'Apple: The First Trillion-Dollar Company?'

[ed] Dave Morgan is always one of the more astute and analytical writers in the online game.  Great reflection today on a panel of big hitters that led to a talk on Apple's growth potential...

I participate on panels at a lot of trade and banking conferences, but probably none as fun and engaging as this past Tuesday's Gridley & Company's IDEA conference in New York. On our panel, which closed out the conference, was Kevin Ryan, CEO of Gilt Groupe; George Bell, CEO of Jumptap; Russ Fradin, former CEO of Adify and now CEO of Dynamic Signal; and our moderator, Henry Blodget of Business Insider.

The panel was a repeat performance from last year and, just as they did the year before, our hosts opened up the bar before the session started, and made sure to serve the panelists in addition to the audience. As you can imagine, it only enhanced what was certain to be the kind of frank discussion you might expect to hear from some grizzled digital entrepreneurs. That chemistry led to a number of thought-provoking exchanges among Henry and the panelists, but one really stood out for me.

At the end of the session, Henry asked what we thought about Apple's prospects over the next few years. We all agreed that Apple was on a tear and that the company's growth wasn't likely to slow down for some time. Then, Henry asked how high we thought that Apple's stock price could go. Kevin jumped right in and declared that Apple could be the world's first trillion-dollar company. Apple is doing great, but that's a pretty bold statement, given the company's current market capitalization of just above $300 million dollars.

I think Kevin is right. Here's why:
Apple is out-innovating and out-executing the entire market. No other company is delivering better consumer electronics products with better content and communications experiences to the market, and iterating them constantly, than Apple. Not only that, but no one else is delivering consumer electronic products and related software and content at the scale, and with the degree of customer service, that Apple is today. Not Sony. Not Samsung. Not LG. Not Google. No one.

iPhone and iPad market apogees well in the distance. As many iPhones and iPads as Apple has sold so far, the company has barely begun. Only this week did the largest mobile carrier in the U.S. announce plans to sell and support iPhones. IPad penetration in the U.S. is less than 3% of consumers. Hardware costs for both products are falling at an extraordinary rate. It is not inconceivable that in three years iPhones will be free with a standard mobile contract and iPads will cost less than $50. And, what happens when the 700 million Chinese and Indian mobile telephone users have access to affordable iPhones and iPads?

No close competitors yet. I spent the better part of last week at the Consumer Electronics Show. For as much cool stuff as I saw, I didn't see anything that was ready to truly rival Apple's products. Certainly, competitive or even superior products will show up in the market soon. However, given the rate with which Apple's business is accelerating, it has established a lead on competitors that will be nearly impossible to close. Apple is likely to be still gaining -- not losing -- market share for the better part of this decade.

What about Facebook? Kevin also said he thought Facebook could very well be the second trillion-dollar company. Might that happen? I don't know, but Facebook is certainly building an extraordinary business with extraordinary prospects for the future. Of course, I don't think that company strategists are doing anything that necessarily makes their success mutually exclusive to Apple's.
What do you think? Will Apple become the first trillion-dollar company?