I think these are bad times for Apple. They might be making the profits but the profits are being threatened via other means. Competition is closing strong on them. Samsung is dazzling the world with their lovely innovations.
The Chinese tech companies like Huawei, ZTE, Meizu, Lenovo (who just acquired Motorola from Google) are rearing their smart heads. The emerging markets are flooded with cheap, affordable and nice looking smart devices competing with he kings in the smartphone industry. Apple is also no losing touch as they intend to introduce a 4.7 inch screen iPhone which is quite fair but others have moved on.
The latest today is that Apple has been hit with $840 million dollars damage claim for conspiring with publishing companies to raise the price of ebooks across the entire industry. The claim, filed on Friday in New York by an attorney leading a class action lawsuit on behalf of ebooks customers in 33 states, stems from the US Justice Department’s successful antitrust lawsuit against Apple that took place in the summer of 2013. Using evidence presented during the course of that trial last year, attorney Steve Berman begins by arguing that Apple owes American ebooks customers a bare minimum of $231 million in damages, and probably far more money than that.
Apple deal with publishers to use an “agency model” for pricing ebooks – an agreement under which publishers set the final price of ebooks that Apple would charge consumers, and Apple took 30 percent of each sale – resulted in a 14.9 per cent increase in sales dollars. This increase came about because Apple charged an average price of $12.99 for each new ebook, higher than the average $9.99 previously charged when amazon was the major ebooks retailer and could lower the price for consumers.
Apple hasn’t commented on the latest filing but it is appealing the original ruling in the case.
