Comprehensive SWOT Analysis of Apple Inc. Business Strategy

This case study presents a SWOT analysis of Apple Inc., evaluating its internal strengths and weaknesses alongside external opportunities and threats. The analysis highlights Apple's strong brand image, premium pricing, and focus on innovation as key strengths, while acknowledging its high product pricing and limited distribution network as weaknesses. Opportunities include expanding product lines and increasing market share, while threats involve rapid technological changes, aggressive competition, and fluctuating currency values. The study emphasizes the importance of leveraging strengths, addressing weaknesses, capitalizing on opportunities, and mitigating threats to sustain Apple's competitive advantage in the market. This document is available on Desklib, where students can find a variety of study resources.

SWOT Analysis
2019
Student’s Name
5/30/2019

SWOT Analysis 1
Introduction
SWOT analysis is the tool that helps in analyzing the internal strengths and the
weakness of the company and the opportunities and the threats that lie in the external
environment. It helps the company in sustaining the competitive advantage. Apple Inc is
successfully linked to analyze its strength and weakness and the threats and the opportunities
that lie in the external environment (Phadermrod, Crowder & Wills, 2019).
Strengths
 The strong brand image that
delivers unique and quality
products.
 The company enjoys premium
pricing.
 It focuses on implementing rapid
innovation.
 Apple provides a personalized
experience to its customers.
 The company has creative
marketing and advertising teams.
Weakness
 The pricing of the products is
high.
 The distribution network is
limited.
 The company largely depends
upon the high-income group.
 The OS operating system
becomes complex for
unsophisticated beginners.

SWOT Analysis 2
Opportunities
 The increase in demand provides the
opportunity to expand the product
lines.
 The company must use aggressive
marketing channels to increase its
distribution network.
 Increasing demand provides the
opportunity to expand market
share.
Threats
 Rapid changes in technology can
make the product obsolete.
 Aggressive competition.
 Increase in the labor cost affects
the cost of production.
 Imitation by its competitors.
 Fluctuations in the currency.
From the above table, it is analyzed that Apple Inc enjoys a strong brand image and
charges premium prices for its product. The company focuses on delivering unique products
to the customers and provides personalized services. It fosters innovation and hires the
creative marketing and advertising team to attract potential customers. The company uses
Apple’s experience under which it approaches the customer with personalized welcome,
understand their needs and resolve the issues faced by them (Khan, Alam & Alam, 2015).
Apple applies the policy on exclusivity and selects the authorized sellers carefully
which in turn creates a limited distribution network. The high pricing of the product does not

SWOT Analysis 3
allow targeting the lower income groups and in turn, creates a high dependence upon the
higher income segment. Operating of the OS system becomes incompatible for the
unsophisticated beginners and hampers the brand image of the company (Gurel & Tat, 2017).
Increase in the income of the consumers provides the opportunity to the company to
increase its sales and expand the market share by introducing various product lines. Due to a
good reputation in the market, the company must focus on expanding its distribution channel
to become the global leader and attain higher profits (Khan, Alam & Alam, 2015).
Considering the opportunities in the external environment the company also faces the
major threats to the organization. The intensity of competition is high and competitors try to
imitate the operating system and the unique features offered by the brand. The company also
faces the threat of rapid changes in the technology which increases the risk of the products
getting obsolete. The increase in the labor cost and the fluctuations in the currency increase
the cost of the production and decrease in the market share due to the fall in the currency
value (Shtal et al, 2018).

SWOT Analysis 4
References
Gurel, E., & Tat, M. (2017). Swot analysis: a theoretical review. Journal of International Social
Research, 10(51).
Khan, U. A., Alam, M. N., & Alam, S. (2015). A critical analysis of the internal and external
environment of Apple Inc. International Journal of Economics, Commerce and
Management, 3(6), 955-961.
Phadermrod, B., Crowder, R. M., & Wills, G. B. (2019). Importance-performance analysis
based SWOT analysis. International Journal of Information Management, 44, 194-
203.
Shtal, T. V., Buriak, M. M., Amirbekuly, Y., Ukubassova, G. S., Kaskin, T. T., &
Toiboldinova, Z. G. (2018). Methods of analysis of the external environment of
business activities. Revista ESPACIOS, 39(12).