Apple Company: Market Analysis and Operation in Different Market Structures

This report provides an analysis of Apple Company's market structure and its operation in different market structures. It discusses the company's history, products, and services, and its revenue and market share. It also suggests whether operating in different market structures is optimal for the company.

APPLE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
1. Description of Apple Company...............................................................................................3
2. Analysis of Market..................................................................................................................4
3. Operation in different market structure in the past..................................................................6
4. Discussion and suggestion on the basis of industry’s nature in which Apple is operating.....9
(a) Is operating in different market structure is optimal for Apple Inc.?.....................................9
b. Suggestion regarding governmental intervention..................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Apple Inc. is known as an American MNC operating in technological sector and specialises in
online services, consumers electronics and computer software (Tasnim, 2018). Therefore, in this
report, discussion will be done Apple’s history and its various products and services along with
the analysis of in which market the operating and the reason of why a particular market structure
has been chosen over the others. Further, it would be discussed that whether the company has its
operation in different market structure or not along with the reflection on the characteristics of its
previous market structure. At last, by giving consideration to the nature of industry in which
Apple is currently operating, discussion will be done regarding whether operating in different
market structure would be optimal for the firm and suggestions will be made regarding greater or
lesser government intervention.
MAIN BODY
1. Description of Apple Company
Apple Inc. is an American based multinational technology company which was founded in
the year 1976 and having the experience of 45 years in information technology. Apple is a public
company having headquarter in California, US and also traded in Nasdaq-100 stock exchange.
The company is basically one of the largest and most valuable company by its revenue. The total
revenue earns by the company from the sale of its various products and services in the year 2021
is US$ 365.8 billion. The various products of Apple Inc. include iPhone, iPad, iPod, Macintosh
etc. and the various services offer by the company includes Apple store, Apple music, iCloud,
iTunes Stores etc. The financial performance of the company is getting better day by day with
having operating income, net income, total assets, total equity in the year 2021 is US$ 108.949
billion, US$ 94.680 billion, US$ 351.022 billion and US$ 63.090 billion respectively (Liu and
Lv, 2021).
The company have its operation all over the world with around 516 stores worldwide as
per the 2021 annual report. The total number of employees working in Apple company in the
year 2020 is 147000 and as of January 2021, there are around 1.65 billion products of Apple are
actively used by the consumers.

2. Analysis of Market
Market structure refers to the characteristics of different market that helps in the
determination of relation between buyer and sellers of the companies. The four types of market
structure include perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly and monopoly. For
example, Apple Inc. is operating in the oligopoly market ever since its inception. The market
structure of Apple company basically changes over the period of time depends upon the products
and services they offer to the consumers. Based on its smartphone products i.e., iPhones the
company operates in the oligopoly market because the number of firms at the starting stage
dealing in the smartphones in quite low. At the starting stage, there are mainly two firms which
focus on the manufacturing of smartphones and that is Apple and Samsung. It is because other
firm players like Dell, Lenovo is focusing over the production of computer systems, laptops etc.
The oligopoly market structure basically arises in the case of imperfect competition which means
there are very few firms that supply the similar products (Moreno Belloso, 2021).
Apple company operates in oligopoly market structure because the number of firm sold
similar product i.e., smartphone is limited at that time. The company have the ability to dictate
and change the prices and supply of the iPhone and other smartphones. Few firms with large
market share is one of the reason behind the oligopoly market share of the company. The
oligopoly market means that top three firms of the industry has combined market share of more
than 50%. For example, top three electronic brands of US are Apple, HP and Dell whose
combined market share is around 86% as per the October, 2021. The market shares of Apple in
the year 2021 is 24% while market share of HP and Dell is 35% and 27% respectively (Van De
Vliert, 2021). This is the reason behind oligopolistic market of Apple. The Apple company
operates in the oligopoly market is because at the initial stage they maintain their position in the
market through imposing number of barrier in the market position.
Top Companies in Electronic industry of US with its revenue and market shares
Companies Revenue (USD Billions) Headquarters
Apple Inc. 260.17 USA
Samsung 221.6 South Korea

Hon Hai Precision 175.62 Taiwan
Huawei 122.97 China
Dell 90.62 USA
Hitachi 88.42 Japan
Sony 80.92 Japan
Panasonic 74.73 Japan
Intel 71.9 USA
LG Electronic 54.39 South Korea
The above data and graph indicates the revenue share of the top electronic companies
operates in the same industry in which Apple Inc. operates. It is identified from the above data
that the revenue of Apple company in 2020 is USD 260.17 billion which is highest share as
compared to the other companies (Liu, 2021). This means that the revenue share of Apple

company is highest as compared to the other companies which further state that company
operates in the oligopoly and monopolistic competitions. The company also operated in the
monopolitic market based on its other products such as computers, laptops etc. It is because the
products such as computers and laptops are highly provided by other firm as well. The products
of Apple are highly differenciated and the new firms can easily enter the maket and exist in the
long run. In this market, Apple company can easily make the decision without competitors
influence and have the some degree of market power.
On the basis of above analysis, it can be said that Apple company operates in the different
market struture based on the products it manufacture and sold to the consumers. The revenue
share of the company is highest and Apple is one of the most leading and valuable company by
its revenue. Beside this, Apple company also operates in monopoly market based on the software
apps services on iOS devices.
3. Operation in different market structure in the past
Apple can be said to have been operating in different market structure since its inception.
Currently, it is considered to be operating in oligopolistic and monopolistic market structure for
its different products line such as smart phones and branded computers respectively (Dolata,
2018). With regards to the historical market structure of Apple, it has been identified that the has
moved from monopoly to monopolistic then to oligopolistic market structure. Firstly, when
Apple entered the market with the manufacturing and usage of personal computers, it was
enjoying monopoly due its quality, name and fame. But with the changes in its management and
styles related to it there are many opportunities that the company misses out to competitors
which leads to entrance of other firms such as Dell, Gateway and Microsoft. However, company
has introduced many other products in the market to conquered its competitors and gets
successful as well which makes the company a unique establishment till date (Hovenkamp and
Shapiro, 2018). However, in different products of the company there are multiple players that are
providing differentiated products at higher or lower than the company’s price creating a
monopolistic market structure for the company. There are number of competitors of Apple for its
different products such as within its smartphone market, it is facing tough competition from
Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei and Oppo. In the market for personal computers, Apple is facing

competition from Lenovo, Acer, Dell, HP Inc and Asus and within its tablets market, there is a
tough competition from Asus, Huawei, Samsung and Amazon, however, Apple is considered to
be a dominant leader in tablet market at global level (Svensson-Hoglund and et.al., 2021).
In the recent time, Apple has been regarded to as operating in oligopolistic market
structure for its smart phones brands that is, iPhone and iPads. The oligopoly is in terms of
operating system installed within the smart phones and the reason for such an oligopoly is due to
the higher cost involved in entering this industry and thus acting as a barrier to entry.
The characteristics of historical market structure in which Apple has operated since its inception
are as follows:
Monopoly market structure
 There is only a single seller ruling the market and where the demand for the monopolized
product is equivalent to the demand for output produced by this single firm. Accordingly,
the firm known as a prime maker instead of price taker (Durand and Milberg, 2020).
 There is an existence of unique product having no close substitutes.
 The base on which monopolies created are getting license from the government, owning
unique resources, having copyrights or patents and the start of business involve high
costs. All these bases acts as barriers to entry.
Monopolistic market structure
 There are many sellers in the market giving wide variety of choices to consumers.
 Competition arises as number of sellers have quite differentiated offerings.
 There are very less barriers to entry or exit due to lower cost involved in start up and
lower risk involved in getting failed in the market.
Therefore, these are the characteristics of market structure in which Apple has already operated
in.
Market information of number of firms in the Apple’s industry and their revenues
There are number of firms operating within the industry in which Apple is operating where its
different product is facing competition from numerous firms (Tasnim, 2018). The table below
shows the number of firms and their market share data with reference to Apple’s industry.

Markets Firms Market share
Personal computers Apple’s share 8.2%
Lenovo 24.9%
HP Inc. 21.2%
Dell 16.2%
Asus 16.4%
Acer 6%
Smart phone market Apple’s share 26.91%
Samsung 29.14%
Xiaomi 10.02%
Huawei 9.83%
Oppo 5.02%
Tablet market Apple’s share 56.62%
Samsung 24.06%
Amazon 5.44%
Huawei 3.97%
Asus 1.62%
There are various products sold by Apple, however smart phones are generating highest revenue
for the company and within its geographic regions where the company has expanded its
operations, America considered to be the largest generator of revenue for the company.
Revenue data for the emerging firms within Apple’s industry
There are number of firms that have been emerged in the market where Apple is operating like
Microsoft, Dell, Samsung, Lenovo, HP, Sony, Asus, Google, Huawei, Philips, etc. the table
below shows how much revenue each of these firms are sharing within the industry (Dolata,
2018).
Companies Revenue
Apple $365.8bn
Microsoft $176.3bn

Dell $85bn
Samsung $236.6bn
Lenovo $67.7bn
HP $63.5bn
Sony $89.5bn
Asus $17.8bn
Google $220.3bn
Huawei $136.7bn
Philips $23bn
From the above table, it can be said that Apple is leading the market by having highest
revenue among other industry players which indicates that Apple has maintained its position in
the market despite high competition.
4. Discussion and suggestion on the basis of industry’s nature in which Apple is operating
(a) Is operating in different market structure is optimal for Apple Inc.?
The market structure of the firm plays crucial role in the decision-making analysis of
business because market structure has significant impact over the decision-making environment.
It is because it helps them in maximizing the profits and minimizing the losses of the company
using the benefits of the oligopoly market structure. For example, at the starting point, Apple
company operates in an oligopoly environment because of its Smartphone products. This helps
the company in selling the unique products to the consumers such as iPhone which is not
manufactured and sold by many other rival firms. The sales and profitability of Apple company
increases because of its Smartphone products because other firms at that time manufactures the
computers and laptops. Lately, with the introduction of Apple’s super tablets, computers, the
market structure of the company has changed to the monopolistic competitions. It is because
there are many other competitors of Apple name Dell, Samsung, HTC that shares mobile and
tablet computers market internationally (Rubens, 2021).
The monopolistic competition causes difficulty for the company to efficiently use their
allocated resources. Apple company in monopolistic competition market structure became
inefficient because they depend on the market control of its rival. But on the oligopoly market,
the level of market control of Apple Inc. is stronger as compared to its other competitors. Thus, it

can be said that for Apple company having operation in the different market structure is optimal
because they deal in variety of products and services. The closet competitors of Apple are
Samsung which also operates in monopolistic competition in order to gain the short-run
abnormal profits (Zhang and et.al., 2021). But in the long-run, it will cause decrease in the
market and revenue share of the Apple because of low entry barriers. The new entrants will grab
the significant market share in the term of profit.
To earn the maximum profit over its closest competitors, Apple Inc. need to produces the
quantity at Qs and at the price Ps. It means the company need to produce the products at the
point where marginal cost is equal to the marginal revenue. The above intercepting point of MC
= MR is the most efficient production point for Apple company which helps them in earning
higher profit in the short-run (Ciliberto, Murry and Tamer, 2021). Further, the company need to
put their focus towards the price of its products because price stability will help the company to
earn higher profit in the long-run.
b. Suggestion regarding governmental intervention
Government intervention is generally considered to be good for the society while considering the
operations of firms within different market structure (Kobayashi and Wright, 2018). Here, by
taking Apple’s case it has been that in what market structure does the company is operated or has
operated since its inception where it has been identified that the company has mixture of
monopolistic and oligopoly market. So, there are two forms of oligopoly that is, collusive and
non-collusive where in the former case firms determine output and price in cooperation with
other firms but in the latter case firms where there exists no cooperation among firms instead,
they compete with each on the basis of price and output (Hovenkamp and Shapiro, 2018). The
present case of oligopoly industry in which Apple is operating is a non-collusive form of

oligopoly where firms are competing with each rather than cooperating, so it could be said that
there is a need for lesser government invention for avoiding the conditions of creating monopoly
in the market which may results in consumer exploitation.
Government intervention is more or less important in case of both collusive and non-collusive
oligopoly where in the former case it is necessary to avoid formation of cartel through which
firms charges high prices from customers by cooperating with each other while in the latter case
firms compete with each other and that there should be no emergence of monopoly due to
controlling resources and prices, there is a need of intervention from government.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that Apple is a leader in its industry by
revenue and market share as well in case of some products. In this report, it has been evaluated
that how Apple is operating within the market since its inception along with the reason for which
the company is operating in oligopoly market structure because the start costs are high. Also, it
has been evaluated in what market structure does Apple has operated previously or how
transformation to another market structure took place along with the discussion of characteristics
of historical market structure of Apple. At last, it has been evaluated how it would be more
optimal for the firms to operate in different market structure and whether there is a need of
governmental intervention in the industry in which Apple is operating or not.

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