9 September 2014: Apple unveils Apple Pay and the Apple Watch
Apple introduced the iPhone 6, the iPhone 6 Plus, the Apple Watch and Apple Pay at a single event in Cupertino. The bigger iPhones sold in huge numbers, and Apple Pay pushed tap-to-pay into the mainstream with banks and card networks on board. The watch was mocked at first, then became the best-selling watch in the world. Hardware brought customers in; services kept them paying.
The lesson: An ecosystem that keeps customers coming back can be worth more than any single hit gadget.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Apple at the start of 2015 → $9,259 today, vs $3,301 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2015, the first year in our price data after the event. That is 9.3 times the money, and $5,958 more than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Apple teaches: The best returns often come from companies that looked finished; Apple was a near-bankrupt also-ran in 1997, which is exactly why it was cheap.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | $27.00 | $9,259 | $3,301 |
| 2018 | $43.00 | $5,814 | $2,519 |
| 2020 | $75.00 | $3,333 | $2,092 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Apple? Every starting year and the full story →
More Apple history
- 2 January 2019: Tim Cook writes a letter nobody wanted to read
- 9 January 2007: Steve Jobs unveils the iPhone
- 24 January 1984: The Macintosh goes on sale
- 27 January 2010: Apple unveils the iPad
- 1 April 1976: Apple is founded, and one co-founder cashes out early
- 11 April 1976: The Apple I goes on sale for $666.66
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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