Comprehensive Marketing Analysis of Apple: Strategies and Frameworks

This report offers a comprehensive marketing analysis of Apple, examining its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) along with the impact of political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors (PESTEL). It also delves into Porter's Five Forces to assess the competitive landscape and utilizes the Ansoff Matrix to explore Apple's growth strategies, including market penetration, product development, market development, and diversification. The analysis provides insights into Apple's market positioning, customer relationships, and strategic decision-making. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and highlighting the importance of these marketing frameworks in managing Apple's market presence.

Marketing Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
BACKGROUND OF COMPANY .................................................................................................1
SWOT ANALYSES ...................................................................................................................1
PESTEL ANALYSES ................................................................................................................2
Porters five forces analysis .........................................................................................................3
Ansoff Matrix of Apple ..............................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Marketing management is important tool as it focus on developing and planning different
strategy for the product and services. In these it will discuss the Apple which is one of the
leading company and it will discuss how SWOT and PESTEL affect the working of the Apple
and also the Porter's five forces model and Ansoff 's matrix influence the company and its
measures.
BACKGROUND OF COMPANY
Apple is a multinational technology headquarter in Cupertino, California. It was
incorporated on January 3,1977, it basically designs, manufacture and market mobile
communication and media. Apple is outstanding hardware and software company best known for
its series of personal computers. It is considered as the leading technology company in the
world. The company hardware products includes the iPhone smartphone, tablet computers , the
Mac personal computer , the portable media player , smartwatch , Apple digital TV etc. on the
other hand Apple software include MacOS and iOS operating system, the safari web browser.
Apple was founded by Steve jobs and Ronald Wayne and also in 1984 it introduced its first
Macintosh was the first widely sold personal computer.
SWOT ANALYSES
Strength
These aspects identify the strength that help the company to overcome the weakness. The
key strength of Apple is its loyal customers as these customers rarely switch to another brand.
The main reason of loyal customers are that its innovation and unique customer experience.
Also, it has strong command on online marketing as it consider as the master of advertisement as
it always succeed in creating the buzz about upcoming product and its helps to increase the sales.
The brand value and reputation is quite strong and it considers as most values brand in the world
following behind Google. And also it has unique brand name synonymous with attract many
customers as it carry the legacy of Steve jobs (Fosher, 2018).
Weaknesses
The main weakness of the Apple is that it has Narrow product line as compare to Dell,
Samsung as these can affect the revenue of the apple and limited product line can affect the sales
of the company. Also, it has less presence in B2B as compare to its competitor as apple basically
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focus on B2C and also it is loosing man customers. And also customer has higher expectation
from the brand as from beginning apple is delivering the best product so sometime it became
difficult for the apple to meet the expectation all the times.
Opportunities
There are many opportunities for Apple as it in 2015 apple introduces watch series 1
which become a bestselling device and in 2018 Apple launched Apple Watch series 4 with more
innovative ways and which was more advance and focus on fitness and health. This watch
serious increases the market share of the company. And also Apple have strategic alliance and it
has advance and innovative technologies (Gerard , 2018).
Threat
The biggest threat of Apple is from huge competitor as they are giving tough competition
in terms of innovation and advancement in technologies. And also mobile business is very
dynamic as Apple prices are very high and people are price sensitive. And also Economic
fluctuations keep happening in the global environment that can lead to losses for the international
brand as in many regions there is economic fluctuation as it impact the company profit
generation (Khan, Alam and Alam , 2015).
PESTEL ANALYSES
Political factor
Political factor affect the Apple's primary objective that is profit maximisation. These
includes government policies, rules and regulation , monetary policy, fiscal policy etc. the recent
political factor that affect the Apple that the battle with US Federal Bureau of Investigation by
which it influences the company to the large extent. And also the additional trade policies
increase the opportunity of Apple to distribute more its products to various countries (Kozielski ,
2017).
Economic factor
Economic factor plays a major role as it influence the company negatively as well as
positively. If there is economic stability then it will create opportunities for Apple to expand and
diversify its business and also rapid growth in developing company also give chance to Apple to
increase its revenue . But on the other hand it the GDP of the country is low then it will cause
negative impact on the company as the sales of the company decreases (Desai , 2019).
Social factor
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As social factor influence the behaviour of the consumer and also their expectation . The
trend of increasing popularity of mobile will give opportunity to the company as the sales will
increase and also Apple products are very costly so it might affect the buying behaviour of the
consumer and it will cause negative affect.
Technological factor
As technology is advancing day by day and also it has major impact on the company. As
cloud computing is becoming famous so apple can offer cloud friendly devices and attract the
customers to the large extent. And also Apple has the opportunity to grow its Apple store. Apple
has strong online marketing so it can reach wide audiences (Moustafa , 2015).
Environmental factor
Nowadays environmental factor affect the business as customers are more aware
about the environment. As Apple is maintaining business sustainability as it focus on recycling
and reusing its resources and minimizing waste. In additional company seeking its new
technological solution to improve its energy efficiency.
Legal factor
This aspect analyses the impact of laws or regulation on business as legal factor affect the
business both negatively and positively. As the first issue is privacy issue in which government
realizing the privacy regulation on the business as this factor become threat as it create new
challenges for Apple. On the other hand if the rules and regulation impose by the government are
in favour of the company then it impacts in positive way.
Porters five forces analysis
Porters five forces analysis can limit or reduce the efficiency, effectiveness and market
share of the company so it is very important to analyses the forces.
Competitive rivalry
Competitive rivalry is one of the strong force as Apple must focus and analysis its
competition as companies like Samsung and LG aggressively compete with Apple so iit
important for the Apple to gain competitive advantage through continuous innovation and
aggressive advertisement. This force affects the company to the large extent (Sammut‐Bonnici
and Galea, 2015).
Bargaining Power of Apple 's customers
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The bargaining power affect the company as it is very easy for the customer to change
brands so it is very important for Apple to ensure customer satisfaction. So it is very important to
include the bargaining power of the customer in most significant strategic variable in the
business (Sarsby, 2016).
Bargaining Power of Apple 's Suppliers
As bargaining power of the suppliers affect the company so it is very important to
maintain strong relationship with the suppliers as if the suppliers are not in good terms then they
might stop the supply and also if the supply is not at time then it will directly impact the
production of the company
Threat of substitutes
The major threat that affect the Apple is threat of substitute as there are many substitutes
available in the market that are instead of using iPhones people will use digital cameras for
taking pictures and use landlines for making phone calls. As it has moderate force on the
company as these substitute has limited features so many customers will use Apple product
instead of using landlines and digital camera.
Threat of New Entrants
Apple experience moderate forces of the threat of new entrants as competing with Apple
it requires high capitalization and also it will be very costly affairs to develop such a big brand
image. So these external factor make new entrants make weak. As Apple is very old brand and it
will be very tough for the new entrants to compete with Apple.
Ansoff Matrix of Apple
It was developed by Igor Ansoff in which it focuses on the firms present and potential
products. It gives ways to develop and grow existing and new products. These has been divided
into four combination that are discussed below-
Market Penetration
This means selling the products to the existing customers. In these aggressive
advertisement and promotion is required. For example the new version of iPhone release within
12 months so it provides different choices to choose , the basic strategy use in these is heavy
advertisement.
Product development
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This is a medium risky affairs as customers sells the product to the hardcore loyal
customers as they are familiar with the brand for example Apple launched iPhone 6 s for its
existing iPhone 6 customers with upgraded features.
Market development
Market development is very risky affairs as it means introducing the product to
completely new market for the purpose of targeting new audience and attracting new customers
and increasing the sales of the Apple .
Diversification
It need cost and also the risky affair as diversification means launching new products in
completely new market as it might fail sometime because everyone is unaware about the future
result of the product. For example Apple iTunes because it is very new for the Apple to enter in
the music industry (Schyns , 2016).
CONCLUSION
In these report it has highlighted the Marking management as it is very important to take
corrective measure to manage the market . And also it has cover the SWOT and PESTEL
analysis of the business in which it has concluded that it is important to study these factor and
take proper measures . In additional it has concluded that the porter's five forces of external
factor also affect the company and also the Ansoff matrix and its all different type of
combination .
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REFERENCES
Fosher, H., 2018. Understanding the Marketing and Management of trails using PESTEL
Analysis.
Gerard, H. T., 2018. The Relevance Of Porter’s Five Forces In Today’s Innovative And
Changing Business Environment.
Khan, U. A., Alam, M. N. and Alam, S., 2015. A critical analysis of internal and external
environment of Apple Inc. International Journal of Economics, Commerce and
Management.3(6).pp.955-961.
Kozielski, R. ed., 2017. Mastering Market Analytics: Business Metrics–Practice and
Application. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Desai, C., 2019. Strategy and Strategic Management. In Management for Scientists (pp. 65-84).
Emerald Publishing Limited.
Moustafa, A. E., 2015. The Debatable Distance between Theory and Practice: An Analysis of
Financial Ratios Theory.
Sammut‐Bonnici, T. and Galea, D., 2015. SWOT analysis. Wiley Encyclopedia of
Management.pp.1-8.
Sarsby, A., 2016. SWOT analysis. Lulu. Com.
Schyns, P. F. M., 2016. The technological future of the wealth management industry for portfolio
management investment services (Bachelor's thesis, University of Twente).
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