Who Will Fall First? Amazon, Google or Apple?
“Every rise has its fall.”
In this era of digital dominance, everything is so unpredictable. Governments are filing cases against tech giants because they influence the election results; people are reporting against privacy issues, and CEOs are being scrutinized in front of the world.
Large tech companies’ marketing arms make us believe that there’s some big holy war going on between these tech companies and that you need to pin these organizations against each other.
But the million-dollar question is, “Who will rule this digital world”? Well, every player fights on the battleground with smart strategies and advanced weapons. To understand the master plans of these unicorns, I tried to dig deep into this question.
If we summarize the business (or initial businesses) of each company, you can say — Apple is a design company, Google is an advertising company, and Amazon is a delivery company.
Since they are so insanely profitable at what they do, will they ever vanish? Let’s take a closer look.
Apple:
It sells iPhones, iPods, Macbooks, and Apple Watches, and there are die-hard fans for these devices. These customers don’t like to use anything other than Apple products (unapologetically, I am one of them). Interestingly, Apple’s market strategy is to sell more expensive equipments than other mobile makers to promise that these phones are better than the average mobile phone. Still, that gap is closing up each day.
On the other hand, as per experts, the most likely company to fall first in this list must be Apple. The fact that they have only one profitable product which is already a threat on its own.
Personally, I don’t think that’s gonna happen as Apple has shifted its gears towards software products and app store. Still, the other problem is that different mobile competitors are increasingly becoming better and sometimes way more innovative than Apple.
I feel Apple is very susceptible to brand damage. People will pay a higher price for the brand. Still, at any moment, a competitor can come along and introduce the next big thing in smartphones or something that replaces the smartphone and Apple’s revenues. Brand recognition will nosedive off a cliff.
Google:
Honestly, I would freak without Google Maps, YouTube, and Google Search. Google has smartly integrated the lifestyle of its users around search. It’s the primary tool available for Android users & Chromebooks. These products have as many loyal users as Apple does. But I have a question —
“Is Google’s search engine almost impossible to be replaced?” Well, only time will tell.
Furthermore, Android is the most popular OS globally, with over 80% market cap; Chrome is also a modern browser. Google also has YouTube, which virtually has no other competitor. It has many different free products now, but I think they could someday decide to monetize them.
To add to all this, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, also owns lots of other promising products like Waymo (which is currently the leader in autonomous driving) and Wing (which develops the technology of drone-based delivery of freight).
Furthermore, Google has an ad business, which funds everything else. If online advertising stopped being viable, I think Google would struggle. But it’s close, and in tech, there are plenty of unpredictable things. However, the ads business model probably also reached its peak and would decline in the next ten and more years.
Amazon:
Will Amazon be the one to fall first because other companies have monopolies on their product offerings, and it does not? But in 2019, online retail platform Amazon reported a net income of 11.59 billion U.S. dollars, up from a 10 billion U.S. dollar net income in the previous year.
But interestingly, Amazon's competitors have also tripled in number in the last 5–7 years. For example :
- Retail — We have Walmart, Target, Shopify & tons of other e-commerce shops that have come onto the scene
- Cloud — Azure & GCP also provide equally reliable service.
- Amazon Video — Netflix, YouTube also provides useful content
In the meantime, Amazon has also diversified its portfolio by:
- Acquiring Whole Foods
- Launching their online stores, Kindle and Alexa devices (unfortunately, they fail fast but have had plenty of successes)
People argue that Amazon is actually in a weak position when it comes to these big tech companies. Unlike MAG, they have a big moat, and their users will ditch them before the moat gets a chance.
On the contrary, experts also say that the chances of Amazon are meagre. Amazon is virtually just five percent of all retail, and there is no way E-commerce is dying soon.
It’s unimaginable to look at increasing growth in E-commerce and not seeing Amazon at the centre given the amount of brand loyalty and infrastructure they have in this space. Amazon is also a dominant player in the cloud industry AWS is widespread, and I don’t think that is going away soon.
In one of the interviews, “Jeff Bezos” said his users come due to price & customer service. In business history, competing on price & customer service is far more comfortable than competing on brand. For example, if Apple or Google increase its smartphones’ cost, its users will not go away and still pay the fee.
Before you go
If you enjoyed this post, hit the “Clap” button 👏 . It will motivate and cheer me to write more!
By the way, do you know you can hold it down to give 50 claps :-)
