MBA 520: Marketing Strategy and Plan of Apple Inc. - Analysis

This report analyzes Apple Inc.'s marketing strategy, focusing on the company's selection rationale, key goods and services, and financial context. The student chose Apple due to its rich history, revenue size, and brand loyalty. The report details Apple's diverse product and service offerings, including hardware, software, and digital content. It also examines the financial aspects, referencing the company's revenue recognition policies and use of derivatives to manage foreign currency exposure. The analysis highlights Apple's market position, acknowledging its global presence and consumer base. The report includes references to support the analysis, providing a comprehensive overview of Apple's marketing strategy and business operations.

Running head: MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
Marketing Strategy and Plan
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors Note
Course ID

1MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
Table of Contents
Reasons for Company Selection:...............................................................................................2
Key Goods and Services:...........................................................................................................2
Financial Context of the Organization:......................................................................................3
References:.................................................................................................................................4

2MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
Reasons for Company Selection:
The reasons for selecting Apple INC is because the company has the rich history with
the success of mobile devices. The company is interestingly known for its size and revenues
as the worldwide revenues of the company totalled $265 billion during the fiscal year of
2018. Selecting Apple INC is mainly because of its world’s largest base of information
technology in terms of revenue and mobile phone manufacturer. Interestingly, in the month
of August 2018 the company became the first US company that was valued at greater than
US $1 trillion (Investor.apple, 2018). Another reason for selecting Apple INC is that
company has greater than 1.3 billion of active products operating in the market. Despite the
company faces criticism for its unethical business practices and anti-competitive behaviour,
Apple INC enjoys higher level of brand loyalty among the consumers and it is ranked as the
most valued brand in the world.
Key Goods and Services:
Apple sells variety of digital content and application through its iTunes and App
Store. The key products and services of Apple INC includes the MAC, iPod, its wide range of
wide of iPhone and internet enabled iPod. Apple sells wide range of third party Apple
compatible products that also includes the software and accessories with the help of its retail
and online store (Nagle & Müller, 2017). Apple key products and services includes the Apple
TV that connects consumers with the televisions (TVs) and enables the customers to have
access to the digital content for direct streaming of high definition video and music.
In the early years of Apple INC the company faced decline in the profitability as it
made an attempt to experiment with its products. This ultimately resulted in extensive layoff
and cost cutting after several failed attempts of improving the Mac OS (Minakhmetova &
Savchenko, 2015). The company however in 2007 returned to profitability after its

3MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
progressive designs of smart phones, apple watches which was evidently reflected in its stock
price.
Financial Context of the Organization:
Apple INC’s consolidated financial statement are in conformity with the US generally
accepted accounting policies and follows the principles of Generally Accepted Accounting
Policies (GAAP) that requires the requires the management to make the estimation and
assumption which would affect the amount that is reported in the consolidated financial
statements (Kanagal, 2015). Apple INC recognizes revenue from is foreign subsidiaries when
there is persuasive evidence relating to the arrangements that is prevalent, delivery that has
taken place, the sales prices are fixed or the collection is probable.
Apple INC uses the derivatives so that it can partially offset the foreign currency
exposure and risk relating to interest rate on anticipated cash flows in the certain foreign
subsidiaries and also on the existing assets and liabilities (Nagle & Müller, 2017). For the
sale of majority of third party products, Apple INC recognizes revenue from the foreign
subsidiaries based on the gross amount that is billed. This is because Apple INC establishes
its own pricing for each of the products and retains the related risk of inventory for the
physical products.

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References:
Investor.apple.com. (2018). Apple - Investor Relations - Financial Information. [online]
Available at: https://investor.apple.com/investor-relations/financial-information/
default.aspx [Accessed 23 Dec. 2018].
Kanagal, N. B. (2015). Innovation and product innovation in marketing strategy. Journal of
Management and marketing research, 18, 1-25.
Minakhmetova, D., & Savchenko, A. (2015). Mobile marketing strategy development in
china, japan and south korea: An apple app store example.
Nagle, T. T., & Müller, G. (2017). The strategy and tactics of pricing: A guide to growing
more profitably. Routledge.