2 of Apple's Economic MOAT.

KEYPOINTS:

🔑 Apple's powerful brand and strong ecosystem create a formidable moat, making it difficult for competitors to replicate their success.

🔑 Apple's ecosystem, characterized by seamless integration and user-friendly experiences, locks customers in, creating high switching costs and ensuring long-term customer loyalty.

🔑 By focusing on customer obsession, delivering superior products, and building a strong brand image, Apple has established itself as a premium brand with a loyal customer base and a sustainable competitive advantage.

Table of contents

Apple’s MOATs

1. MOAT 1: Apple’s superpower- their BRAND

   1. How to tell if a company’s Brand asset is as robust as we think they are

   2. Apple products are targeted towards people who are “Different”

   3. All of Apple products are voted to be the best in their respective product ranges every year

   4. “Apple products are just better, don’t @ me" - Apple's consumers

   5. An addressable market for Apple they can tap into: dissatisfied non-Apple users

   6. Apple products provide better personal data & privacy protection
      

2. MOAT 2: Switching Cost for Apple’s customers

   1. “We are already cyborgs”

   2. Apple’s Ecosystem- consumers will be trapped

   3. (Great business model): Customer lifespan is actually super long

Disclaimer: This communication is provided for information purposes only and is not intended as a recommendation or a solicitation to buy, sell or hold any investment product. Readers are solely responsible for their own investment decisions.

Apple’s MOATs

Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha who had been long known to avoid tech stocks throughout his whole investing career, started buying Apple stocks in 2016 and subsequently made it their largest stock holding as of 2019.

The man who popularized the term Economics moat, understood the robust potential of Apple’s most important form of intangible asset, and that is their BRAND.

MOAT 1: Apple’s superpower- their BRAND

(Image above): Few of the plenty of hardcore Apple fans who tattooed the logo on their body to display their fondness towards the brand.

I guarantee you will not find as many or any other people tattooing logos of Samsung, Huawei on themselves.

Apples’ loyal following goes back to 1990s when Apple was in the verge of bankruptcy,

their devoted fans hung around the Mac section of computer stores to recommend their products to shoppers. [13]

a. How to tell if a company’s Brand asset is as robust as we think they are:

Here is one way we can identify if a company truly possess a strong and lasting Brand Moat power:

Think of it this way,

If the company’s competitors have as much money as them,

and they are able to replicate or take away the success of the company’s brand

(in other words, use money to buy their fans or build their brand power).

The company’s brand asset is probably not as strong as you think it is. (Note: this does not mean that the brand asset is not strong at all, just that it does not have as much of an edge that you may think it has).

An example would be Nike and its peers,

Nike is currently the leading athletic apparel seller in the world.

And also the most cash-rich amongst their peers in the industry.

However, if any of these companies have as much cash as Nike,

They will be able to sign more endorsement deals with superstar athletes.

And overtime when any of these companies have more superstar athletes that outperform the other companies’ athletes,

their brand will end up being the most popular one among the rest.

But up until now, it is very difficult for the other companies to entice athletes to join them over Nike because it is difficult for them to match Nike’s lucrative offers to the athletes.

Take the 3 most popular athletes below for example:

Had Michael Jordan, Cristiano Ronaldo and LeBron James signed with Adidas instead of Nike and proceeded to as successful of a career as they had today.

Adidas would have been a lot more popular than they are today,

possibly even more popular than Nike.

But this is not the case for Apple

and the industry they are operating in,

Although Samsung has almost twice as much short-term cash as Apple,

Enabling them to spend more money on activities like Marketing, Sales and Advertising.

Even with Samsung’s high amount of celebrity endorsements and other marketing efforts,

plus their high amount of cash holdings compared to Apple.

They do not have as large and as loyal of a group of followings from their fans compared to Apple.

This is a sign that Apple has created something very unique.

The irony though is that a number of these celebrities sponsored by other brands,

ended up using iPhones anyway behind the curtains.

And these celebrities’ genuine preferred choice is the vote that truly counts. [15]

Social Media following, the new form of currency

The number of followers or subscribers an entity have on social platforms like Youtube, Instagram and Twitter is a form of new currency in today’s world,

Companies are willing to pay a lot of money to increase their number of followers because these group of people are highly influenced by any forms of communication they published on their accounts or channels.

When we compare Apple’s amount of followers with their peers,

we can see Apple is leading significantly.

It is very unlikely for the Samsung Brand to be as trendy & fashionable as Apple's.

Albeit Samsung internationally recognized,

it is very difficult for a brand like Samsung, to become as hip and as trendy as Apple.

When people think of Samsung, they may also think of home appliances goods like washing machine, fridge, air conditioning units etc.

which may not be the most fashionable items.

And worst yet, there will almost always be an association of exploding phones with their brand in the mind of consumers,

and that may deter them from purchasing their smartphones for some time to come.

b. Apple products are targeted towards people who are “Different”.

The competitive advantage that sets Apple apart from their peers goes back to their culture instilled in the organization since their founding days.

Their products were not meant to be targeted towards the ordinary people (nor the mass market).

Apple products were and are targeted towards:

· People who were against the status quo

· People who think different

· People who consider themselves rebels against the system

And this was a movement that is very appealing to many until today

Although the younger consumers may not be aware of the founding story,

Apple’s marketing messages up till today are still revolved around their main slogan of “Thinking different”.

This strategy works really well because everyone possesses a degree of innate human desire to be unique and different from the others,

be it the way we think, dress, act or what we choose to represent.

And Apple’s products are an opportunity for us to express the idiosyncrasy of our peculiar personalities.

Apple’s products were designed to be a symbol for their customers for combating conformity and asserting originality.

Which is why Apple products will most likely always remain in the premium range,

to maintain their uniqueness and the sense of exclusivity for the brand.

Because if the majority of their products are made affordable to the masses, it will no longer be “different”.

[How Apple will likely maintain their status as a more Fashionable and Stylish brand compared to their peers]:

i) Apple products are heavily endorsed by influential and popular figures

Celebrities, influential figures and themes use Apple products

and it became a pop culture icon.

along with Mega popstars like Taylor Swift

and Drake

And as mentioned above, even celebrities who are endorsed by other brands ended up using iPhones behind the curtains, betraying the sponsorship agreements.

When many popular figures and themes either endorse or take the risks of using Apple products even when they are not supposed to,

it becomes a social proof to the public that Apples’ products must be superior compared to the alternatives in the market.

Entrepreneurs and popular business leaders use them - creating an association of success & good performance with Apple products in the minds of consumers.)

Apple computers are the go-to-choice for developers around the world.

Not to mention that it is an impressive feat for Apple to develop their own operating system too

And their computers are generally a go-to-choice for developers and programmers around the world.

ii) Imitation is the best form of flattery:

Apple being the trendsetter in the industry, it is inevitable that some of the players will be imitating their products and feature designs.

Some of the players even copy Apple’s designs and concepts shamelessly to the exact.

iii) Apple products have become a symbol status

Because of Apple’s premium product price ranges,

along with their influence in pop culture

and endorsement by influential figures.

Apple products users are perceived to be in “higher status”

since their products signify wealth and status.

-Wyzowl[28]

iv) Apple’s exquisite retail stores

Apple probably has some of the best-looking retail stores in the world.

Image sources: Apple

i. Apple store in Pudong District, Shanghai, China.

ii. Apple store in Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

iii. Apple Store in Downtown Brooklyn, New York

Did you know that Apple had the highest amount of Sales per Square foot ($5,546)

vs any other retailers in the world at 2017?

This was of course contributed by the premium prices Apple charge for their products,

It is also undeniable that that their retail stores designs are the most elegant when compared to their peers in the electronic devices segment.

It is obvious that Apple pays a lot of attention to details to their retail stores which gave them an edge over competitors.

They have design patents on nearly everything in its stores, even their shopping bags. [30]

v) Apple, a Marketing Behemoth

Apple is undeniably one of the best Marketing company out there today,

Their quality of their marketing contents (be it products presentation or advertisements) is top-notch and are unmatched by any of their peers in the industry,

which will continue to create a perception of superiority of their products for their audience.

One of the many great ads by Apple, which quality of production in terms of ad script and picture are unmatched by their peers’.

vi) Apple’s ginormous influence in the market maintains their position as the industry trend setter.

I am sure there are many times when you see certain product designs from some expensive brands and you think to yourself

“Damn, that is really ugly” or “That is not a good-looking design at all!”

This was also my experience when I first saw the release of the iPhone 12,

I was disappointed because the design looked very similar to their older iPhone 4 & 5 model

But the iPhone 12 became one of the best-selling smartphones in the market the following quarter.

Because companies like LV and Apple have so much influence and dominance in the respective markets they are operating in,

They have the ability to decide the trend of the market,

and influence the minds of consumers on what are perceived to be beautiful, trendy or fashionable and what are not.

This is why they can get away with doing things like coming up with questionable product designs, or utilizing previous designs for their new range of products.

And most importantly, people will still continue to buy them.

vii) Apple focuses on being customer obsessed above all else.

Apple was built as a customer-centric company by their late founder Steve Jobs,

and the current management team has done a decent job maintaining the culture in the organization ever since.

They were known to be obsessed about providing the best Customer Experience

and spending little time worrying about their competitors,

Apple chose to focus on the most important party above anyone else- that is, their customers.

The result of this is that their products are more User-friendly and RELIABLE,

Apple products are known to:

• Work right out of the box

• Be intuitive to use (even for kids and the elderlies)

• Be dependable

  • Their computers’ performance does not become slow after a while of use- unlike Windows computers,

  • hence no reformatting is required (which is a lot of inconvenience!)

  • their products are less susceptible virus and malwares threats

On top of that, Apple also provide great after-sales services

All these factors mentioned above contribute to ….

c. All of Apple products are voted to be the best in their respective product ranges every year.

Whenever a prospective customer looks to purchase a new piece of electronic device,

be it a smart phone, laptop, desktop or tablet,

they will most likely search for some recommendations

and read up on some reviews on what are the best options available most suited to their needs in the market

Because Apple products have been so well received by customers and reviewers around the world for so many years,

they were regularly recommended as some of the best options in their respective ranges.

Don’t believe me?

Go ahead and find out for yourself .

Type in sentences like “Best Laptops/ Smartphones/ Tablets now” on Google,

and chances are,

you will see Apple’s products appear consistently across all the search results.

Best Laptops

Best Smartphones

Best Tablets

Best Smartwatches

Best Headphones

Best Desktop Computer

It is almost unfair, all of their products are mentioned as one of the best or the best in their own respective categories,

further making it an easy and obvious choice for their prospective customers (or existing ones) to choose their products over competitors’.

d. “Apple products are just better” Don’t @ me – Customers Perception towards Apple as the superior choice

Apple has positioned and marketed themselves so successfully that customers see their products as Innovative, Simple and Stylish compared to the other brands out there.

Here are some intriguing videos you need to see for yourself to believe it,

On the exact words coming from Apple’s customers, on how they defend and genuinely believe that their products are just “better” and “cooler”.

A fascinating video interviewing the people in Korea, and even the locals would favor Apple over their home brand Samsung.

These combined with other factors, result in their customers willingly pay for extravagant accessories, like the infamous $1,000 Apple computer stand.

Apple’s controversial $1,000 computer screen stand [40]

Apple does things like these because they know they can,

their customers are so loyal to the brand, and they perceived their products to be much better than the others,

they are willing to pay exorbitant prices for them.

resulting in increased forms of ancillary incomes for Apple.

e. An addressable market for Apple they can tap into: Groups of dissatisfied customers of non-Apple products.

Because Apple products are positioned and perceived to be better in quality for both their hardware and software,

dissatisfied customers of non-Apple products like Android or Windows users who decide to switch or upgrade their devices,

will have a higher tendency to relent and give-in to choosing Apple products

just to avoid the frustration and inconveniences caused in their past experiences (from using other products).

After all, if customers are spending so much money on their electronic devices,

the least these devices should do for them are to be reliable and not bring any form of inconveniences.

Many Windows users will be familiar with occurrences of the infamous Blue Screen of Deaths,

which is one of the most annoying things that can happen when you are in the middle of working on something.

Also, because Mac’s OS are built on Unix platform which are generally more difficult to exploit compared to Windows’,

their computers to be less susceptible to viruses and malware threats [41] which worsens the performances of the devices.

f. Apple products provide better personal data and privacy protection for their customers

40 years into the digital revolution since the 1980,

We are increasingly facing more threats on how our personal data and privacy are being exploited in many ways without us even knowing,

And this concern is only going to exacerbate going into the future.

And one of the best unique selling preposition of Apple products is that they offer better Privacy protection for their users.

And this is a very valuable feature which customer are willing to pay money for.

To provide more privacy protection for their users,

Apple’s recent software update disallow apps to access iPhone users IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) by default

unless users explicitly inform the operating system that it is ok to do so.

Surely, this update has not been favourable for large companies like Facebook and Digital marketing agencies that depend on targeted advertising.

But this is a great move by Apple to further solidify their position and gain customers’ trust as the choice of electronic device provider which provide better privacy protection for their customers.

Furthermore, the likelihood of Android operating system (largest market share in the world) doing the same thing as Apple is very low

because Google’s business model thrives on targeted advertising and doing so will hurt their business significantly.

Making Apple products’ unique selling preposition of providing privacy protection for their users much more valuable.

Respective mobile operating system market share worldwide.

MOAT 2: Switching Cost for Apple’s customers.

a. “We are already cyborgs” – Admit it or not, we are hooked on our electronic devices and it will only become more common in the future.

In the 2016 Code Conference event, Elon Musk mentioned in an interview that we are already Cyborgs, given the prevalence of our smartphones and personal computers usage. [46]

Electronic devices will only become more ubiquitous and closer to becoming a form necessity in our lives, and this will inevitably increase the total addressable market for Apple.

With the growing addressable market which Apple can continue to tap into in the future,

combined with the switching costs faced by their customers when they decide to switch to other options

put Apple in a very favorable position to continue to succeed in the long run.

b. Apple’s Ecosystem- consumers will be trapped

Steve Job’s vision to ‘further lock in’ their customers into their ecosystem when they sync pieces of their products together to create a seamless experience for their customers so they will continue to stay with Apple has been a successful one.

(Video above): showing some benefits customers may experience from using multiple Apple products.

Also speaking from personal experience, seeing how my friends and families who are iPhone users airdrop images and videos to one another during our outings was pretty impressive.

I could not help but feel that I was missing out because the files sent to me later through mediums like Whatsapp compressed and worsened the quality of the files.

c. (Great business model): Apple's Customer lifespan is actually really long

Apple scored very high on Net Promoter Score & Value-for-money for their products.

With Apple’s high consumer satisfaction rate,

Plus when the customers purchase multiple Apple products and

experienced the pleasure of the Apple ecosystem,

the probability of them switching to a competitor’s products will reduced significantly,

resulting in switching costs for the customers.

And even if they do switch (due to reasons like temporarily experiencing some financial constraints and have to switch to competitors’ products which are cheaper),

there is a healthy chance they will come back in the future when their financial situation improved.

The interesting fact is that Apple actually score higher in terms of Pricing vs Samsung,

although their products are priced higher than Samsung’s.

This shows that customers perceive Apple products to have better value for money.

Apple’s strategy: Obtaining their customers at a young age

These days, we are seeing that majority of kids are getting their phones at a younger age.

More than half of American children now own a smartphone by the age of 11. [50]

And since cell phones is something that we can and will likely use until the day we die,

With the average human life expectancy of 72.6 years [51],

that gives Apple a customer lifespan of up to 62 years per customer if they are able to acquire them at a young age.

Stage 1: For the young children - “Choose iPhone for best security, privacy and for your children”

Because Apple has successfully positioned their products as the safer and more ideal choice for the parents for their young children,

For the parents who can afford them, iPhones will be the go to choice because parents are likely to be willing to pay more for the wellbeing of their children.

Stage 2: For the schooling children -

“iPads are great for Learning in Schools”

And for the parents who did not buy their children phones (or iPhones) at a younger age.

With Apple Education program,

Apple is also promoting that their technology and products help students learn better in schools.

This will further induce the parents to give in to purchasing Apple products for their children at some point while they are in school

because they may be influenced by the notion that doing so will help their children’s learning process.

Stage 3: For Higher Education students -

“Uni student or staff? You get discounts for Apple products!”

If up till this stage, Apple has yet to convert those young adolescence into Apple customers yet.

This is where they present another tempting offer to them at age of young adult when they begin their higher education.

In 15 June 2020, Apple launched their “Apple Education” promotion program where any students (including their parents) and staffs of Higher Education institutions will get promotional prices for purchasing their computers and tablets.

This is a brilliant strategy because:

i. Kids during college/ university days are highly susceptible to peer pressure

Surely no one wants to miss out if most of their friends are using Apple products. Refer to this video where they interview college students about their perception of Apple vs Samsung phones.

ii. This program will also increase the number of teachers and staffs using Apple products

And teachers may indirectly encourage students to purchase Apple products too because if both the students and teachers are using Apple products, it will make it easier for teachers to:

• Share items (like Webpages, EPUB books/ chapters, PDFs) with the students and navigate them to specific parts of the safari website. [53]

• And as likely satisfied customers, the students will hear their teachers talk about how good Apple products are - which is especially an effective word of mouth strategy coming from teachers who are regarded as authoritative figures in Higher Education institutions.

Stage 4: Mission accomplished- these young customers are now in the Apple Ecosystem..

And when students have Macbooks and iPads for their studying needs,

It is a sensible choice for them to choose an iPhone and Airpods when it is time for them to upgrade their electronic devices.

Then when they are an owner of Apple computers, tablets and phones,

Boom, they will be locked in the Apple Ecosystem at a young age,

making it very difficult for them to leave the brand,

increasing the customer lifespan for Apple.

Endnotes:

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