Former CEO John Sculley: Apple must adapt or die
John Sculley, the former PepsiCo president who served as CEO of Apple during most of the 1980s and early 1990s, says that while Apple is "an extraordinary company," it has not done enough to adapt its products to suit emerging markets.
In a video interview with Bloomberg on Monday, Scully – who is perhaps best known for a 1985 coup in which he ousted Apple cofounder Steve Jobs – warned that Cupertino's growth in developed markets such as the US and Europe is bound to slow, as those markets are already growing saturated.
Emerging markets will be the key to future success, Sculley says, but there's no way Apple will be able to gain a foothold in the developing world as long as its products are priced like luxury items. "Apple's a premium-priced story," Sculley said. "And now it needs to adapt to where the growth is, which is the emerging markets. And the price points are going to be dramatically different in the emerging markets."
