Analyzing and Comparing the Global Strategies of Apple and Samsung

This essay provides a comparative analysis of the global strategies employed by Apple and Samsung. It delves into Apple's use of licensing, exporting, and importing for market entry, highlighting their differentiation strategy centered around delivering high customer value through innovative brands like iPod, iPad, and iPhone. Apple's skimming pricing strategy, reflecting status and quality, is also examined. The essay then shifts to Samsung, emphasizing its strong Research and Development team and its strategy of entering markets after competitors, often through joint ventures or partnerships. Samsung's use of the Android system and strategic acquisitions to gain knowledge and technology are discussed, along with their approach to learning from challenges in one market to improve operations in others. The analysis draws from various sources to provide a comprehensive overview of both companies' global strategies.

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The global strategies of Apple
Fig 1: Global Strategy of Apple Inc (Source: Steenkamp, 2014)
Apple uses licensing, exporting, importing strategies for market entry. Licensing has
some positive characteristics and so Apple uses market entry mode. Licensing has low risk as
compared to other market entry modes. The regulations for licensing are also very less. This
strategy has also high returns. One of the most important strategies used by Apple Inc is
differentiation. The reason behind using this strategy is to deliver high customer value through
its innovative brands. Apple uses the differentiation strategy for a number of reasons. The first
one is wide acceptance, Apple offers product like iPod, iPad, iPhone and iTunes. All these
brands have gained a huge acceptance. All the brands provide value to the company by

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development of a strong position in the market (Apple, 2017). Through its innovative brands
apple has gained competitive advantage. The competitors cannot imitate the products of Apple
Inc. Apple has focused on providing the best quality to its customers. They have been pioneer in
with their brands like iPad, iPhone and iTunes. The pricing strategy used by Apple is skimming
strategy. The products of Apple signify status and quality (Song & Lee, 2014). Apple Inc do not
compromise on quality therefore, the price is set accordingly. This strategy is also helpful for the
being different in the market. Hence, it can be said they use both cost differentiation and product
differentiation strategies. The brands of apple are not geographically bound and so they use
creative advertising strategies. They focus on advertising the superiority of their brand.
Global strategies of Samsung
Fig 2: Global Strategies of Samsung (Source: Song & Lee, 2014)

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Samsung is one of the most preferred brand today. The reason behind this is the strategies
used by Samsung. Samsung is one of the leading companies in the international market.
Samsung group is a conglomerate of 30 affiliated companies globally. Samsung has focused on
having a strong Research and Development team. The reason is that it eases operations in
international market. The mobile phones of Samsung are cheaper as compared to Apple phones
but the features are more or less same. Samsung electronics does not enter the market as a leader
just like Apple but enters a foreign where other players already exist. Samsung electronics enters
market through joint ventures or partnerships. Usually the partners of Samsung are those who
use a technology that Samsung electronics does not have and those technologies are too much
costly to be developed. One example is that in 2010 in Western countries Samsung electronics
waited until Apple launched iPhone V1 and V2 and when customers were ready to accept new
technology Samsung electronics launched its Galaxy lines with new features but with a higher
price. It can be said Samsung takes its decisions very smartly it waits for its competitors to take
the first move. Samsung electronics use Android system that was developed by Google. SE did
not waste time in developing new software (Steenkamp, 2014). SE protects itself from
technology imitation. Acquisitions in most of the cases are done to acquire faster knowledge and
technology. Samsung electronics entered some of the global markets through Green filed
investments. The company makes economies by choice of location. Samsung learns from the
challenges that it faces in one market and then applies the learning in another market (Samsung
Story - History, Founder, Founded, CEO | Conglomerate Companies | SuccessStory, 2017). For
example the company had some difficulties in starting A/C machine business in Australia where
the company did not have strong brand recognition. The experience was further used to do
business in Thailand.

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References
Business. (2017). Apple. Retrieved 28 November 2017, from https://www.apple.com/business/
Samsung Story - History, Founder, Founded, CEO | Conglomerate Companies | SuccessStory.
(2017). Successstory.com. Retrieved 28 November 2017, from
https://successstory.com/companies/samsung-group
Song, C. Y., & Lee, K. (2014). The Samsung way: Transformational management strategies
from the world leader in innovation and design. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill
Education.
Steenkamp, J. B. (2014). How global brands create firm value: the 4V model. International
Marketing Review, 31(1), 5-29.