If Apple ever to launches an iPhone that fails to live up to customers’ expectation, the company may be done for.
While Apple, to its credit, has been trying to diversify its product offerings (with the car and Watch projects), it is still very much beholden to its iPhone product line, which generated 63.2% of the company’s reported $49 billion revenue in Q3 of 2015.
To put this in perspective, the iPhone line generated $146.6 billion in revenue for Apple in the last fiscal year — putting it above the combined annual revenues of Google, Facebook and Twitter.
About that car market Apple is planning to enter by 2020?
Yeah, the entire premium car market (including Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche, Audi, etc.) generates about $220 billion in annual revenue — just approximately 34% more than Apple’s most profitable product, according to A16Z’s Benedict Evans.
If you’d like to read more about how much the iPhone means to Apple, read this great article by Apple analyst Neil Cybart.
Apple is scheduled to unveil its next generation line of iPhones on September 9th.