International Market Report: Apple's Business Analysis and Strategy

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Apple's international market, examining both its external and internal environments. The environmental analysis covers political, socio-cultural, economic, and technological factors influencing Apple's operations. The internal analysis employs the five forces model to assess industry competition, bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, and the threats of new entrants. The report also identifies Apple's limitations, including the pace of innovation, leadership challenges, and distribution network constraints. The analysis draws on various sources to provide a well-rounded understanding of Apple's market position and strategic considerations.

Running Head: INTERNATIONAL MARKET REPORT
0
apple
INTERNATIONAL MARKET REPORT
System
4/16/2019

INTERNATIONAL MARKET REPORT 1
Contents
Environmental analysis....................................................................................................................2
Analysis of external environment of Apple.....................................................................................2
 Political.................................................................................................................................2
 Socio-cultural........................................................................................................................2
 Economic factors..................................................................................................................3
 Technological factors............................................................................................................3
Analysis of internal factors of the Apple.........................................................................................3
 Industry competition.............................................................................................................3
 Bargaining power of buyers..................................................................................................4
 Threats of new entrants.........................................................................................................4
 Bargaining power of suppliers..............................................................................................4
Limitation of Apple.........................................................................................................................5
 Pace of innovation................................................................................................................5
 Leadership.............................................................................................................................5
 Distribution network.............................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTERNATIONAL MARKET REPORT 2
Apple has many important resources and is a potential brand in the business world. It consists of
many capabilities but it still has trends in the general environment that can cause a lot of threat to
the firm’s success and these threats can only be worked out through by planning and controlling,
this helps in focusing more on the core competencies of the business. These things also help the
company to produce valuable products and services
Environmental analysis
This tool is used in order to identify the internal and external elements of the organization in
order to see that what factor affects the organization in which way.
Analysis of external environment of Apple
 Political
One of the major dangers to Apple in the atmosphere is the global warming. Many steps
have been taken in decreasing global warming. It has been said by the Copenhagen
conference that there should be low co2 emission by the companies and in order to
produce less of the products with co2 emissions Apple should transmit its products and
should switch to other suppliers. However, this will increase the switching cost for Apple
and will increase the margin of the product cost (Pasnan and Blankon, 2011).
 Socio-cultural
Apple plays a very important role in the wireless transaction. There is growth in the
importance of the internet and the use of wireless technologies. The devices such as the
tablets and the smart phones allow various users to perform different activities through
their wireless connected devices. These devices are more in demand than the traditional
things such a pc or computers. This technology is highly used by Google and Apple. This
technology was highly successful as this was entirely based on the consumer preference.
Apple has a very different and innovative technology. Apple spends highly on its
research and innovation development (Wilding, 2011)

INTERNATIONAL MARKET REPORT 3
 Economic factors
Two of the important economic factors that affect Apple are first the Fast growth of
emerging countries and the established economies of developed countries. The developed
countries economic stability gives an opportunity to company like Apple to expand their
business. The rapid growth of developing countries is very important as these increase the
economic growth rates of Asian countries. Apple has many opportunities but it should
make sure that it makes use of the economic opportunities effectively. Effectiveness and
speed are very important as the competitors also try to target the same market (Samson,
2012).
 Technological factors
The technological factors that affect Apple’s business are
1. Technological integration
2. Growth in app market
3. Cloud computing
Cloud computing is something which is being very popular among the organizations and
the individuals. Apple can make use of this chance by providing cloud friendly apps and
devices. While on the other hand the technological incorporation is also one of the major
trend and Apple can take it as an chance by providing products that are connected to each
other in order to keep the app market growing. Apple has a lot of advantages and
opportunities to grow in the technological field of the business environment (Mathews &
Levy, 2017).
Analysis of internal factors of the Apple
The five forces model helps in analyzing level of competition of an industry and tells the
attractiveness of the industry. Here is an analysis of Apple’s five-force analysis.
 Industry competition
The competition level is very high in the companies that compete with Apple in the sector
of technology. Apple has a very direct competition with the companies like Samsung,
Google and Hewlett-Packard all of the companies spend highly on the marketing,
development and the research same as Apple and that is the reason Apple has a very

INTERNATIONAL MARKET REPORT 4
strong competition. The main reason behind very strong competition is very low switching
cost. A customer can easily leave an iPad for a kindle or visa versa and thus it is important
for Apple to maintain its market place
 Bargaining power of buyers
The low switching cost element is one of the main forces that Apple should focus on.
There are two forces. The bargaining power of buyers and their collective power of
bargaining. For a company like Apple the individual buying power is a force, which is
weak, as loss of any one customer does not harm the company. However if there is
collective bargaining power of customers then it effects the whole market of the company
(Witcher and Vinh, 2010). Apple copes up with this by manufacturing innovative, new
products such as Apple watch, and air pods and Apple has been very successful in this as
it is able to attract more customers through this.
 Threats of new entrants
The threat of new entrant can affect the market of Apple. There are two factors in this the
high cost of the company and the additional cost of the brand name reorganization. Any
new entrant in the market needs to spend a lot of its capital on the manufacturing and
development of the product portfolio. The new entrant will already face the competition
between Apple and its competitors and all those are very large and established companies.
Although the threat of new entrant is impossible for Apple but it should continue
developing new products in the market.
 Bargaining power of suppliers
It is a weak force in comparison to the other forces in the market for the product of
Apple. The bargaining position of suppliers is low. As there are high numbers of
suppliers available for Apple, Apple can choose from among the large number of
suppliers. The switching cost of Apple is very low and this increases Apple’s position in
the market to negotiate with the suppliers (Wilkinson, 2013).

INTERNATIONAL MARKET REPORT 5
Limitation of Apple
 Pace of innovation
There is high demand of new products or models for Apple and that is the biggest
weakness for Apple. Apple is an amazing brand, which has good product, which works
amazingly, and people have very high expectations from the brand and thus Apple just
cannot throw any experiments in the market as it can hurt the brand image. The inability
of Apple to produce and innovate quickly like Google and Samsung services makes it
harder for the company to cope up with its competitors. Apple has to depend on the
leadership and the employees for being ahead of its competitors. Earlier Apple was able
to keep its edge in the market but slowly it is losing its edge and this is one of the biggest
limitations of Apple (Thomas, 2013).
 Leadership
This limitation is not unique to Apple but it is a major one. The main issue is whether the
new CEO Tim cook will be able to run Apple the way Steve Jobs run it. The main reason
behind the success of Apple was Steve jobs. It is yet to see how Tim cooks leadership
turns out to be for Apple.
 Distribution network
Another major limitation is the distribution network. Apple has a very limited distribution
network because the company has a policy of exclusiveness as the company itself decides
the sellers of the products. This is one of the major limitations. Because of the companies
premium pricing strategy the company has the weakness of selling its products to the
high-end market segments. The high pricing only attract the customers from the mid and
high end market and not from the low-end market. This is a limitation because high-end
market only includes minority of people and thus the pricing and distribution strategy of
Apple is the major limitation to the business (Yüksel, 2012).

INTERNATIONAL MARKET REPORT 6
REFERENCES
Mathews, S., and Levy, M. (2017) Marketing. Sydney: McGraw-Hill Education
Pasnan, A., and Blankon, K. (2011) Marketing Channel and Strategy. Journal of Marketing,
45(3)
Samson, D. (2012) Management South. Melbourne: Cengage Learning
Thomas, W. (2013) Business marketing management. Miami: Cengage learning
Wilding, J. (2011) Management Current. Medical Literature, 28(2)
Wilkinson, T. (2013) Strategic management. California: Pareger
Witcher, B and Vinh, C. (2010) Strategic management Principles and practice. UK: Cengage
learning
Yüksel, I. (2012) Developing a multi-criteria decision making model for PESTEL
analysis. International Journal of Business and Management, 7(24), p.52.