Competitive Analysis of Apple Inc.: Trends, SWOT, and PEST Analysis

This report presents a comprehensive competitive analysis of Apple Inc., examining its business environment through SWOT and PEST analyses. The SWOT analysis highlights Apple's strengths, such as its innovative products and brand recognition, while identifying weaknesses like high product prices and incompatibility issues. Opportunities include launching green technology and expanding distribution networks, whereas threats stem from competitors and market penetration challenges. The PEST analysis delves into the political, economic, social, and technological factors influencing Apple's business, including government regulations, currency exchange rates, consumer willingness, and technological advancements. The report concludes by discussing monitoring sources such as websites and journals, providing insights into how these trends impact the company's overall performance. The analysis emphasizes the importance of understanding these trends to gain a competitive edge in the market.

Competitive Analysis

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS 1
Introduction
The main aim of this paper is to analyze the general environment trends. After that, the impact of
those general trends will also be evaluated in order to gain the competitive advantage. At the end,
major sources of information will be discussed to monitor these trends.
SWOT Analysis
Strength:
Top Technology: Apple provides the innovative products that have been change the world. It
uses the high level of technology which is its one of the major strength factors.
Brand of Choice: The demand of consumers is high towards the services of the company.
Especially, the demand of Apple Company is high in corporate offices just because of its
excellent qualities.
Research: Apple put its all dedication and efforts into its graph in order to develop the effective
designs (Rawlinson, 2017).
These strength factors have a positive impact on the company as it helps to gain the competitive
advantage in the market.
Weaknesses
Lack of Marketing and Promotion: It is observed that Apple establish the solidified grounds
by establishing loyal customers. The company does not invest in marketing in order to promote
the goods.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS 2
High Priced Products: Apple’s set the high prices of their products due to premium services to
its premium customers.
Incompatibility with other software: The Company always uses their own product that is why;
it is very difficult for it to implement the technologies or software of the different companies.
These weaknesses reduce the demand of consumers towards the technology of the other
companies. Apple sets the high prices of their product due to which the customers demand has
been fluctuated from Apple to another company.
Opportunity
Lack of Green Technology: It has been seen that Apple launch the new technologies but it does
not launch the green technology which has positive impact on environment. It has the
opportunity to launch the green technology.
Expansive Distribution Network: It is observed that the company already distribute the
network in various countries across the world but now it has the opportunity to expand the
business in all over the world (Reuters, 2019).
These factors influence the company to expand their business to attain the high success or to earn
the high revenue.
Threat
Competitors: The main threat for Apple is its competitors as they also develop the similar
products with the high technology to attract the consumers towards their product so that the
demand of consumers of Apple product has been decreases.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS 3
Market Penetration: It has been evaluated that Apple has less market share as compare to the
Android. The changes have been implemented by the other brands in their smartphones such as
Samsung, Lenovo, and the others due to which the consumers attracted towards it.
Competition is the main trend that affects the business environment. Increasing competition in
the market; reduces the demand of consumers towards the Apple product due to increasing the
purchasing options for them.
PEST Analysis
Political: As Apple operates the business at the international level due to which it has to follow
all the political rules and regulations either it is from different nation in order to operate the
business smoothly and effectively. It is observed that the government of different nation has their
own regulations related to technology such as Russian government stopped using iPhones and
iPads to protect them from eavesdropping by foreign special services consumers (Vistage, 2019).
Impact of Political trend
The laws and regulation of the government has a positive and negative impact on the business of
Apple. If the government restrict the advance technology in order to protect the environment or
people from harmful rays due to which the demand of consumers has been decreases. If the
government encourage the technology then the companies offers the highly developed goods to
consumers in order to attracts them that helps to increase the demand of consumers (Vistage,
2019).
Economical:

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS 4
Economic factors affect the business of Apple. Currency exchange rate, interest rate, cost of
labor and tax rate are the economic trends that affects the business.
Impact of Economic trend
The 63% of sales is highly relies on the international market that is why; currency exchange rate
is the major factor that affects the sales of the company. If the current exchange rate has been
increases then the demand of consumers has been decreases and vice-versa.
Cost of labor is another economy trend that affects the business. The labor of cost is depending
on the economy of the nation. As Apple operates the business at the global market then the cost
of labor affects its business as per the nation. If the cost of labor is high in nation then the cost of
the production of the company is also high that affects the revenue amount.
Social
Willingness of consumers, high-status lifestyle, social upgrading are the social trends that affects
the business environment of the organization. These social trends directly affect the demand of
consumers towards the company’s product (Sarkar, and Ghosal, 2018).
Impact of Social trend
If the economy of the country is good then the willingness of consumers to purchase the goods
are also high that directly enhance the consumers demand. It is observed that Apple sets the high
prices in order to provide the premium services to its consumers. The demand of the product of
the company has been increases if the lifestyle of consumers has been enhanced. But if the
willingness of consumers has been decreases then the demand of products of the company has

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS 5
been increases (Adekola, and Sergi, 2016). These trends directly increases or decreases the
products.
Technology
Technology defines the up-gradations of devices to make the life easy. Apple is a technology
company that provides the electronic products to consumers with the advance technology
(Reuters, 2019). Technology is the major trend that affects the environment such as cloud
computing, integrated different devices and the others.
Impact of technology trends
New devices and software’s are the major trends that affect the business. Advance technology
has a positive impact on the business as it helps to expand the business by providing the new
devices. Cloud computing is the opportunity for the company to explore the business at the
further level (Botta, De Donato, Persico, and Pescapé, 2016). If the competitors implements the
advance technology then the demand of consumers has been reduces due to attracting the
customers towards the competitors (Uzzaman, 2019).
Monitoring sources
There are various sources those are used to monitor the sources such as websites, journals and
the others. Websites those have copyright are used as the source to get the information. Websites
are the e-content which is related to Apple operation and its geographical trends. Websites is the
source that can be used as a monitor that helps to examine the content or the information that has
been used related to the organization.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS 6
Journals are also used to get the content of impacts of trends on business environment. There are
many journals that include the trends that impact the business environment. Journal is the
authorized source that contains the authorized content which helps to make the report real.
Conclusion
It is concluded that there are many trends that may affects the business environment. In this
paper, SWOT and PEST analysis have been used to determine the impacts of the trends on the
business of the organization. There are many sources that have been used to monitor these trends
and their impact on the business. These trends have positive and negative impact on the business
environment.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS 7
References
Adekola, A. and Sergi, B.S. (2016) Global business management: A cross-cultural perspective.
Routledge.
Botta, A., De Donato, W., Persico, V. and Pescapé, A. (2016) Integration of cloud computing
and internet of things: a survey. Future generation computer systems, 56, pp.684-700.
Rawlinson, N. (2017) History of Apple: The story of Steve Jobs and the company he founded.
Available From: Available From: https://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/apple/history-of-apple-
steve-jobs-mac-3606104/ [Accessed 21/2/2020].
Reuters. (2019) Apple Inc (AAPL.O). Available From:
https://in.reuters.com/finance/stocks/company-profile/AAPL.O [Accessed 21/2/2020].
Sarkar, M.D. and Ghosal, I. (2018) Impact of social media in small business industry: a study on
Facebook. International Journal on Recent Trends in Business and Tourism, 2(3), pp.33-39.
Uzzaman, A. (2019) 10 technology trends that will impact our lives in 2020. Available From:
https://venturebeat.com/2019/12/30/10-technology-trends-that-will-impact-our-lives-in-2020/
[Accessed 21/2/2020].
Vistage. (2019) Political trends affecting business in 2019. Available From:
https://www.vistage.com/research-center/business-financials/economic-trends/20181210-
political-trends-affecting-business-in-2019/ [Accessed 21/2/2020].