The Competitive Forces Of Apple

Thesis Statement: The Apple Corporation exceeds competing companies in product sales because of the company’s high recognition as a top selling brand, along with the dependability of its product and the technological innovations it consistently provides for consumers.

In the last five years, Apple’s market share exceed over 255%, which can be compared to doubling the NASDQ’s returns. Many investors start to invest in Apple which makes their iPads and iPhones very popular. One main component to their competitive advantage is Apple’s long term strengths. Apple’s protected ecosystem and their brand outlook are two of their long term strengths. Apple makes their company unique by

Last quarterly reports released by Apple in 2010 reveals that 58 percent of its revenue, excluding Apple store sales came from outside of America (Kane, June 8, 2010). Apple outsources to several countries with China being the main location for the production of iPads. Apple hasn’t had difficulty adjusting to the global market, although consumers have brought into question the treatment of foreign workers employed at the Foxconn factory located in China. Apple has addressed the issues, but in light of this situation Apple’s stocks have remained high.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife,

Many people all over the world own products manufactured by Apple, a multinational organization that is credited with revolutionizing the technology industry. The company was formed by Steve Wozniak, Ronald Wayne and Steve Jobs in 1976. During that time, computers were only available to scholars and researchers. However, the company made computers available for the use of ordinary people in the 1980s. Additionally, Apple has launched innovative products whose features have simplified business, education, and technology. The company is ranked among the most profitable companies in the world, achieving a whopping revenue of $170 billion in 2014 (Lusted 2010). This paper describes Apple’s strategies that contribute towards its success in the highly competitive technology industry.

As the market growth shifts to emerging markets, Apple 's price positioning will impact competitiveness. Throught the integration model, both horizontally and vertically, the company was able to build non replicable and sustainable competitive advantages .Is engaged in design, development and marketing of personal computers,media devices, and portable digital musical players.

Apple began as a conventional computer company, and has proven to be be one of the world’s biggest distributors and designers of electronic devices such as computers and laptops, smartphones, tablets, music players, and now watches and televisions. Apple’s distinct business model offers a unique operating system for all its products. In recent years, Apple has branched out into entertainment and information services. Currently, Apple is one of the world’s largest online retailers of music, streaming video and software solutions, including applications for smartphones (Makos, J. 2015). With any organization there are opportunities and threats. We will examine environmental threats and opportunities that could impact Apple, as well as, where Apple should focus their efforts to decrease the threats and maximize the opportunities.

Apple experienced a significant spike in advertising expenditures that correlated with the release of the new iPhone and iPad products in 2010. Nevertheless, Apple’s spending on advertisement never topped one percent of total sales. Furthermore, Apple spent only 0.6% of total sales on advertising compared to Samsung’s 2.3% of total sales spent. Despite the refined marketing and advertising expenditures, Apple’s 2012 earnings grew by $48.2 billion, a 45% increase from 2011, compared to Samsung’s earnings growth of 21.9% (SMInsights, 2014). Thus, Apple was able to achieve the best return from marketing and advertising spending in the industry. Apple’s advertising money is spent more effectively than its direct competition and provides greater returns in terms of revenue, brand value, and recognition. In doing so, Apple creates a competitive advantage that has proven very difficult to match.

Q2: What do you think are the three most important factors in Apple’s incredible success? Justify your answer.

OVERVIEW Apple Inc. Strategy Facts Scope The focus of this project is the Mac portable personal computer line of Apple in the United States, a part of its Americas division. Apple is a publicly owned Fortune 100 company based in Cupertino, California. The firm operates primarily in the personal computer industry of the wider technology sector. Apple designs, produces, and sells a line of personal computers as well as mobile phones, portable digital media devices, software, and related peripherals and accessories. The firm sells internationally though a mix of direct sales, online

Apple Inc.’s internal structure has become flexible as divisions are specifically established to develop the latest product and maintain a competitive advantage. Apples industry segments were than explored and it was noted that it was not possible to absolutely define a market which Apple consistently performed in. Apple Inc.’s multi-functional product base gave a clearly indication of the underlying strategic management at play. It was accepted that Apple has defined its own market segment, that of ‘mobile electronic devices’. The four main strategic management themes of M.E. Porter (focus, differentiation and cost leadership), G. Hamel & C.K. Prahalad (structuralist), W.C. Kim and R. Mauborgne (reconstructionist) and J. Ridderstråle and K. Nordström (intellect, uniqueness and innovation) were examined in light of Apple Inc.’s most recent performance. The Blue Ocean Strategy and the Funky Business Strategy models were found to be the most applicable and helped explained Apple Inc.’s sustained and phenomenal rise in business performance. Finally, strategy recommendations for the future direction of Apple Inc were explored by the use of a Strategy Canvas. Possible pitfalls and hypothetical futuristic products were also explored. The single most strategic liability identified was the departure of the CEO Steve Jobs from Apple which could potentially be

The case that Apple is dealing with is somewhat of a unique case. It is hard to believe that such a profitable organization can be solely run and operated off of one man’s vision and leadership. This article states that Apple fell as a company when Steve Jobs was fired in the 1980’s and is predicting another fall somewhere in the future now that Steve Jobs is deceased. Steve Jobs’ ideas did not only innovate the market but he strategically positioned Apple to build on one another to create sales revenue from all different target markets using 3 devices along with apps. Since Steve Jobs passed, there have not been any new innovations that Apple has released. Because of this, the case is reporting that Apple is headed towards a more sluggish period than they had become accustomed to.

Nowadays, Apple has positioned itself to be an innovator in the personal computer industry and Apple has developed by offering modern products compared to its competitors. According to Apple’s mission statement last year, “Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.” (Business Management,

This paper presents a case study of Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is a technology based corporation with emphasis on computer software and hardware (MAC and Apps), tablets (IPad), smart phones (IPhone), and mp3 plays, (ITouch). Apple Inc. has grown tremendously over the years and ever since 2001 has expanded its brand and retail stores to over 375 stores/outlets globally. The business has seventy two thousand eight hundred employees in thirty eight countries. Apple Inc. has truly become one of the most efficacious corporations within its field behind or competing with Microsoft and Google Inc.

One of the competitive strategies for Apple Inc. lies in its string Sales and Marketing positioning all across the world tough its exclusive Apple stores or in the form of franchise stores. Another competitive advantage of the company lies in its Research & Development capability. This strategy has long been a source of competitive advantage to beat the competitive rivals, both in the domestic market (like Microsoft Windows operating System and Apple’s Macintosh), Google Inc. (Android mobile operating system and Apple’s iOS) s well as in the international competitors like South Korean giant, Samsung and Finnish mobile maker, Nokia Inc. (University of Oregon Investment Group 2012).