豪言服務業務四年翻倍，蘋果或收購媒體巨頭

由于業界普遍預期下一代iPhone將是一款重磅產品，蘋果股價最近再創新高，公司市值突破了7,000億美元。

為了繼續推高股價，蘋果正在想方設法讓投資者相信，除了一款超級酷的“10周年紀念版”新iPhone，蘋果還有幾手沒打出的好牌。上周，蘋果高管就宣稱，要在未來四年內，將年收入240億美元的服務業務再翻上一番。

蘋果的這一宣言讓部分行業分析師有些摸不著頭腦，因為實際上蘋果的服務業務收入（包括iTunes Store上所有音樂和電影的銷售分成、各種應用軟件的銷售分成，以及蘋果音樂服務的訂閱費用等 ）的增長率已經呈現出減緩的趨勢。在去年的假日季，蘋果服務業務的收入增長率為18%，顯著低于2015年同期的26%。據高盛集團的分析師西蒙娜?詹可夫斯基稱，分析師們預計未來幾年蘋果服務業務的年增長率將下降到14%左右。

在短短四年內，蘋果怎樣才能在服務業務上實現額外240億美元的年收入呢？這個數字幾乎是Netflix銷售額的三倍，約等于高通、哈里伯頓或麥當勞的全年銷售額。就此，長期觀察蘋果動態的分析師托尼?薩克納西上周進行了一番推測。

蘋果真的已經龐大到就連一項新業務也能在四年里超過麥當勞的地步了嗎？投行伯恩斯坦的分析師預計，就算蘋果的安裝基數（即使用iPhone和iPad的總用戶數）能夠以比較健康的27%的增長率增長，而且每名用戶未來四年在蘋果服務業務上的支出都增長了20%，蘋果離它的目標依然有130億美元的差距。瑞聯分析師史蒂夫?米路諾維奇的假設對蘋果更加寬容，但即便按他的估算，蘋果也有50到80億美元的差距。

在薩克納西、米路諾維奇以及許多華爾街分析師看來，這一差距有力地表明，蘋果正在策劃所謂的“無機增長”，簡單說來就是通過大規模的收并購來實現這個目標。

亦真亦假

自從宣布這一目標以來，蘋果CEO蒂姆?庫克等公司高管就不時在各種場合談起他們的戰略。蘋果一向有對新產品嚴格保密的傳統，而且在談判之前就公布收購目標也是一種愚蠢的行為。

蘋果可能已經規劃出了幾條可能的路徑，收購可能只是當內部增長的樂觀預期落空后才會使用的一招。這可能也是蘋果財務總監盧卡?馬艾斯特利的看法。最近他在出席高盛集團在舊金山舉辦的一場活動時曾給出了一些暗示。

當被問道蘋果打算怎樣實現服務業務翻番的目標時，馬艾斯特利答道：“我們還不知道具體怎樣實現這個目標，不過我們看到很多趨勢對我們都非常有利，而且我們還會繼續推進所有這些方面?！?/p>

馬艾斯特利還表示，蘋果之所以要將這個內部目標公布于眾，就是要向投資者“傳遞一個信息”，強調服務業務對于蘋果公司的重要性。不過要想實現一個大目標，如果“信息”傳遞得太快，戰略戰術沒有跟上，將有可能十分危險。比如IBM公司2010年曾經宣稱，要在五年內將公司的每股收益翻一番，達到20美元。然而直到去年，這個數字也僅僅是12.39美元。

蘋果的服務業務要想大幅增長，不靠收購是不太可能的。目前為止，蘋果在服務業務上最主要的發力就是投資了幾部新的電視節目，比如知名節目主持人詹姆斯?柯登主持的喜劇節目《拼車卡拉OK》，以及一部最新的商業真人秀《APP星球》。今年春天，這些節目將在蘋果音樂數字流媒體服務中獨家上線。預計不久蘋果還將投資更多類似的節目。

蘋果音樂部門的負責人吉米?艾歐文最近對《紐約時報》表示：“我們有很多項目在做，這就是蘋果音樂的發展方向。蘋果音樂將提供視頻以及其他一些我現在還不能說的東西，我們將大力發展這方面?！?/p>

這種緩慢打造原創內容的方式如何能彌補那130億美元的缺口？反正現在很難看到答案。視頻網站Netflix和亞馬遜每年也在原創內容上投資好幾十個億美元，而且它們從幾年前開始就這樣做了。

最近，蘋果高級副總裁埃迪?庫伊在南加州參加了一場科技峰會。會上，負責蘋果整個服務業務的庫伊被反復問到關于蘋果是否會進行收購的問題，或許是為了平息關于收購的猜測，他表示：

“如果我們想做的是其他所有人都在做的事，那么你可能是對的，我們還不如收購一家公司去做。但那并不是我們想要做的?！睅煲玲槍κ召彶聹y的首次回應也引起了媒體的廣泛報道。

即便在蘋果的高管團隊中，庫伊也是一位說話十分圓滑的人。不過隨著收購的問題被人反復提起，庫伊的回答也越來越模棱兩可，甚至或許還透露出了一絲沮喪。

“大家都希望我這站在這里說：‘我們要做跟Netflix一樣的事了，而且我們的規模也會跟他們一樣大’……諸如此類的話。但是關于這個話題，四年以后，我也不知道我們會進展到哪一步……以及它的增長速度有多快。情況朝哪個方向發展還有待觀察?！?/p>

當有人問蘋果對視頻業務的預期投資回報率是多少時，庫伊的回答可能也沒有讓投資者產生更多的信心：“我們并不是從經濟和數學的角度看這個問題的?！?/p>

潛在目標

蒂姆?庫克是在1月31日的收益電話會上公布服務業務翻番這個目標的。庫克的這一聲明立刻引起了關于蘋果是否會在媒體和娛樂方面進行大筆收購的推測。庫克表示，蘋果會考慮收購任何規模的公司——雖然以前蘋果歷來只會進行規模相對較小的收購交易。庫克還提到了公司最近投資的一些原創視頻節目。

“顯然我們已經開始試水這個領域了，我們正在學習很多關于原創內容業務的知識，并且正在考慮以什么方式進入這個領域?！睅炜诉€表示，通過頭兩個視頻節目，“我們正在學習經驗，而且我們會從此走得更遠?！?/p>

坐擁600億市值的視頻網站Netflix是一個大家談論得比較多的潛在收購選項，只不過這家公司實在太貴。然而如此大規模的交易也不是沒有先例的。蘋果會不會像AT&T斥資1090億美元收購時代華納那樣，一口氣買下一個CBS或者沃爾特迪士尼這樣的娛樂巨頭，現在還不好說。不過蘋果多年來在海外已經囤積了2000多億美元的現金，通過可能的稅改舉措，這筆錢還是很有可能能夠用于收購的。

經過分析師們總結，除了以上媒體巨頭之外，蘋果其他可能收購的對象還包括動視暴雪這種視頻游戲制造商，以及熱門網絡支付服務貝寶等。

不過考慮到最近的各種雜音，要真正判明蘋果的下一步動作，可能還需要一段時間。（財富中文網）

譯者：樸成奎

Apple's share price hit an all-time high recently, giving the company a stock market value of $700 billion, as expectations build that the next iPhone could be a blockbuster hit.

But to keep pushing the stock price higher, Apple is trying to convince investors it has a few more tricks up its sleeve than just a super cool 10th anniversary edition of the iconic smartphone. As part of the effort, Apple executives last month pledged to double the size of their $24 billion-a-year services business in four years.

That has puzzled some analysts because growth in services revenue—which includes Apple's cut on everything from songs and movies bought at the iTunes Store to apps and Apple Music subscriptions—has slowed. For the holiday quarter last year, services revenue increased 18%, down from a 26% increase at the end of 2015. And analysts were expecting about 14% annual growth over the next few years, according to at Simona Jankowski at Goldman Sachs.

Toni Sacconaghi, a longtime Apple analyst, last week tried to estimate how Apple could find the additional $24 billion of annual services revenue in just four years—almost triple the sales of Netflix or about equal to the sales of Qualcomm, Halliburton, or McDonald's.

Is Apple so gargantuan now that it can generate new business exceeding the Big Mac in just four years? Assuming even a healthy 27% increase Apple's installed base—the total number of people using iPhones and iPads—and projecting that each customer will also increase their individual spending by 20% over the four years, Apple would be $13 billion short, the Bernstein analyst calculated. UBS analyst Steve Milunovich was more generous to Apple, but pegged the shortfall at $5 billion to $8 billion.

To Sacconaghi, Milunovich, and many others on Wall Street, the gap is a strong sign that Apple is planning for what investors call "inorganic" growth, or in simpler terms, a major acquisition to meet the goal.

Mixed Messages

Since revealing the target, Apple CEO Tim Cook and other top executives have been all over the map in discussing their strategy. The company never reveals future products, and it would be foolish to name M&A targets before negotiating a deal. But even with those limits, the message has been a bit messy.

It could be that Apple had mapped out multiple paths, with acquisitions needed only if optimistic hopes for in-house growth fall short. That sounded like the takeaway from CFO Luca Maestri, as he offered some new hints recently at a Goldman Sachs conference in San Francisco.

"We don't know exactly how we're going to get there," he said when asked about the doubling goal. "Although, we see a lot of trends that are very positive for us, and we will continue to push on all these fronts."

Apple made the internal goal public to "send a message" to investors about the importance of the services business to the company, he added. That can be a dangerous game if the message gets ahead of the strategy and tactics for achieving a big goal, as IBM, for example, discovered after loudly declaring in 2010 it would double earnings per share to $20 in five years. The figure reached just $12.39 last year.

And it's not like Apple is off to a big start without making an acquisition. So far, its major push is financing a couple of new TV shows. New episodes of TV host James Corden's comedy skit Carpool Karaoke and a new reality business show, dubbed Planet of the Apps, will run as exclusives on the Apple Music digital streaming service this spring. Expect more similar efforts soon.

"There are a bunch of projects. We’re in it. This is what Apple Music is going to be," Jimmy Iovine, who oversees the music unit, told the New York Times recently. "Apple Music will have video and other things that I can’t talk about. We're going to be aggressive about it."

How that would slowly building approach would add the missing $13 billion is hard to figure. Netflix and Amazon spend billions of dollars of year on original content and have been at it for years.

Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president overseeing basically the entire services business, tried to tamp down the merger speculation when he was repeatedly asked about the issue in an appearance at the Code Media technology conference in Southern California recently.

"If we wanted to do what everybody else is doing, then you’re right, we might be better off buying somebody or doing that," Cue said in his widely reported first crack at the question. "But that's not what we're trying to do."

But Cue can be a slippery speaker to pin down, even among Apple executives. As the merger question kept coming back up, Cue's answers got increasingly open ended and showed, perhaps, a flash of frustration.

"Everybody wants me to come up here and basically say 'hey, we're going to do the same thing Netflix is and we're going to be just as big' or whatever," Cue said an hour deep into the appearance. "It's, I, four years from now I don't know where we will be in relation to this...how fast it grows and where it goes remains to be seen."

It probably didn't give investors more confidence when Cue later answered a question about Apple's expected return on investment from the video efforts: "We didn't go looking at this from an economic point of view of trying to do the math or that standpoint."

Possible Targets

Cook ignited the speculation of a big media or entertainment acquisition on the January 31 earnings call, when the doubling goal was announced. After noting that Apple would consider acquisitions of any size—even though it has stuck to relatively small deals in the past—Cook mentioned the company's recent efforts to back a few original video shows.

"We are obviously with our toe in the water, we're learning a lot about the original content business, and thinking about ways that we could play in that," Cook said. With the first two video deals, "we're learning from that and we'll go from there," he added.

Netflix, with its $60 billion market cap, has been one widely discussed—if expensive—acquisition option. Copying AT&T's $109 billion Time Warner purchase by going after an entertainment giant like CBS or Walt Disney is hard to fathom, but Apple is expected to get access to the more than $200 billion it has stashed overseas via likely tax reform moves.

Other possibilities analysts have mentioned include service targets outside of big media, like video game maker Activision Blizzard or online payments star PayPal.

Given all the recent chatter, however, it may take a while to sort this one out.