Riding in Apple's slipstream

Apple products are selling like umbrellas in a thunderstorm, and the company's share price has hit an all-time high as a result.Give it a week or so and the stock market capitalisation of the trendy consumer electronics firm could surpass that of Microsoft: Apple is capitalised at $245,515m, Microsoft at $271,446m.Apple shares, at more than $270 a throw, are a mite expensive on a multiple of 22.6 times projected fiscal 2010 earnings. That has prompted investors to search around for other stocks that might be benefiting from Apple mania.Trouble is, Apple does not make that easy to do, being very secretive about what components go into its gadgets.For some in the tech world that has just proved a challenge and an invitation to pull apart iPods (music players), iPhone (smartphones), iPads (tablet computers), rip out their chips, dunk them in acid or pass them through X-ray machines in an attempt to find out what's under the hood.Despite all this detective work, worthy, perhaps of a series called CSI:Cupertino (the California headquarters of Apple), tech-heads are still not entirely sure what goes into each device, particularly as the mix of components is prone to change each time a device is upgraded.For example, Scottish chip manufacturer Wolfson Microelectronics used to supply chips that were used in early versions of the iPhone. The Scottish company also provided components for the iPod. Its share price took a tumble in March 2008 when it revealed that a "major tier one customer" - which everyone guessed was Apple - had opted not to use Wolfson products in its next generation of products.One British company which almost certainly has products used in both the iPhone and the recently released iPad is Cambridge chip designer ARM.ARM's chief executive, Warren East, recently hinted as much, saying at the beginning of February in an interview with The Guardian newspaper prior to the launch of the iPad that "I have seen all the same speculation that you have seen and I can point out the fact that they [Apple] publicised the fact that it runs Apple iPhone and iPod Touch applications straight off and from that you can do some inferring." ARM's microchip designs feature in 90% of the mobile phones sold worldwide including the iPhone. It also has its intellectual property included in the design of the iPod portable music player. Consequently, when Apple does well, ARM does well.CSR, another Cambridge based technology, is believed to supply wireless chips for Apple products, as well as Nokia, the global leader in the mobile devices market, and Research In Market, the clear leader in the smartphone market.Some fifty miles from Cambridge in the Hertfordshire town of Kings Langley is the head office of Imagination Technologies, another UK tech company which has a long standing relationship with Apple (as a number of correspondents have been quick to remind me).Though best known to the man in the street for their digital radios sold under the Pure brand, the company's main business is the design of computer chips that deliver enhanced on-screen graphics, The company's intellectual property has been used in the iPhone and in late 2008 Apple decided it liked the company so much it spent £3.2m taking a 3.6% stake in the company. Subsequently, after US chip maker Intel boosted its stake in Imagination, Apple increased its holding to around 9.5%.As well as the UK tech companies retailers such as Carphone Warehouse and Tesco are benefiting from the iPhone craze, as is mobile phone network operator Vodafone.Looking overseas, and bear in mind this is purely based on speculation from those in the tech world, companies that appear to be major suppliers for Apple include Samsung, the Korean industrial conglomerate; Infineon, the German technology company that was spun of from Siemens; Broadcom, the US networking specialist; Japanese technology firm Toshiba; Korean flat screen company LG Display, and Taiwanese computer components maker Hon Hai, which trades under the Foxconn name.It is worth remembering that Apple is not the only game in town when it comes to the soaring popularity of mobile devices. As mentioned above, Finland's Nokia is still the world's number one while Canada's Research In Motion's market share of the smartphone market dwarfs that of the iPhone with its Blackberry product.Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Google are other operators that will not let Apple have it all its own way, which suggests that companies such as Wolfson, which appear to have fallen out of favour at Apple, can still do very nicely out of this particular tech boom.