Marketing Strategy: Market Position Analysis Report

This report presents a market position analysis of Apple Inc., examining its product portfolio, target customers, and competitive advantages. The analysis, informed by an interview with a manager, identifies Apple's target customers as premium consumers, including music lovers, professionals, and teenagers. The report highlights the innovative design, premium features, and brand value as key sources of competitive advantage, emphasizing the long-term sustainability of these factors. It explores the company's leadership position in the technology industry, driven by its effective supply chain, diverse product range, and premium pricing strategy. The report further analyzes the needs and wants of customers, particularly those using the iPhone, and how Apple's products satisfy these demands. The competitive landscape is discussed, with Apple's innovative products setting it apart from competitors like Google and Samsung. The report concludes with a matrix summarizing key factors such as product quality, effectiveness, and brand value.

Running head: MARKET POSITION ANALYSIS
MARKET POSITION ANALYSIS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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MARKET POSITION ANALYSIS
Table of Contents
Part 1: Interview.............................................................................................................2
Part 2: Analysis..............................................................................................................3
Part 3: Matrix.................................................................................................................5
References......................................................................................................................6
Appendix........................................................................................................................7

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MARKET POSITION ANALYSIS
Part 1: Interview
Question 1 – Who are the target customers of Apple Inc.?
Answer – The target customers of the company are those who belong to the premium
group.
Question 2 – How are the customer segments of Apple Inc. identified?
Answer – The three major segments of the company are the youngsters, the
professionals and normal crowd.
Question 3 – How does the products and services are able to satisfy the customers?
Answer – The products and services are able to fulfil the needs of the customers who
belong to different groups.
Question 4 – What is the position of the product based on competitors?
Answer – Apple has developed a leadership position in comparison to its competitors
in the technology industry.
Question 5 – What is the source of competitive advantage of Apple Inc.?
Answer – The major source of competitive advantage of the company is based on the
brand value of Apple.
Question 6 – Is the competitive advantage sustainable in nature?
Answer – The brand value which has been created by Apple is highly sustainable in
nature.

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MARKET POSITION ANALYSIS
Part 2: Analysis
Target customers – Apple mainly has three different target groups which include the
music lovers who are provided with services like iTunes and iPod. The professionals and
teenagers are also considered to be the target customers for services and products that are
provided by Apple. The products which are targeted towards this group mainly include,
iPhone, Macbook and Tablets. The third group include the crowd who are able to use the
other products of the company like, Apple iWatch, Apple TV and iBooks (Apple.com, 2018).
Needs and wants of customers – The main product which is able to affect the
revenues of the company is Apple iPhone. The wants and the needs of these consumers are
thereby satisfied in an effective manner with the help of the unique features that are offered
by these products. The premium quality of the products is considered to be another major
factor which is able to affect the wants and needs of the consumers (Davcik & Sharma,
2016).
Position of iPhone based on its competitors – Apple iPhone has been able to
develop an effective position in the industry with the help of its innovative and unique
products. The services that are thereby provided to the customers by the company are able to
affect the competitors in a huge manner. The leadership position which has been developed
by Apple in the technology based industry is thereby related to the innovative products and
services which are provided to the premium group of customers. The products that are
offered by Apple are unique as compared to those which are offered by the other
organizations which operate in the technology industry (Gummesson, Kuusela & Närvänen,
2014).
The effective supply chain of the company is an important factor that has been helpful
in the development of its position in the industry. The company has thereby been able to

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MARKET POSITION ANALYSIS
operate in a leadership position with the help of its diverse and effective range of products.
The company has thereby developed the topmost position in the industry with the help of
different innovative products which have been developed in an effective manner. The
distribution based network of the company has played a major role in the development of its
position in the technology based industry (Hunt, 2018).
The price which has been set for the products is able to provide the tag of premium
organization to Apple Inc. The premium pricing has further ensured the high quality of
products that have been offered by Apple Inc. to the huge number of customers all over the
world. The brand image of Apple is able to provide the company a position of the market
leader in the technology industry. Apple Inc. is thereby a leader in the technology industry
with the help of effective position in the industry (Solomon et al., 2014).
Source of competitive advantage of Apple iPhone – The major source of
competitive advantage which has been developed by Apple iPhone is based on the
innovativeness of the products and the ways by which the products are able to provide
effective advantages to the customers. The major competitive advantage based source of
Apple iPhone is the innovative design of the products and the premium features. The value
which has been developed by the brand in the technology based industry is an important part
of the competitive advantage of the company (Taoketao et al., 2018).
Apple has been able to develop a leadership position in the industry in the year 2017
in comparison to the organizations like, IBM and Coca Cola. The strength of the brand is an
important factor that has been able to increase the visibility of the company in the industry.
The premium pricing based strategy which has been implemented by Apple Inc. is also a
major source of competitive advantage which has developed a unique market for Apple
iPhone in the technology industry (Teng et al., 2015).

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MARKET POSITION ANALYSIS
Long term sustainability of the source of competitive advantage – The source of
competitive advantage which has been gained by the company is highly sustainable in nature.
The brand value and strength of the company is a competitive advantage which is sustainable
in nature. This can provide long term profitability to the company in the technology industry
of the world. The brand value of the company is important for the technology industry in
which Apple had its operations. The long term sustainability of this competitive advantage is
thereby able to affect the ways by which Apple is able to operate in the market (Wensley,
2016).
The brand value has also been able to affect the ways by which the products which are
developed by the company in the industry. The brand strength has thereby been able to play
the most important role in the effective operations of the company in the market. The
products which have been developed by the company have developed by the company are
able to develop their customer base with the help of the value which has been developed by
the brand in the industry (Taoketao et al., 2018).
Part 3: Matrix
Refer to appendix.

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References
Apple.com. (2018). Apple. Retrieved from https://www.apple.com/
Davcik, N. S., & Sharma, P. (2016). Marketing resources, performance, and competitive
advantage: A review and future research directions. Journal of Business
Research, 69(12), 5547-5552.
Gummesson, E., Kuusela, H., & Närvänen, E. (2014). Reinventing marketing strategy by
recasting supplier/customer roles. Journal of Service Management, 25(2), 228-240.
Hunt, S. D. (2018). Advancing marketing strategy in the marketing discipline and beyond:
from promise, to neglect, to prominence, to fragment (to promise?). Journal of
Marketing Management, 34(1-2), 16-51.
Solomon, M. R., Dahl, D. W., White, K., Zaichkowsky, J. L., & Polegato, R.
(2014). Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). London: Pearson.
Taoketao, E., Feng, T., Song, Y., & Nie, Y. (2018). Does sustainability marketing strategy
achieve payback profits? A signaling theory perspective. Corporate Social
Responsibility and Environmental Management.
Teng, Y. W., Tai, C. H., Yu, P. S., & Chen, M. S. (2015, August). An effective marketing
strategy for revenue maximization with a quantity constraint. In Proceedings of the
21th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data
Mining (pp. 1175-1184). ACM.
Wensley, R. (2016). The basics of marketing strategy. In The marketing book (pp. 75-107).
Routledge.

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Appendix
 Premium quality products
 High effectiveness of the product
 High brand value of the product
Competitors – Google and Samsung
 Premium quality of products
 High effectiveness of the product
 High brand value of the product
Rate – 2 (need fully met)
Rate – 2 (need fully met)
Rate – 2 (need fully met)