Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will get its rumored iWatch to compete versus other wearables in the market based on design and on luxury, Jon Steinberg and Slava Rubin said in a recent discussion on CNBC.
According to Rubin, North America CEO of the Daily Mail, recent news about Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) point to the much-awaited iWatch. Furthermore, those hints also point to the iPhone-maker intending their wearable to compete on design. He explained:
“They’re hiring a designer because they want to under-geek everybody. Everybody else’s watches as too geeky, are too complex, [and] are too bulky so Apple is going to flank them with high design because the feature set as we know them is basically integration with your desktop [and] integration with your phone. The features that are being commoditized so they have to fight on design like they always have.”
Carl Quintanilla noted that the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) smartwatch will likely be an expensive device when it is released. Steinberg said that if you compare Android devices with iOS devices, Apple-made products are expensive and capture the bulk of the profits but have low penetration whereas Android products capture the bulk of users with low profits.
As for Slava Rubin, he noted that personnel buildup, the most recent is the sales director of Tag Heuer being hired by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), can be a way to anticipate an iWatch. He explained:
“I think it’s a fair signal. Apple [already] brought in the CEO of Burberry. I think they’re showing that this is about something that you want not something that you need. The early stages of the watch is going to be about luxury. It’s going to be about showing people that this is going to make your life better, not because you need it like food and water. I think it’s really smart in the early stages to go after companies and people that have been doing this for decade if not centuries.”
Watch the video where Steinberg also discussed how design matters a great deal and why the wearables market is not being overestimated.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shareholders includes Ric Dillon’s Diamond Hill Capital which reported by the end of March 319,622 shares in the company. Also by that period, Christopher R. Hansen’s Valiant Capital reported 258,431 shares in the company.
Disclosure: None
