*By Conor White*
Apple, the world's most valuable publicly traded company, may be seriously undervalued, said longtime tech investor Eric Jackson, founder and president at EMJ Capital. He told Cheddar that the iPhone maker should've crossed the $1 trillion threshold long ago.
"This is a company that should be valued as a services business instead of a discreet product business, which is, as long as I can remember, how this company has been valued," he said in an interview Friday.
Jackson estimated Apple's value closer to $1.5 trillion, and he views it as a service-oriented company, much like Salesforce and Google, which get traded at roughly six times price-to-sales multiple.
Though many investors consider Apple a hardware company, Jackson said most consumers have a different relationship with Apple's products.
"Your relationship with your iPhone itself is a long-term service commitment," he said. "Even though you don't have a contract that says your next iPhone you're going to upgrade in one year or two years, who among us who owns an iPhone is not going to, in three to four years, upgrade to the latest and greatest iPhone?"
As bullish as Jackson is on Apple, he admitted China ー and consumers in other countries ー may stunt the company's growth because the iPhone faces competition from cheaper smartphones.
"China is a challenge, for sure, probably the biggest challenge that Apple faces in that regard because you have other services like WeChat that can potentially get in between your personal relationship with the phone," Jackson said.
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/why-one-investor-believes-apple-is-worth-more-than-1-trillion).
The Super Bowl is only a few days away, and the game is currently tracking to be the most expensive one ever.
Gametime, a website and app for last-minute tickets, says the average ticket price for the NFL's championship game is $9,502.50, with the most expensive seats costing nearly $38,000. That's a far cry away from the average ticket price of the first-ever Super Bowl in 1967, which was only $12. The average ticket price increased by more than $8,000 in just the past decade. Matt Rados, Senior Operations Manager at Gametime, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Earlier this week, digital investment advisor Betterment announced that it has hired Makara, a company known for its management of cryptocurrency portfolios. Sarah Levy, CEO of Betterment, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where she explains why crypto represents such a promising long-term play and how her company stands to benefit from this latest move.
At-home medical labs company Getlabs raised $20 million in a Series A round, led by Emerson Collective and the Minderoo Foundation. Getlabs aims to be the boots-on-the-ground partner to telehealth. The company says more than 70% of medical decisions still require collecting diagnostic tests in person, and that it fills that void by delivering health care directly to their patients' homes. Founder & CEO of Getlabs Kyle Michelson joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
The White House laid out plans for a $5 billion investment into a national network of charging stations to ease EV driving anxiety. Bruce Brimacombe, CEO of EV infrastructure GOe3 joined Cheddar News to discuss how much needs to be done for drivers to get over the fear of running out of energy. "People need to be able to do what they're doing now," he said. "But that is the way that if you're going to buy an electric car, you got to feel like you're not changing your world." Brimacombe noted that building out the infrastructure between cities was GOe3's own focus.
U.S. automakers are saying that the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge, a crucial border crossing between the U.S. and Canada, is affecting their production lines. Michelle Krebs of Cox Automotive warns that the disruption "couldn't come at a worst time," amid chip and labor shortages in Detroit.
AND DETROIT-BASED AUTO MAKERS SAY THEY ARE SHUTTING DOWN PLANTS OR SCALING BACK PRODUCTION BECAUSE OF PARTS SHORTAGES.
Sonos reported better than expected Q1 earnings amid chip shortage with the release of its Roam product. CFO Brittany Bagley joined Cheddar News to discuss the smart speaker maker's successful report and its plans to hit its 2024 targets as people leave their homes as pandemic restrictions ease. "Even as people head out in the world, it doesn't mean they don't like to listen to music at home or watch a streaming movie at home," she said. "So there's still a real role for us and our products in peoples lives, sort of, no matter what else they're doing."
