Analysis of Eco-Fone's Smartphone Market and Expansion to Kingston

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ECO-FONE
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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................4
Task 3...............................................................................................................................................5
Task 4...............................................................................................................................................6
Task 5...............................................................................................................................................7
Task 6.............................................................................................................................................10
Task 7.............................................................................................................................................12
Task 8.............................................................................................................................................13
Task 9.............................................................................................................................................14
Task 10...........................................................................................................................................15
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Introduction
This report considers the products of Eco-fone smartphones and is dealing in producing and
manufacturing of smartphones and its accessories. Since, the establishment of eco-fone, it has
been found that this company is increasing its profitability conditions year by year. Also, z-test is
discussed in this report about how this will be helpful for the organization and also the quality of
their products. The company also planning to expand its business to Kingston, this will possible
only if the company follows proper resources and manner of running the business. The
systematic method should be adopted by the company for the effective and efficient running of
the business.
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Task 1
In the research of Eco-fone smartphone market, it has been found that the working population in
the UK is currently nearly about 33.5 million out of which only 32 million people are doing or
engaged in work properly. The workers who are engaged in their work are using their
smartphones for at least one related to work activity of the business, however, the population
must be much higher in comparison with now. Mostly, the UK workers use their smartphones for
the purpose of receiving and sending emails (44 percent), voice calls percent is 36 and calendar
management percent is 20 (Deloitte, 2015). Workers population is higher in using these
applications as these applications are easier to use in comparison with the applications that are
quite difficult to use namely legacy information and reporting systems and these difficult
applications are probably have quite lower usage among the workers. It has been seen that about
42 percent of workers use Whatsapp at least once a day as this application is based on
messaging, calls, sharing of media from one device to another etc. and some other unofficial
applications of smartphones namely GPS, snap applications, messaging applications and mobile
browser (internet explorer, Google Chrome etc.) are used to increase the usage of smartphones.
There are also some applications which help the workers in scheduling the information with the
help of smartphones by using the appropriate software. Smartphones become the ideal
information provider to the workers and also help in providing contextual information from time
to time (Mobasheri, et. al., 2015).
It has been clearly seen in the figure that using these above activities in the smartphones has
declined in the year 2016-17.
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5

Task 2
Year In %
Tablet
s
Laptop
s
Smartphon
es
2012 16 73 52
2013 36 76 62
2014 50 75 70
2015 60 79 76
2016 63 76 81
2017 68 78 85
1 2 3 4 5 6
1850
1900
1950
2000
2050
2100
2150
2200
2250
2300
In % Smartphones
In % Laptops
In % Tablets
Year
With the help of above line chart, it can be understood that there has been increasing in the
smartphones, tablets, and laptops as the year increasing. So, we can assume that in the year 2018
and 2019 again there will be a hike in the usage of these products. Here linear forecast model is
not suitable in this situation (Krause, and Rädler, 2016). The regression line can be suitable here
as it describes the other product impact on substitution product. The forecast model which
explains or shows the data clearly or properly can be properly placed here and useful in
understanding the overall data. There has been a single year in which the percent of product
(laptop) has decreased and the year is 2014.
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Task 3
According to the market study, it has been seen that the sales of smartphones are increasing in
older age customers in the UK. It shows that about 70 percent of people in the age between 55 to
75 years are using the handsets that have useful and technological applications. In the research, it
has also been noticed that the growth in this age group is the fastest among any other age group
in the last five years. But it also shows that the people of demographic tended have use
smartphones less than the younger generation people (Belair, 2015). For example, people said
that they check their smartphone after waking in the morning within 16 minutes as compared to
the national average of 57 percent. About 51 percent of people use Facebook out of which 71
percent of people are found to be above the age of 18 years. This overall data has been taken of
1163 people between May and June month of this year. The suggestion of Deloitte is that people
age between 55 to 75 years is able to buy the premium quality smartphones on the basis of their
average wealth, however, this can be said that they buy premium handsets reason being to hand
over the old handset to their children (Kibona, and Mgaya, 2015). New premium quality
smartphones have some upgraded features to use like safely payment feature mode, booking a
taxi and new smartphones also have big screens and louder speakers, so it helps the people to
view and listen the music comfortably without any harm. Facial recognition is also one of the
best features that was added to the new smartphone as it helps in unlocking the phone in an easy
manner and also very much beneficial for the older age people.
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Task 4
Pros Score/10 Cons Score/10
Expansion of
Business
8 Rising in
Infrastructure
Expenses
6
Increase in Sales 9 Increase in
Competition
7
Knowledge of some
other Market
9 Handling of
Customers Behavior
6
Increase in customers 8 Problem in
management
8
Different varieties of
Product
7 Lack of
Understanding
5
Total pros 41 Total cons 32
Average pros 8.2 Average cons 6.4
A ‘pros and cons method’ table for expanding to Kingston.
The above pros and cons method table shows that Eco-fone Company should expand its business
to Kingston as it can easily be shown that there are many advantages of expansion as compared
to disadvantages. Although the company might face some problems in expanding eventually it
will provide benefit to the company (Yedekar, and Johnson, 2018). If the people participate in
the business properly then it will definitely help in generating the profits for the company. Eco-
fone somehow gets to know about the latest technologies and products which will help in
achieving the target on time. There are many barriers occurring while expanding the business but
the company needs to find the manner of handling these barriers and survive in the market. So,
Eco-fone should properly manage its resources and then expand its business to Kingston.
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Task 5
a)
Details Amount (£)
Loan Amount 350000
Loan Repayment Duration (in Years) 15
Rate of Interest 7%
Monthly Installment ($3,145.90)
From the above calculation, the amount of monthly installment which is found is ($3,145.90)
which will be paid up to 15 years at the rate of 7% per annum simultaneously at the starting of
every year. The rate of interest is applicable to the outstanding amount of loan. The demanded
price by the owner of the building was £400000 but the company named Eco-fone tried to cut
down the price of the building to £350000 and it became successful in this. If the company is
able to generate an adequate amount of profit then this monthly installment amount can be easily
laid down. For the purpose of expansion then Eco-fone required better facilities for a smooth
running of the business and perform well in the competition of the market. By doing all this
thing, Eco-fone can be able to purchase the building (Taylor, 2018).
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b)
 = UNILEVER
 = IMLA
 = PARAGON
 = KENSINGTON
 = MONEY
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 = NATWEST
 = NATIONWIDE
 = LLOYDS BANKING GROUP
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