Apple’s holiday deals: a sign of weakness, or a clever move to boost revenue? | Boston Globe

From a timely Apple reality check

"Like Microsoft, Apple is moving into the cloud. Apple’s online businesses, such as Apple Music, the Apple Pay payment system, iCloud data storage, and the App Store, are huge and booming. In fiscal 2018, they brought in $37 billion, up more than 54 percent from 2016. Anyone who owns an iPhone is a potential customer. You may not be able to afford an iPhone XS, but you can probably purchase an occasional game app or a subscription to Apple Music for your refurbished iPhone 7.

Apple’s trade-in program is intended to amp up sales, but not just iPhone sales. If it creates 5 or 10 million new iPhone users, it will pay off for years to come by creating new customers for the company’s cloud-based services. And once they’re plugged into Apple Music or iCloud, many will remain paying customers for life.

There’s no way Apple can sell iPhones as fast as it once did. But if it can follow Microsoft’s lead and grow its services business, it won’t matter."

Apple’s holiday deals: a sign of weakness, or a clever move to boost revenue? | Boston Globe