From bloom to withering: Blackberry is a wake-up call for Apple

Apple's recent financial report shows that although the revenue, net profit and iPhone sales in a single quarter have all hit record highs, what investors are most concerned about is that Apple's iPhone shipment growth rate in this quarter hit a record low, and Apple expects its revenue in the second fiscal quarter of this year to decline for the first time in 13 years. This financial report also caused Apple's stock price to plummet, with a single-day drop of 6.57%; if it was the emergence of the iPhone about ten years ago that stirred up the smartphone landscape at the time and gradually became the dominant player in the smartphone field, then what are the recent stock price fluctuations and the slowdown in product shipment growth suggesting?

In 2005, BlackBerry, which became famous due to the 911 incident, had 4 million users at that time. This number more than doubled in just one quarter in 2009. At that time, BlackBerry was not as lonely as it is now. About ten years ago, it was priced at $142 per share and had a market value of about $42 billion. It provided services to 580 operators and dealer partners in about 175 countries around the world. But now, it has gradually become a niche with its push email and full keyboard. If the next generation of iPhone does not have major innovations, I wonder if Apple's market value will evaporate significantly soon? After all, BlackBerry is an example.

Apple is late to the mobile phone industry and BlackBerry is not aggressive enough

Apple and BlackBerry are two kinds of fruits, and also two technology companies. Now it seems that one is in its heyday, while the other is in its twilight years. Apple is a computer operating system manufacturer that can compete with Microsoft, and a computer hardware manufacturer with a rich and complete product line of desktop and notebook computers. It also has a digital music platform and a software and game platform, which are all lacking in BlackBerry. The only place where they have an intersection is mobile phone hardware.

In the late 1990s, when pagers were in vogue, BlackBerry's predecessor, RIM, began to develop two-way pagers. RIM founder Lazaridis went a step further and proposed the concept of wireless PDAs, which led to the launch of always-online wireless email services. In that era, the key to RIM's success was to seize opportunities and innovate tirelessly in the field of wireless communications, which enabled RIM to stand out from manufacturers such as Nokia and Palm, and also had heavyweight users such as Obama and Merkel, just like Apple, which would bring new experiences to users with every new product.

There was no iPhone before 2007, but BlackBerry's predecessor RIM had already become famous for its performance in the 9/11 incident. It once occupied half of the market share in North America and its market value once reached 42 billion US dollars. Although the current market value of 42 billion US dollars is far less than one-tenth of Apple's, about ten years ago, the market value of 42 billion US dollars seemed to be not to be underestimated. It was the emergence of the iPhone in 2007 that became a watershed for smartphones. From then on, BlackBerry began to decline.

In 2007, iPhone sold more than 1 million units within three months of its launch. At that time, the company that had the potential to suppress iPhone was BlackBerry. BlackBerry launched the Storm model with a pressable screen (SuperPress technology). Now it seems that Force Touch also draws on the original BlackBerry Storm, but unfortunately, due to design flaws, the screen corners did not respond well to clicks, and the phone crashed frequently, BlackBerry did not achieve suppression. As a result, people began to waver in their belief in BlackBerry's quality.

The emergence of the iPhone has forced established mobile phone manufacturers to strive for a more advanced user experience and a more powerful ecosystem. Of course, these two points are obvious in the iPhone. With the update of the iOS system, the user experience is getting better and better, and there are more and more fun and useful applications.

On the other hand, BlackBerry, clinging to its inherent advantages of push email and full keyboard, can only watch the continuous development of iOS and Android, which eat up its market share. At the beginning, RIM also imposed many restrictions on developers, stifling creativity, so that during the period of App explosion, many mainstream applications bypassed BlackBerry's operating system, such as Instagram. Although BlackBerry later launched the BB 10 operating system and achieved cross-platform development of its own instant messaging software BBM, it was too late, and recently it had to not embrace the Android platform in order to survive. The self-contained and lack of innovation have undoubtedly dealt a fatal blow to BlackBerry.

BlackBerry is a lesson for Apple. Hopefully, Apple's recent experience is just a minor accident.

Many companies go through a cycle, which may be a period of ups and downs. Great companies will go through this stage. Intel, IBM, BlackBerry, and Apple a long time ago all went through it. Stock prices fell, iPhone accounted for an increasingly higher proportion of revenue, while the growth rate of shipments was slowing down. In fact, it is not difficult to see that compared with the previous generation of products, the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus do not give users a reason to pay to update their mobile phone devices. Perhaps this is a manifestation of lack of innovation.

A few years ago, the emergence of Apple stirred up the smartphone market and made life difficult for a number of established manufacturers. A few years later, Apple had to face a slowdown in shipments and pessimistic investor expectations. I hope that Apple will not rest on its laurels and forget its original intention of innovation. After all, every Apple press conference fills users with expectations.

Apple will hold another press conference in March. As usual, it should update its laptops and tablets, or possibly release a new iPhone (iPhone 5se). In any case, I hope Apple will bring innovative technology to silence those who doubt it and fill users with expectations. Currently, disruptive products have not yet been produced, and Apple will not become the next BlackBerry for the time being. But if innovation is weak, it is not impossible for it to be replaced.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.