An Analysis of Apple Inc.'s International Marketing Strategies

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Apple Inc.'s international marketing strategies. It begins with an introduction to Apple as a global brand and then delves into a detailed marketing mix analysis, examining product, price, promotion, and place strategies, including standardization and adaptation approaches. The report further explores the internationalization process, discussing relevant theories such as the born-global concept, the Uppsala model, and the international product life cycle model. It highlights how Apple adapts its product mix, pricing strategies, promotion activities, and distribution channels to suit international markets, emphasizing the importance of brand equity, customer preferences, and cultural considerations. The conclusion summarizes key findings, emphasizing the role of innovativeness, quality, and the effective application of international process theories in Apple's global success. The report uses various academic sources to support its findings.

international marketing

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Marketing Mix Analysis..................................................................................................................1
Internationalization Process Theory................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8
1

Introduction
Apple is considered as a famous international brand which is launched by an organization known
as Apple Inc. It is known as a popular multinational American technology organization which is
known for quality and creativity of its products. Headquarters of Apple is situated in Cupertino,
California. It was launched during 1976 to deal with high quality and innovative products. Apple
especially deals in digital music players, market media, personal computers, mobile
communication devices, portable digital music players and also deals with a different range of
software, third-party digital contents, peripherals applications, networking solutions and different
services. Apple Inc. is operating its business in almost every country through its retail stores,
direct sales force, online stores and third-party cellular network. Apart from all these products
the organization mainly produce iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and iPod. This makes the organization
very successful in among existing market. The quality of its products is very high due to which it
charge high prices to its target customers. High prices of products enable the organization to gain
more and more profit. In this paper, we will discuss the Apple brand and analyze its different
marketing mix strategy aspects to find their suitability. This will help the organization to keep
competitive and gain high profit its existing marketplace.
Marketing Mix Analysis
Marketing Mix for Apple Inc. indicates how the organization matches its different business
activities to the existing conditions of the market. This will help the organization in knowing
about how to efficiently utilize different market conditions and competitive landscape through
effective distribution, pricing, products, and promotion (Schultz, 2012). Standardization and
adaptation analysis of Apple product are following:
2

Product
Apple is performing various efforts to enhance the size of its product mix. This part of marketing
mix define the outputs of the organization processes. Apple is especially dealing with Apple TV,
Mac, iPhone, iPad, Software, and iPod. The quality of these products makes it different from the
other existing competitors like Samsung in the existing market. It can be said that product
concept, packet, and color, brand name and label of Apple products are standardized in
international markets (Akgün, 2014). Color and features of the product are different as per the
difference in countries. Thus, it can be said that the organization adopted its product mix on the
basis of distributive costs, customer preferences, and market properties. Apart of this, brand
name and label of the organization is considered standardized. It is because the organization
needs to establish brand equity and brand recognition in the international markets. On the basis
of its brand, it able to create its image in the eyes of customers and they will become brand loyal.
Policies applied by the organization during formulating market fix is shown in below mentioned
table:
Product Mix Strategy Main reason
Color Adaptation Customer preferences,
Market characteristics
Brand Name Standardization Brand Equity and Brand
Recognition
Product Concept Adaptation Customer preferences,
Market characteristics, and
Distributive costs
Packet Adaptation Customer preferences,
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Market characteristics
Label Standardization Brand Equity and Brand
Recognition
Price
Apple mainly utilizes the premium price strategy which enables the organization to charge high
prices for its products. In this part of the marketing mix the organization mainly focuses on how
prices of the organization represent the organization and its product in the international market.
The premium strategy of the organization enables it to maintain its competitive advantage in the
existing market. The organization declared that it pay high money for advertising in the domestic
company than the costs in the international market. The organization needs to spend less money
on the global market because advertisements of products done by different customer stores. This
will save the extra advertisement cost of the organization. Pricing strategy utilizes by the
organization is premium pricing. The most determinant stage of this pricing policy is premium.
The prices of Apple products are too higher than its competitors. This will have both adverse and
positive impact on the competitive position of the market. The marketing mix adaptation and
standardization causes of the organization are following:
Adaptation Standardization
Sales volume and profits can enhance due to
different markets
Low-risk strategy as a fixed result is
guaranteed
Lack of control due to availability of market
differentiated pricing
Best image of multi-national firms
Poor image of multi-national firms Lots of effort is made to maximize sales and
4

profit volume because they set the high price
for all market
Utilized when selling highly specialized
manufacturing plant
Promotion
The marketing mix of Apple includes various promotion activities that concentrate on the quality
and premium image of the organization products. The marketing communications and promotion
mix enables the organization in reaching more potential buyers. Promotion marketing mix of
Apple mainly includes advertising, public relations, sales promotion, and personal selling. It can
be said that promotion activities of the organization mainly concentrated corporate customers
because it reaches to potential customers through corporate customers in the international market
(De Mooij, 2013). Customer stores of the organization mainly done advertisement through
commercial films recorded in Turkey. Apart of it, the main promotion tool on which the
organization focuses largely is international expositions, advertisements, and customer visits.
The main causes of standardization and adaptation in promotion activities of Apple are
following:
 Culture
 Customer characteristics
 Law Legislation
 The nature of the market
 Nature of product
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Utilization of appropriate promotion strategy helps the organization in reaching to more and
more customers in a small time period. Through this, the organization can enhance its popularity
and can easily expand its market in international countries as well as the domestic country.
Place
Marketing mix of Apple contains a holistic approach to distribution, taking benefits of various
distribution channels. It can be said the organization utilizes a selective strategy of distribution,
which involves some degree of exclusivity that could limit market reach. Apple mainly
transmitted its products directly to the foreign markets without any intermediary. It is done
because the organization can easily put a control on its marketing activities. As per the viewpoint
of Apple, distribution is affected by the legal regulations and nature of an international market
(Chung, 2012). Apple delivers its products with euro pallet in some countries such as Germany.
Apart of it, the organization also utilize CIF and Exwork methods to deliver its products in
international markets. Effective promotion of the products enables the organization to enhance
its sales level in the domestic market as well as international market. The main causes of
adaptation and standardization for the organization is following:
Adaptation Standardization
Cultural Differences Saving costs and improving efficiency
Different environmental factors like legal and
political constraints
Enhancing image of the organization
Customer Satisfaction level Enhancing level of customer’s loyalty and
trust
Globalization trend
6

Internationalization Process Theory
The born-global concept is the concept in which the organization seeks to deprive competitive
edge of the optimum utilization of resources and by selling the output in various countries. The
global firms are the ones which are originated internationally, and they further explore the
foreign market. The advantages of the born-global concept are that it helps in improving the
product's quality and helps in gaining the advantage of the first mover and moreover it is
convenient to adopt because of the advanced technology. The only drawback is that it require
more capital. The Uppsala model was established in 1977, and the model tries to demonstrate the
incremental and slow process of the internationalization of the firms which struggle for growth
and the profit for long term period and also tries to minimize the risk at the same time (Sasi,
2015). Mainly, the model talks about the integration, usage of knowledge and acquisition of the
foreign market and its operations. The model has various drawbacks like the organization which
have great resources and are expected to take high risks towards internationalization. And the
advantage is that when the conditions of the foreign market are stable, then the learning becomes
easy about them. The another theory is international product life cycle model envisages the
process of internationalization in order to be a systematic, predictable and incremental sequence
and the entry form into the foreign markets relies on the life stage of products (Lau, 2013). The
drawback of the theory is that it can lead to the over emphasis on the releases of the new
products. The theory is only appropriate for the products which are technology based. The
advantage of this theory is that it helps the firms in the planning process and it also helps the
organizations to take the proactive approach.
Therefore, the theory of born-global concept is most suitable as it has more advantages and fewer
drawbacks as compared to other theories.
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Conclusion
The above study is related to a contribution towards international marketing by measuring
marketing mix activities in an international organization context. This study mainly measured the
different marketing mix activities with adaptation or standardization of marketing mix strategy.
After studying all this, it can be concluded that Apple can significantly position itself by focusing
more on an expansion of its current marketing mix (Hallbäck, 2013). Innovativeness and quality
of its product enable it to place itself at the top of the market. International process theories give
the way through which it can efficiently examine its different marketing mix activities. It is
necessary for the organization to study the adaptation and standardization of its marketing mix
activities. This will facilitate the organization in gaining competitive image in the international
market.
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References
Akgün, A., Keskin, H., & Ayar, H., 2014. Standardization and Adaptation of International
Marketing Mix Activities: A Case Study. Retrieved from
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814051295
Schultz, D.E. and Dev, C., 2012. Revisiting the Marketing Mix: The Apple Store experience
typifies a new vision for marketing. American Marketing Association, Marketing Management
Magazine.
Chung, H.F., Lu Wang, C. and Huang, P.H., 2012. A contingency approach to international
marketing strategy and decision-making structure among exporting firms. International
Marketing Review, 29(1), pp.54-87.
De Mooij, M., 2013. Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes. Sage
Publications.
Hallbäck, J. and Gabrielsson, P., 2013. Entrepreneurial marketing strategies during the growth of
international new ventures originating in small and open economies. International Business
Review, 22(6), pp.1008-1020.
Sasi, V., Sperling, G. and Arenius, P., 2015, January. RAPID INTERNATIONALIZATION of
BORN GLOBAL FIRMS-do LOCAL NETWORKS have an IMPACT. In ICSB World
Conference Proceedings (p. 1). International Council for Small business (ICSB).
Lau, H.F., 2013. Internationalization, Internalization, or a New Theory for Small, Low‐
technology Multinational Enterprise?. Asia Pacific International Journal of Marketing.
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