Apple As A Global Luxury Brand
In his piece for The Street, Antoine Gara suggests that consumers and investors should view Apple as a the fastest growing luxury brand in the world.
Antoine Gara:
I wonder whether it’s time to evaluate Apple as one of the premier global luxury brands and find a set of comparable companies with similar margin and growth characteristics.
Maybe Apple’s better comparable’s would be Burberry, LVMH Moet Hennessey, Luis Vuitton, Diageo, Tesla electric cars, Lululemon and Estee Lauder.
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Google can take whatever global market share it wants from Apple, and yet when investors see both firm’s earnings it is clear who is winning the battle for mobile device profits.
More importantly, as investors and analysts speculate when Apple will compete in emerging markets, where Google and Samsung products dominate, few appear to wonder what it would do to Apple’s brand and luxury-like profit margins.
Should Apple be chasing device manufactures into China and India, or should Apple wait for those markets to come to its products?
Is it really that crazy to think global users will increasingly flock toward Apple’s products as the middle and ultra-rich classes grow in emerging markets across Asia, EEMEA and Latin America? Does Apple really have to engage in a price war to win new customers, or may patience be rewarded?
I believe the hiring of Angela Ahrendts, a former Burberry’s CEO suggests that Gara is on the right track with his theory.
