Cook a worthy successor

As the beloved country returns from the fleshpots of the coast and girds its collective loins to pile back into the salt mines, let’s take a moment to reflect on what Apple has achieved under the leadership of Tim Cook.

Many a pundit was predicting that the company would lose its mojo without the visionary genius of Steve Jobs at the helm. The past decade has seen none of the game-changing product launches of the Jobs era, but Apple has become astonishingly successful at making money.

A million dollars invested when Cook took over the hot seat would be worth $20m today with all dividends reinvested, as on a total return basis Apple has done 33% a year for a decade. It took the company 42 years to be worth $1-trillion. It added its second trillion of market cap in two years and its third in just over 16 months. Jobs may still be the one about whom all the movies are made, but Cook has proved to be extraordinarily capable at taking the ecosystem he inherited and making it pay.

With unparalleled supply chain expertise and diplomatic skills that have enabled Apple to build positive relationships everywhere from the Trump-era White House to Beijing, Cook has steered Apple clear of the backlash against tech giants’ intrusive harvesting of customer data.

The real jewel in Cook’s crown is the company’s services division, which delivered $70bn of revenue last year at margins of 70% on the back of App Store fees and about 800-million customers paying for digital media. With that loot arriving, who needs a big new idea?