Apple, an already huge behemoth in the tech world, possesses an enormous opportunity to increase its revenue by $100 billion in the long term by entering new avenues, such as health care, car, live-streaming, console gaming, smart home kit and more, claims Bank of America's wealth management division Merill Lynch, as per a report by CNBC. All these are the areas that the company is currently exploring.
"In our opinion, Apple is well positioned to capture share in the video game market using its iOS platform, but also to leverage that more broadly over time to support an experience similar to console gaming. Further recent hires suggest that the capability of the Apple TV can incorporate console gaming and set-top box all integrated into a single product down the road," Merill Lynch of Bank of America (BofML) said in a note to its clients.
The shares of the company, which is already up by more than 30% this year, on Friday closed at $155 and change, following which the company's market value now stands at more than $800 million.
Reports have already suggested that one of the most prodigious companies of the world, Apple is already foraying into its own streaming TV service.
In terms of gaming, Apple TV already offers iOS gaming, however, it's considerably casual compared to the gaming consoles like Sony PlayStation 4, Microsoft Xbox One and the most recent and very successful, Nintendo Switch.
We had reported that Apple is looking forward to entering the smart home assistant space now with the plans of integrating its digital assistant Siri in the device, however, it won't be as easy for the tech giant to crack the surface of this market as Amazon Echo and Google Home already possesses a large share of the smart home assistant market. Rumors have it that Apple is going to announce such a device as soon as next month.
"We estimate the potential market at $7.5 billion. To size this, we factor a 5% penetration (attach) into the iPhone installed base of 600 million units. Assuming a sell price of $250 per device, we estimate a $7.5 billion potential market for Apple," said BofML.
Apple Car is another opportunity that the company is exploring pretty seriously. Recently it has been discovered that the company is not only running a secret project named Project Titan regarding smart cars, but it is also keeping a secret office in Berlin, which, according to Business Insider's sources, is devoted to transportation and all the engineers that work there have been hired from car companies.
"Project Titan is likely to be a transportation platform — not a car but the entire experience," said UBS analyst Steven Milunovich in a recent conversation that he hosted with Horace Dediu (of Asymco.com) and Neil Cybart (of AboveAvalon.com).
The project now looks all the more promising as, BofML adds that Apple could garner a revenue of $1 billion by 2020 and increase it up to $27 billion by 2025, if it starts developing and selling autonomous cars by 2020 with an average selling price of each car 10% greater than that of Tesla's Model S, reported CNBC.
The BofAML also sees an upside in VR, which it says will have a total addressable market value of $30 billion in 2020.
With all the assets, Apple doesn't necessarily need to enter new markets; however, it's kind of inevitable that it will dip its toes into new areas at some point. BofAML also said that, even if Apple sits still, the markets Apple currently addresses (smartphones, tablets, wearables and desktops/laptops) can generate $550 billion in revenue by 2020.
