Will a TV or Car Be Enough to Keep Apple Atop the Food Chain?

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Calling tech giant Apple (AAPL) "a market darling" just does not seem to do the company any justice.

I say this because that description is also given to Google (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN) and, until recently, Chipotle (CMG). No disrespect to any of these companies but they have not come close to capturing the imagination of investors and consumers in the way that Apple has.

What's more, Apple is now the world's largest company by market cap as the Earth's population has seemingly decided it prefers iPhones over petroleum, given that it's been a year since Apple surpassed Exxon Mobil (XOM) for that distinction.

I wonder, however, is it time to look for another darling stock? Or more specifically, can Apple sustain its absurd growth trajectory? After all, the only constant on Wall Street of market leaders is that they don't remain market leaders forever.

Before you get somewhat uncomfortable, I am not suggesting that a Research in Motion (RIMM) sort of trip-up is imminent, nor that Apple will develop into the second coming of Nokia (NOK). But I think it is fair to say that neither company anticipated their current status either until Apple entered their market.

So in similar fashion I think concerns regarding Apple's growth prospects are legitimate, especially when in addition to Google, both Amazon and Microsoft (MSFT) have now planted their stakes in the race for smartphones and tablets with the goal of taking away, if not Apple's business, certainly its dominance.

So far Apple continues to do an excellent job of mitigating these threats. Then again, at one point so did Palm before RIM applied death-level pressure. The good thing for Apple is that it is not even close to reaching its peak and has many more years of exceptional growth.

But will it seize the right market opportunity once smartphones and mobile devices reach points of saturation? I think the company understands this.

To its credit, by recently cutting the prices of its legacy iPhone models, it has essentially entered a new market -- one where rivals such as Samsung have thrived. Samsung has become the #1 brand in terms of overall phone sales, in large part because of its more-affordable price point.

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