Here is your daily Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock news and rumors for August 3, 2010. Apple takes third place in global market share amongst portable computer manufacturers while the company’s rumored cloud-based iTunes service sees new delays. Also, Apple’s E-book pricing through the iBookstore comes under review after accusations of anticompetitive pricing.
AAPL Gains Third Largest Market Share Amongst Portable Computer Manufacturers Thanks to iPad: Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore published a new research report in Forbes magazine that shows that Apple Inc. is now the third leading manufacturer of portable computers in the world. Apple used to trail behind Toshiba, Dell, and Asus but the success of their tablet computer, the iPad, has helped Apple gain significant ground over its competitors. The Cupertino, California company now only trails Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and Chinese tech company Lenovo on the international stage. Given the consensus amongst other analysts as to the iPad’s continued sales success over the next fiscal year, AAPL should be able to maintain a healthy grip on its new-found market share amongst portable computer and notepad manufacturers.
Rumored iTunes Cloud Service Delayed Again: It’s been widely suspected that Apple would launch a brand new, cloud-based version of its iTunes music service after the company acquired Lala late last year. Lala did not have even a fraction of the audience that Apple’s current downloadable-data-based iTunes service, but its growing popularity made the streaming, cloud-based service a threat to Apple’s near-monopoly on the digital music marketplace. It was believed earlier this year that Apple would relaunch the service under the iTunes branding alongside the release of the iPad or iPhone 4, but the service has yet to materialize. Now, in a report at CNet, the word is that Apple’s new cloud-based iTunes won’t launch until next year. Citing myriad issues with licensing, CNet claims that a preview version of the service, lacking many full features, could launch by the end of 2010. There is also word of internal strife in Apple’s music division. Sources in the music industry claimed that one of Lala’s founders who made the jump to Apple following the acquisition has since left the company.
Apple’s E-book Contracts Evaluated After Accusations of Being Anti-Competitive: A report in the Wall Street Journal Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has conducted a review of Apple and Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) current contracts with book publishers dictating E-book pricing. The reason the contracts have come under scrutiny is that the current agreements may be anticompetitive, making E-book pricing uniform over multiple platforms and keeping the market from developing healthy price fluctuation, thus spurring greater consumer sales. Part of the problem is the “agency” pricing model used by Apple Inc’s iBookstore and others. The company serving the eBooks under this model takes a cut of each sale. (Apple themselves take a whopping 30% of every E-book sale.) The Connecticut review is the second such inquiry in recent months, following another in Texas.
As of this writing, Anthony Agnello did not own shares in any of the stocks named here.
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