As we celebrate the 5-year anniversary of Apple’s iPhone and praise the company for remarkable innovation and countless achievements I can’t help but reflect upon all the collateral damage done in the technology sector. This is where the “Zero-Sum” concept is evident. When companies stop innovating and listening to their customers, it gives competitors (and Startups) the opportunity to disrupt the sector but grabbing market share, sales, profits, customers, employees, investors and much more.
Over the past 5 years, Apple’s stock ($AAPL) is up +380% which has added $423 billion of market cap bringing Apple’s current market cap to $548 bilion. As I stated above, with regards to the “Zero-Sum” game, sometimes in order for there to be a winner there must also be a loser(s). Let’s examine the losers…
These performance & market cap stats are based on the past 5 years:
- Blackberry ($RIMM) > down -94% > lost $71 billion of value
- Hewlett Packard ($HPQ) > down -56% > lost $100 billion of value
- Nokia ($NOK) > down -95% > lost $140 billion of value
- Motorola ($MSI) > down -34% > lost $10 billion of value
- Best Buy ($BBY) > down -55% > lost $12 billion of value
- Dell Computer ($DELL) > down -56% > lost $32 billion of value
- Kodak (Bankrupt) > down -100% > lost $8 billion of value
- TOTAL VALUE LOST = $373 BILLION
- I was unable to find data for Circuit City (now bankrupt) along with the thousands of small music stores and computer outlets that Apple probably put out of business. I also decided not to include Barnes & Noble or Borders because Amazon is just as much responsible for the demise of those companies.
Jonah Lupton's Blog 