Four Keys to Apple's Success

With another 35 million iPhones, 11.8 million iPads, 7.7 million iPods, and 4 million Macs sold, Apple impressed investors with its Q2 results. Since the company's earnings were announced after the market close yesterday, the stock has soared, initially rising 7%, and now hovering between an increase of 9% and 10%. Prior to Apple's AAPL second-quarter reveal, Benzinga spoke with Trip Chowdhry, the Managing Director of Equity Research at Global Equities Research. He said that for Apple's products to be successful, the company has to get four things right -- all at the same time. "(1) You should get the pricing right, (2) you need to get the timing right, (3) you need to get positioning right, (4) and then you have to make sure the ecosystem is ready," said Chowdhry. If the company's earnings are any indication, it would seem that Apple has become an expert at each of those four elements. But Chowdhry credits Steve Jobs with most of the firm's success. "[Great leaders] are not created by doing customer focus groups," said Chowdhry. "They are born from instincts, intuition -- you just have it, as a person, like Steve Jobs had, and a few other people in a few other industries had." Follow me @LouisBedigianBZ