Comparison of Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Innovation Capabilities

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Comparison of Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Innovation Capabilities
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1MANAGEMENT
Apple Inc. is the pioneer in smartphone technology. It is an American technological
company, which under the leadership of Steve Jobs became one of the most innovative and
largest companies in the world. The first i-phone was launched in 2007 and since then, there has
been no looking back for Apple. Apart from i-phone, the company has also launched other types
of smart devices, such as, i-pad, i-pod, Macbook etc. Every year, Apple is launching new
versions of its smart devices which have innovative upgradation in terms of the features, such as,
ios versions, camera megapixel, sound quality etc. (Cartwright, 2016). On the other hand,
Samsung is a South Korean multinational technological conglomerate which has one of the
largest market shares in the world in the electrical goods market. Samsung launched its first
smartphone, Samsung Galaxy in 2009, which was powered by the android technology by
Google. Over the years, Samsung has also launched various series of smartphones and tablets
with upgraded versions of android operating system and with upgraded features in terms of
camera, security options, and many more (Courvisanos & Rahayu, 2018). Apple and Samsung
were engaged in a 7 year long smartphone patent war, which was triggered by Apple through a
lawsuit in 2011 when they claimed that Samsung is blatantly copying their smart technology.
This was a battle on protection of intellectual property and innovative capability and violation of
copyrights (Kim, Park & Kim, 2015). However, the battle ended in 2017 with the U.S. Supreme
Court gave decision on Apple’s favor, and in mid 2018, Apple was awarded $539 million as
compensation (Lee et al., 2019).
As stated by Tidd and Bessant (2013), companies can be classified under four categories
based on their innovation capabilities and their ability to manage the innovations. These four
categories are called archetypes and on the basis of the innovation management capacity of the
firms, they are termed as Type A, B, C or D firms.

2MANAGEMENT
Figure 1: Archetypes of firms in terms of innovation
(Source: Tidd & Bessant, 2013)
There are four archetypes, namely, Type A: unaware or passive; Type B: Reactive; Type
C: Strategic and Type D: Creative. According to Tidd & Bessant (2013), Type C firms have the
sense for the need of change and also have the capability of implementing changes by choosing
the appropriate strategic framework or approach towards continuous innovation. However, these
firms lack the capability of radical innovation, that is, redefining the market through new
technology or creating new market opportunities. Hence, they often get trapped in limited
boundaries of know-how. On the other hand, the Type D firms operate at the highest level of
international frontier of knowledge and have the ability in taking proactive and creative approach
in exploiting the technological and the market knowledge for gaining competitive advantage via
diverse and extensive networks. These firms have very strong internal sources along with high
degree of absorptive capacity.