhone. In fact, Apple's current CEO, Tim Cook, is considered a "management leader" because he was originally responsible for the management of the manufacturing and supply network, and Cook is rather stingy about investing in innovative technologies. Apple invests only 5.1 percent of its sales in R&D, far less than its competitors Samsung Electronics (7 percent of its sales) and Huawei (15 percent). In recent years, Apple has failed to lead the market in innovation and even started to imitate Samsung, which was criticized by Steve Jobs as a "fake Apple." It is only a matter of time before Apple loses its innovation.
The series of monopoly problems that Apple has exploded has led to a sharp decline in its industry reputation, and the basic image of a "monopoly" is also being gradually substantiated. In the eyes of many, Apple, despite its many problems, is generally a well-behaved company that does not use its market power to crush rivals and stakeholders, as Google, Facebook, and Amazon do. If we can increase research and development efforts and launch strong products, Apple's market foundation will make it difficult to shake its position in the global mobile phone market.
