Apple’s Best Hope Moves Overseas

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Dec 4, 6:17AM EST

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) announced that the iPhone 5 should become available in 50 additional national markets by year’s end. These include critical ones because of their sizes and number of smartphone users — Brazil, Russia, South Korea and Taiwan. In the same announcement, Apple took the opportunity to state that the iPhone 5 already has started its path to conquest in 47 other markets. Apple can claim that its flagship product can be bought almost everywhere. The news should please investors worried about Apple’s prospects.

The overseas expansion was enough to complete the press release, but Apple took the chance to describe the iPhone’s wonderful features once more:

iPhone 5 is the thinnest and lightest iPhone ever, completely redesigned to feature a stunning new 4-inch Retina display; an Apple-designed A6 chip for blazing fast performance; and ultrafast wireless—all while delivering even better battery life

And:

iPhone 5 comes with iOS 6, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system with over 200 new features including: Shared Photo Streams, Facebook integration, all-new Maps app, Passbook organization and even more Siri features and languages.

These comments were another chance for Apple to state the superiority of the iPhone 5 over rivals — foremost among them the Samsung Galaxy S III.

Much of the battle between Samsung and Apple needs to be settled in court, as each tries to make the case that the other has violated its patents. However, the Apple release shows that the U.S. company is prepared to fight any and all competition, country by country, store by store, and wireless partner by wireless partner.

Apple’s share price has dropped 14% over the past three months. Critics say this is because Apple cannot continue to grow at past levels. That is not likely to be true. About 60% of Apple’s revenue comes from overseas. Given the size of the largest cellular markets outside America and the revenue potential these represent, Apple’s footprint certainly could grow. The new countries where the iPhone 5 is available have combined populations in the billions. And most are building out, at different paces, new high-speed wireless networks.

Apple’s investors can look ahead and see that the decline in its stock has little basis in what the company can produce in revenue growth in the future — even if all that growth comes from outside the United States.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.