iPhone, therefore I am | The Economist

Final paragraph from an Apple reality check

"As an investment, Apple is surprisingly inexpensive. Its shares trade at about 10.4 times forecast earnings, excluding cash, compared with Alphabet and Facebook, which trade at 21.4 and 33 times respectively. That is because many perceive it as a hardware company—vulnerable, like Hollywood studios, to product hits and flops. Apple is trying to change that image and become perceived more as a services company, with stable recurring revenue. Its services division, which includes its app store and music offering, has huge sales, of around $20 billion a year. That business will only increase as the number of users expands and spends more in the Apple ecosystem. So long as it stays fresh in the eyes of consumers, Apple will be able to prove the sceptics wrong—again."

iPhone, therefore I am | The Economist