Apple VP Williams: 'The Car Is The Ultimate Mobile Device'

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) wowed technology aficionados at a conference Thursday with a teasing comment about his company's potential interest in the automotive market.

"The car is the ultimate mobile device," Apple Senior VP Jeff Williams said, according to Re/code.

Apple is rumored to have several hundred employees secretly at work on an Apple-branded electric vehicle, according to several reports that surfaced in February, citing informed but anonymous sources.

The company hasn't confirmed the project.

"We're exploring a lot of different markets," Williams told the conference, according to Re/code, which sponsored the event.

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Williams said a decision to jump into new businesses isn't based on potential revenue growth, but rather on "which ones are ones where we think we can make a huge amount of difference," the outlet said.

Many observers regard an Apple-made automobile as extremely unlikely, according to the Financial Times, which noted the company lacks factories.

"It's one thing to draw pictures but it's a quantum leap to manufacture things," an industry executive told the British newspaper.

Apple currently offers CarPlay, which incorporates iPhone services like navigation, messaging and music into automobile dashboards.

Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL), which offers the similar Android Auto, plans to build a fleet of around 200 self-driving cars for testing its autonomous driving technology.