This is a very interesting article and I could not agree more:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-risks-becoming-niche-player-again-2013-04-04
Not only is Apple at risk for a redo of the PC days, but I feel they somehow do it to themselves by attracting a lot of people in a high price niche market but they always on keeping their ecosystem very closed. So either you buy into the whole apple world or you drop out and have nothing to do with them.
At first it works magic, they trap consumers and keep them in their environment. But as alternative become a lot more attractive price wise, they lose the grip they had and people start breaking away.
Apple will always have a core a die hard fans, no question it. Even in their darkest times, they had a following. But I feel they are at risk of losing the masses to alternatives if they don’t open up more.
Rather than measure Apple’s success or lack of it by stock price you might want to investigate Apple’s share of the profits of the smart phone market.
Speaking of die hard fans… 🙂 The article did cover the market share: “Another statistic is more sobering — the Android platform accounted for about 69% of all smartphones sold last year, with unit shipments more than double from the previous year, according to IDC. Apple’s shipments rose a respectable 46%, but its global market share remained stuck at about 19%.” I checked Trefis.com and their analysis says $AAPL is about 50.3% iPhone plus another 11.9% iPad (that over 60% in the mobile/tablet market). Their cash accounts for about 20% of the value. The rest is below. Even the MACs themselves account for only 10.9% of the price (which is less than iPads alone).
Apple’s share of the profits: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/12/11/smartphone-profit-share-apple-samsung/