Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has become the largest publicly-listed stock in the world, making significant gains over the past few months in particular. The company’s market cap ended up jumping to over the $2 trillion last month, a historic milestone for Apple. However, the company saw its stock tumble 9% on Thursday’s trading session, losing around $180 billion of its market cap, due to news that a much-anticipated privacy feature will be delayed until 2021.
Back in June, Apple went on to say that iPhone users would soon get the option to determine whether online advertisers will be able to individually target them with advertisements. More specifically, online advertisers use an IDFA identifier that’s unique to every person’s phone that allows them to better target ads to the individual user of said device. However, due to potential privacy concerns, Apple has said that the iPhone will receive a software update that allows users to prevent apps from accessing your phone’s IDFA identifier.
Given just how aware most people are now of advertisers and how they collect private data, this feature was highly anticipated by both investors as well as regular iPhone users. However, Apple ended up saying that it will be suspending this planned feature until sometime next year.
“We are committed to ensuring users can choose whether or not they allow an app to track them,” said Apple in an official statement on its developer blog. “To give developers time to make necessary changes, apps will be required to obtain permission to track users starting early next year.”
What this means for app developers on Apple’s platform is that they’re going to have more time to find out other ways to monetize their applications besides ads. Once Apple implements this IDFA identifier software change, the cost-effectiveness of advertising via apps is going to plummet significantly.
While a bit of disappointing news, it’s hard to justify whether its enough to send Apple’s already high-valued stock price tumbling almost 9%. It’s the worst single-day decline that Apple’s stock had seen since March, back when the coronavirus pandemic was battering the markets. Overall, however, most analysts remain optimistic about Apple’s growth potential, despite already being the largest publicly trading company in the entire world. Since the beginning of 2020, shares are up over 63%, making it one of the best performing companies in the U.S. market, if not in the world.
Apple Company Profile
Apple designs a wide variety of consumer electronic devices, including smartphones (iPhone), tablets (iPad), PCs (Mac), smartwatches (Apple Watch), and TV boxes (Apple TV), among others. The iPhone makes up the majority of Apple’s total revenue. In addition, Apple offers its customers a variety of services such as Apple Music, iCloud, Apple Care, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple Card, and Apple Pay, among others. Apple’s products run internally developed software and semiconductors, and the firm is well known for its integration of hardware, software and services. Apple’s products are distributed online as well as through company-owned stores and third-party retailers. The company generates about 40% of its revenue from the Americas, with the remainder earned internationally. – Warrior Trading News
