Apple’s WWDC Keynote Was Worth More Than $50 Billion

When Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage at Apple Park in Cupertino, California at 10 a.m. PDT on Monday, it was unclear what his presentation would hold. Would it be a live event, like Apple events in the past? Would there be an audience of employees and staff, like ABC’s reboot of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Would there be a sparse six-foot separated group cheering him on, as in the White House press briefings or the Pope’s most recent Masses at St. Peter’s Basilica? How would Apple, which has recently been alternating with Microsoft as the most valuable company in the world, keep moving its technology forward? How would the market value Apple’s keynote event, its first in the Coronavirus pandemic era?

After yesterday and today’s day of stock market trading, the answer is in: Apple stock has risen just over 4%, since Monday meaning Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference keynote was worth more than $50 billion to Apple shareholders. Not a bad day’s work. 

To be fair, most tech stocks rose on Tuesday, but Apple rose more than its FAANG peers. The difference kept Apple in a slight lead as the world’s most valuable company (over Microsoft) and caused numerous analysts to raise their stock price target for the company.

The results show the power of a well-designed and organized presentation. Apple wisely chose to free itself of the constraints of a live event and instead produced a tour of its products and campus, with various product leads as hosts of each facet of innovation. The resulting impression was one of a company that hasn’t lost a step during the pandemic.

In fact, rather than ignoring current events and plunging into its presentation right away, Cook chose to speak to a camera that focused on the empty seats in the theater as he discussed Apple’s response to the George Floyd protests and the Coronavirus challenge. Rather than avoid them, Apple chose to highlight the challenges, then roll out its product innovations.

After a two-hour showcase of incremental software improvements and a substantial hardware innovation with the announcement of the company’s plan to move to its own computer chips with Apple Silicon, Apple closed the event with rolling credits that highlighted how the video presentation was produced, with best practices that included:

• Daily health screenings and temperature checks.
• Proper social distancing was practiced and actively monitored.
• Face coverings were provided and word by everyone except the on-camera presenter.
• Only the crew and the presenter were in the areas where the production took place.
• When multiple presenters were featured, they were properly isolated from one another.
• Production locations were thoroughly and regularly sanitized.

These best practices are likely to become the industry standard given how successful Apple’s event proved to be.