Apple is one of the most incredible business success stories of all time. From a business that first operated out of a garage in Los Altos, California, today it’s valued at around $3.5 trillion, making it the world’s largest company by market capitalisation. And what was once a small-scale manufacturer of personal computers now has tendrils that reach out into an ever-increasing number of areas.
However, to put it into a little context, it’s not all been plain sailing for the Cupertino-based business and at various times there has been a risk of it going under. Following the iconic launch of the Apple Macintosh with Ridley Scott’s epic TV ad in 1984, the 1990s saw a slump in profits, partly due to increasing competition from Microsoft and IBM..
But it was the return in 1997 of one of the original partners, Steve Jobs, that proved to be the catalyst that helped to create the giant business that it is today. Notoriously focused and demanding, he implemented the strategy that has led to the company’s position as the innovator that all others follow. This involved making products that were both high quality and supremely user-friendly. Added to this was the ability to charge a premium price for the privilege of owning Apple products.
This was because Jobs always appreciated the power of the brand and the importance of making people feel special for owning and using Apple devices. Further to this, there was also the aim to make Apple the go-to brand that could do everything from enabling a phone call to hosting an individual’s whole music collection in their pocket.
Access all areas
To see this in action, one only has to look at how Apple products and services can touch someone’s life in the course of a day. At work, Apple’s PCs and laptops are the preferred choice for many sectors, and in particular the creative industries. As well as power, speed and functionality, the cool design of the products adds to their appeal.
At leisure, there’s everything from music on demand to Apple TV, a production facility in its own right now bringing the world top-class content from major documentaries to TV series and big-budget movies.
The Apple Watch is now also on many people’s wrists, not just telling them the time, but also letting them know when emails arrive, and even how good a night’s sleep they have had.
But central to everything is the Apple iPhone. When this was introduced in 2007, it represented a quantum leap forward in terms of mobile communications. This was thanks to its multi-touch screen that truly heralded the arrival of the smartphone.
Its much larger processing power, amazing graphics and all-round usability also brought about what some people refer to as the app economy. Before very long, developers were creating these for smartphones, a move which means that today there are around 2.3 million available from the Apple App Store, the huge majority of them completely free to download.
Payment on demand
That’s not to say that Apple has turned its back on payments, far from it. To date in 2025, it’s estimated that transactions worth $7.6 trillion have been made through Apple Pay. More and more businesses are accepting it, and one sector that has been a more recent recruit has been iGaming. Many of the online operators on Casino.org are now announcing themselves as being Apple Pay casinos, something that is sure to appeal to all iPhone owners. Some see Apple Pay as the ultimate way in which the corporation has managed to weave itself into the end-to-end process of being not just a technology company but a quasi-financial institution too.
A further move into this area came in the US in 2019 with the launch of the Apple credit card. Backed by Goldman Sachs, the bank has also recently introduced a high-interest savings account for cardholders.
Looking to the future
But with over 1.5 billion iPhone users in the world, it may be that the saturation point is close to being achieved. It is also hard to imagine what new product categories could be entered into beyond those that it currently manufactures and distributes
Therefore, the company has intimated that its future may lie in concentrating more on providing related services. For example, these could include cloud storage services, fitness apps and online content provision. The one issue is that it will be hard to be genuinely innovative in these areas, as they offer relatively little scope for this.
However, this may not really be a significant problem. The Apple brand has grown to be so strong and recognisable that consumers tend to trust it to stand for superior quality – a natural advantage that promises to ensure that any of its services will thrive.
