Apple Is About To Return To The Trillion-Dollar Mark Without A New iPhone, What Happened?

On March 21, Apple even beat Microsoft to become the world's No. 1 market value company at $ 916 billion.

In the trading session on 21 March, Apple's market value increased at a time to reach US$916 billion, allowing it to beat Microsoft to become the world's largest value company. The chase between two rivals continues to prove extremely fierce when the end of the day, Microsoft again took the lead with a gap of only $ 3 billion.

Although Apple only shortly surpassed Microsoft to be the world’s biggest company, being at the top for a short amount of time on March 21 still matters significantly to the company: the long-term slipping process since mid-2018 is considered to have ended. After the March 25 event and possibly after the iPhone launch later this year, Apple is fully capable of returning to the trillion-dollar mark.

No new iPhone while iPad and AirPods were released quietly, what helped revive investors' expectations?

Answer: Content services

Unlike every other year, Apple's March event this year will not be for hardware products. On March 11, Tim Cook's company sent an invitation card with the content "Show Time" for the March 25 event. According to leaked news, Apple will unveil two important services: a paid video/movie service (like Netflix) and a comprehensive news service from pay to read newspaper websites (including Wall Street Journal).

With normal people, these announcements may not be as exciting as the upgraded version of AirPods or 2 unexpectedly iPad Air and iPad Mini. But for investors - and Apple, Apple's paid services have an important meaning: Apple will transform itself into a true service company, a company that lives on its own. Content is consumed on iDevices.

This move is extremely important because iPhone sales in 2018 have leveled off. Sales of iPads and Mac have long been dropping. When the iPhone sales stopped growing, investors began to face the fact that miracles can't last forever. Without major changes, the company will become the next IBM, Nokia, or Microsoft (at Steve Ballmer's time).

The service business is the big step that Apple needs. Even at the shareholders' meeting, which announced the first decline of the iPhone, Apple revealed a shocking figure: as many as 900 million iPhones are being used regularly. Combining this number of iPhones and the iPads that are consistently number one in the tablet market, Apple has a huge number of potential customers for the digital service segment. App Store, Apple Music, and even video service, upcoming news service will be prime sources of income instead of the iPhone.

In the last three quarters, Apple's service sales have continuously increased by two digits. Last quarter, this segment surpassed US$10 billion. A future not too dependent on the iPhone has opened up in the near future, no wonder why investors are happy to help the former largest company to get closer to the billion-dollar mark.