Just as Apple products attract their devotees, we at the IC have long been fans of Apple’s shares. And when, having more than doubled from our buy tip, they wobbled in early 2013 we stood firm. Even if the somewhat ludicrous notion that Apple had run out of ideas were true, the value argument was compelling; with over $100bn in net cash on its balance sheet, investors were surely seat to reap a windfall (and so it proved). And, as the latest swathe of new product demonstrates, Apple hasn’t lost its innovative swagger after all.
Personally, I’m not an unconditional fan of Apple products in the way that those queuing – and many others beside – most certainly are. I do, however, own a houseful of Sony products, and other assorted Japanese electronics made by the likes of Canon and Nintendo. I suspect I am increasingly in the minority, because Sony products, once the must-have brand in consumer electronics, no longer arouse the same degree of excitement they did when, for example, they stunned the world with the Walkman in the 1980s.
At that time it would have been inconceivable that a niche computer manufacturer would one day dominate the global market for mobile music – Sony’s failure to capitalise on the success of the Walkman, to Apple's ultimate benefit, is a case study in exactly the kind of corporate complacency that many suggested Apple was in danger of falling into. The same is true of Nintendo, which having taken gaming into the living room with the Wii now looks on the brink of becoming an irrelevance in the home entertainment market.
Sony, of course, is a beneficiary of this with its PlayStation, but this does not disguise the fact that the Japanese electronics industry which once dominated the globe is in the grip of a slow and painful demise. It would, of course, be unfair to suggest that Japanese companies have uniquely failed to respond to shifts in competitive and technological dynamics – yet, talking to those who have worked within Japanese organisations, there are aspects of their corporate culture that have, at times, stood in the way of their ability to react. President Abe's third arrow of structural reform is designed to address this, but has so far failed to hit its target - his marksmanship will need to improve in the years ahead if the case for increased Japanese exposure is to be made.
