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Apple is a personal electronics manufacturer and marketers. The company competes in personal computers, mp3 players, tablet computers, software and smartphones (Apple.com, 2011). Apple has improved revenues and profits rapidly of late (Apple, 2011). Apple is financially strong with a great balance sheet (MSN Moneycentral, 2011) and strong brand loyalty (Withers, 2008). The company's stock is currently trading at very high multiples because of its multi-year track record of hit product launches, its lack of slowdown during the recession and the company's continued ability to resonate with consumers. Apple's entrant into smartphones is the iPhone. Apple holds 25% share of the market, good for third place behind Android and Blackberry (Blodget, 2011). Apple just introduced its latest model smartphone, the iPhone 4.
Product Description
The iPhone 4 is the latest incarnation of Apple's iPhone line of smartphones. The smartphone market is divided by operating system, rather than device manufacturer. There are three companies that compete with their own operating system -- Apple, Blackberry (Research in Motion) and Palm. Other firms are device makers that utilize either a Microsoft operating system or Google's Android operating system. Other new entrants such as Nokia and Samsung are also expected to enter with proprietary operating systems (Maisto, 2010). Apple's operating system is proprietary and only used for iPhone and iPod Touch products. All smartphones are essentially feature-rich phones with Internet access, cameras, games and other assorted bells and whistles. Smartphones run programs, often from third parties, called apps (applications) and these enhance the entertainment value and usefulness of the phone. The iPhone pioneered the use of apps, and Apple still earns considerable income from its proprietary App Store, where it sells apps to consumers. The iPhone 4 is the latest incarnation of the iPhone, with updated features and performance compared with previous models.
New Product Development Process
Apple is notoriously secretive about its product development processes (Stone & Vance, 2009). The only thing that is known about the iPhone 4 development process is that Apple began with older versions of the iPhone, and added to them new features in order to create the iPhone 4. Customer feedback is part of the process by which new feature ideas are developed, while other ideas are developed in-house.
Environment Analysis
A PEST Analysis can help to understand a company's external operating environment, and the key factors within that environment that will impact on the company's performance (NetMBA, 2010). The political/legal environment is not of significance to Apple with respect to the iPhone. There are minor issues with regards to bandwidth auctions that may affect some of Apple's data partners, and this has resulted in AT&T placing limits on downloads at times but this has not proven to be significant to Apple. The economic environment is generally challenging, characterized by a slow economic recovery that should result in relatively sluggish growth in consumer discretionary spending (BEA, 2011). However, Apple's income statement shows that the company has generally proven immune to the economic downturn, as it recorded strong revenue and profit gains all through the recession (MSN Moneycentral, 2011).
The social environment is a very powerful influencer for Apple. Of note are several trends. The first is the large size of the baby boom echo generation, a wired generation with a predilection for consumer electronics and impressionable minds for Apple's brand-centric marketing (Leung, 2005). The second trend is towards increased integration of electronic devices into everyday life (Hanman, 2005). This high level of connectivity requires powerful devices, and this has in turn driven demand not just for Apple products in general but for Smartphone specifically.
The technological environment is the other key environment of importance to Apple. The company's current strong market position relies on its ability to deliver high levels of technological innovation. The pace of innovation in smartphones is very rapid -- new products are being introduced constantly, with new features being added. Industry observers point out that "no mobile device vendor no matter what their market position today will be in a comfort zone four years from now" (Evans, 2008). There have even been suggestions that smartphones will threaten the personal computer business (Cheney,...
Apple, Google Analysis of each company Apple is a designer and marketer of consumer electronic devices and software. The company is also vertically integrated with respect to retailing, operating its own stores and functioning as one of the biggest online retailers in the world. Apple's primary products are the iPhone ($80.4 billion), iPad ($32.4 billion) and portable computers ($17.1 billion). Other billion-dollar products are desktop computers, iPod music players, iTunes, peripherals and
Apple Inc. that was previously known as Apple Computer, Inc. is an American multi-national corporation that deals in consumer electronics, personal computers and computer software and was founded in 1976. Steve Jobs was the co-founder of Apple. During his stay as CEO, company launched series of revolutionary technologies. He died on October 5, 2011. Currently, Tim Cook is the CEO of Apple. Before being on this position, Cook was Apple's
Apple Corporation and Ethics Apple Corporation and Its Corporate Responsibility and Marketing Strategies Apple Inc.(2014) is an American corporation, which designs and produces computer hardware, software and other consumer. Its best-known products include the Macintosh personal computer line, Mac OS X, iTunes media applications and the iPod personal music player. Its headquarters are in Cupertino, California and has 284 retail locations in 10 different countries. It was opened on April 16, 1976
Apple Computer is one of the great corporate success stories of the past decade. On the back of a successive string of hit products, the company has experience rapid growth over the past several years. In its last fiscal year, ended 9/25/2010, Apple earned $14 billion on revenues of $65.2 billion (Apple Inc. Fiscal 2010 Form 10-K). These figures increased 70% and 52% respectively in fiscal 2010. Apple has a
74 and a cash ratio of 2.03. Apple has no long-term debt and a 2-to-1 debt ratio (MSN Moneycentral, 2010). Apple has relatively few weaknesses. The company's emphasis on software, marketing and design has left it with a weakness in hardware. Apple products do not have the superior lifespans one would expect from a product commanding a premium price tag. Another weakness is the dependence on leadership. Apple without Steve Jobs simply
The launch of The Apple Store, Apple's online retail center that made it the first major computer manufacturer to sell its products directly to consumers, was the third largest online retailer within a week of its launch, signaling the success of Jobs' new vision (Sanford 2010). Having bought out many of the company's licensing agreements with other manufacturers, Jobs was focusing on making the company entirely contained in its
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