Above Avalon:

For the second year in a row, Apple held a developers conference that should frighten its competitors. It speaks volumes that Apple held its strongest WWDC in years during the middle of a pandemic while two of its largest competitors, Google and Facebook, decided to skip their annual developers conferences.

Unfortunately for Apple competitors, the combination of a revised product strategy and unique definition of innovation didn’t just make for strong WWDC keynotes. Consumers are noticing and wanting what Apple is selling. Consider the following trends:

Apple hasn’t just held its own in the smartphone space but rather is continuing to take share from Android. Of all the smartphone manufacturers, Apple saw the largest sales share increase in the smartphone industry last quarter, and that was during a pandemic.

Apple is adding approximately 20 million new iPad users per year despite the iPad being 10 years old and already having an installed base exceeding 300 million users.

Apple’s oldest major product category, the Mac, is adding 10 million new users per year.

Apple Watch and AirPods are quickly approaching 100 million user bases each.

Apple users are paying for 518 million subscriptions across Apple’s platforms, which is up 126 million in just a year.

Lots to digest here but the bottom line is Apple seems to be hitting on all cylinders.