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z*******n
发帖数: 1034 | 1 Posted 16 hours ago by John Biggs (@johnbiggs)
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We shouldn’t be surprised that the strongest brand in the world is looking
to buy another solid brand. Far beyond the guffaws of audiophiles and tut-
tutting of those who know what Apple would do, we find a place where a
massive investment in Beats would make some sense.
First, understand that Beats is a successful hardware startup in an era of
fizzling hardware profit. Most of Beats’ competitors are also-rans at best
and there isn’t a single audio company that I can think of with the same
numbers or the recognition. There are a number of headphone companies that
own the low end but these are krill in the oceans of commerce, rebadgers
that buy cheap and sell high. Then there’s the high end. Apple could buy
Bose or Grado but neither of those companies have the scale necessary to
make the investment make sense. Logistically, Beats can make and ship
thousands of units a day at a clip and with a quality that rivals Apple’s
own accessory sales.
How certain am I that Beats will be bought? I approached my source who, it
can be said, was quite giddy at the prospect. Instead of an immediate denial
, they offered something far more quizzical – a wry smile. While they can’
t say much, this alone is interesting.
Beats is a marketing miracle. The company has risen again and again out of
the ashes of failed partnerships, first with Monster Cable and then with HTC
. Beats survived being glommed onto HP laptops and it has thrived despite
endless hoots from self-style audio gurus. Put simply, Beats is an expensive
, popular brand that to the consumer is well worth the investment if you’re
outfitting your digital wardrobe. Why? The cynical would say it’s for the
styling and the pragmatist would say because there is little else on the
market in the same vein with the same cultural cachet and the same good
looks. In a decade when it has been notoriously hard to market to the young
adults and teens, Beats has done it again and again.
Remember that it made no sense for Apple to buy SoundJam MP, an MP3 player
and media sync system, in 1999. The company made a basic desktop music
player and was relatively unknown in the market. In fact, in 1999 it wasn’t
even certain that the MP3 would take off. Napster launched in June 1999 and
died soon after. Why, then, would Apple want an arguably small-fry MP3
player app?
On January 1, 2001, SoundJam MP turned into iTunes 1.0.
In 2013, Beats owned 64% of the high-price headphone market. That’s the
kind of market share any executive could get behind. It was worth a billion
dollars last year, which makes the $3 billion price a little low. Why does
Apple need Beats? Perhaps they want shore up their cachet with young music
lovers. Maybe they want a source of steady revenue. Maybe they love bass-
heavy, bombastic sound out of headphones that look like Lobot’s cybernetic
enhancements. Maybe they want to meet Dre. But know that this merger makes
perfect sense, even if we can’t see why just yet. |
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