Apple Inc said customers have downloaded more than 40 billion applications from its App Store, with almost half of those last year, escalating a duel with Google Inc over which company is gaining the most traction with users.
More than 2 billion apps were downloaded last month, setting a record, the California-based Apple said in a statement yesterday. Apple, with more than 775,000 apps available for its iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices, said it has paid more than US$7 billion to app developers. By comparison, Google’s Android software had about 25 billion app downloads from its store as of September last year.
Apple is counting on apps to help woo consumers who are choosing from an increasing array of lower-priced tablets from competitors, including Google, Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp. Apps can also help the iPhone compete against feature-laden phones from Samsung Electronics Co and Nokia Oyj.
The growth in App Store users to more than 500 million active accounts, from 435 million in September, as well as the surge in downloads from 35 billion in October, “could help allay some recent demand concerns,” Robert W. Baird & Co analyst Will Power wrote in a report yesterday.
He rates the shares “outperform” with a target price of US$750.
While Apple pioneered the smartphone market with the iPhone, it now trails devices that run Android. Handsets running Android, which offered about 700,000 applications to users as of October, had 72 percent of the global smartphone market in the third quarter, compared with 14 percent for Apple, research firm Gartner Inc said.
Google did not disclose how much it has paid to Android app developers.
Shares of Apple slipped 0.6 percent to US$523.90 at the close in New York on Monday, a third straight day of decline after a 31 percent increase last year.
Barclays PLC cut its price estimate to US$740 from US$800 in a research report on Monday, while maintaining an “overweight” rating on Apple stock.
“Expectations are actually low and getting lower,” Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes wrote in the report. “Many investors fear iPhone sales will be relatively flat this year and that there will be no move into TV that moves the needle.”
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last