Tech majors Apple and Amazon are as different from each other as chalk and cheese but their competition to be number one continues unabated. Amazon’s market value during early September was at $1 trillion within a month of Apple reporting a similar feat. While the latter is a trendy and premium consumer tech brand that people are proud to own, Amazon is an online platform that helps people purchase diverse products ranging from electronics to garments and groceries. Apple’s fortunes have been rising steadily since it introduced the first iPhone in 2007 and each new version has added to its profits.
Amazon’s profits have also risen and its market value jumped from $600bn to around 700bn in around 16 days. Apple’s revenue earners are iPhone, iPad, iMac and the iPod and though it has only 14% share of world smartphone market its revenues are far above those of its nearest competitor. While Apple’s revenue in early part of 2018 was 61 billion its closest competitor Samsung earned only 19 billion while Huawei made 8 billion. According to Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza, though Amazon has performed below expectations on the sale of its devices like Kindle and Echo, it can afford to do that as it is generating sufficient revenue from its value based services and video content.
Both firms are now focusing their efforts on developing technology for smart homes using artificial intelligence. Here Amazon has a clear advantage with the Echo which has a higher penetration when compared to Apple’s Home Pod. This is because Amazon has been actively pushing its services for homes and enterprises while Apple has few partners. Though both have diverse business models their total net worth could equal 25 of largest tech companies in United States, expert Neil Saunders of Global Data Retail says that they will grow at their own pace.