MKT600 Marketing: Apple Inc. Marketing Plan, Torrens University

This report provides a detailed marketing plan with a special focus on Apple Inc. It uses key marketing principles like SWOT and PESTLE analysis to understand Apple's unique strategies and its impact on the technology sector. The report covers the company's background, objectives, marketing strategy, micro and macro environment analysis, Porter's Five Forces analysis, and concludes with recommendations. It emphasizes Apple's brand value, customer loyalty, and innovative marketing approaches, while also addressing its weaknesses and potential threats in the competitive market. The analysis aims to provide insights into Apple's success and future prospects.

Running Head: MARKETING PLAN: A SPECIAL FOCUS ON APPLE INC.
MARKETING PLAN: A SPECIAL FOCUS ON APPLE INC.
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The aim of this report is to understand important marketing principles with practical
examples. The company chosen for this purpose is Apple Inc. The reason for choosing this
particular organization is due to its unique marketing strategies. In addition, how it has
transformed the total technology sector adding aesthetic value through its products. Important
marketing principles such as SWOT analysis and PESTLE analysis has been used.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Company Background............................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................4
Objectives of the Company....................................................................................................4
Marketing Strategy.................................................................................................................4
Micro Environment Analysis.................................................................................................6
SWOT Analysis.....................................................................................................................6
Porter’s Five Forces Analysis:.............................................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................15

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Introduction
Marketing maybe defined as an art of persuading people to form a positive and long
lasting impression about a certain product or service being offered by the concerned
organization. It is complex in nature and the complexity of marketing hugely depends on the
product or service the concerned organization is offering. Marketing is not limited to
promotion of commodities or service; rather it acts as a key indicator used in measuring the
success or failure in the competitive environment of the business world. It is the study of
human behavior and their individual perspective which when accumulated provides a positive
or negative outlook towards a commodity.
The basic concept of marketing revolves around three key links, which are needs of
the people, wants or desire of the people and products or services. In the transaction process
both the parties i.e. the provider and the receiver must mutually agree to the exchange of
benefits where the receiver provides monetary benefits to the provider against which he/she
receives the required product or service. The monetary payment is termed as PRICE which
drives a product or service.
Company Background
Apple Inc. is one the big four companies along with Google, Facebook and Amazon.
It is considered one of the modern pioneers of innovation in today’s world. It is based in
United States of America with headquarters in Cupertino, California. The main offering of
the company are consumer electronics and computer software. The hardware section includes
iPhone the flagship smartphone of the company, Mac the personal computer and portable
laptop section of the company. The software section includes iOS, iPadOS and iTunes among
others. Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded the company in the year 1976.
Today it is one of the world’s biggest company in terms of revenue and market capitalization.

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Discussion
Objectives of the Company
The primary objectives of the company are:
1. Producing products and services that provides maximum satisfaction to the
consumers.
2. Increasing Sales
3. To become the leading organization in the smartphone industry.
The main objective of the organization has always been to provide maximum satisfaction
to the consumers. To fulfill this objective Apple Inc. has one of the best research and
development teams in the world. The motto of the company is simplicity and to provide the
best quality. Starting from the design of smartphone, Photo and Video quality to the
Operating System it offers is top notch in the smartphone industry. Secondly, the target of
this company has always been driving sales and due to its top-notch quality people,
possessing the purchasing power easily is persuaded to purchase the product. The market
positioning is so strong that people who do not have the purchasing power aspires to possess
the smart phone someday. Lastly, the target of the company is to become the best smart
phone company.
Marketing Strategy
Every successful company contains a robust marketing strategy, which helps to form a
permanent positive image in the minds of the customer. Apple has a reputation of targeting
the niche market. Due to its strategy of premium pricing, it believes in the ideology of profit
per unit rather than profit through sales maximization. Through this process, the company has
converted a simple smartphone into an aspirational product. But in the core of the marketing
process it follows the philosophy of one of the early investors Mr. Mike Markkula who

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created three core philosophical ideas on which the whole marketing strategy is based. They
are as follows:
1. Empathy: To closely understand the present customers and future prospects of the
company better than any of the competitors.
2. Focus: To reduce irrelevant aspects entangled with the business and acting on every
opportunity.
3. Impute: Presenting the product in front of the customer in such a way that the process
should look highly professional infused with creativity because sophistication
increases the price of a product. This is because though the organization possesses the
best product with great and useful features but if it is not presented in a sophisticated
way the customer shall undermine the value of the product.
Therefore, the company uses these three main philosophies and has become the most
successful smartphone company. Moreover, its brand valuation is among the top products
in the world.
Apple is the best example of a marketing company. It uses its strategies in such a way
that it is constantly targeting its future customers. The unique logo itself is so attractive in
nature that it is easy to remember and hard to forget. Whenever an apple phone or apple
Laptop is turned on, the logo automatically lights up to grab the attention of the people
around. Therefore, the aspiration to acquire the product is deep rooted in the sub-
conscious mind of the non-users. While other companies like Samsung, Huawei, Nokia
and so on takes the risk of lowering prices and constantly puts the brand value on the line
to increase profit. On the other hand, Apple’s marketing strategy is crisp and clear. It has
perfectly positioned itself as a niche product and never lowers the prices of its products to

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maintain its brand value at the peak. Due to this strategy, the users feel sophisticated and
stands unique in the crowd.
Micro Environment Analysis
SWOT Analysis
Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat Analysis helps the examiners to understand
the current market position of the company in the market.
Strength: Strength of an organization helps to examine the internal stability on which the
positive strategies are set up.
1. Brand Value and Reputation: Over the last decade, in terms of brand valuation it is
one of the most valued companies in the world. Only one company is ahead of it i.e.
Google. The market value of Apple in the Year 2006 was around 16 billion USD
whereas in the year 2018 its market value stands over 300 billion dollars. The
reputation of the company is also one of the best in terms of market debt and financial
payments at it only faced crisis in the initial years of business.
2. Loyal Customer Base: The customer base of Apple is one of the best, which any
company can dream of. The users rarely switches to some other smartphone. They
always prefer the next model of the same company. It has a record brand loyalty of
87% in United States of America and almost 75% in Europe.
3. Simplicity and Innovation: The basic rule of the company has always been simplicity.
It is known for revolutionizing the world of Personal Computers, Music technology
and Smartphones. On the other hand, though it maintains a level of simplicity it has
constantly changed the world with innovation by introducing products like Tabs,
Smartphones, and PC’s nobody could even think of.

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4. Marketing and Advertising: Apple Inc. is considered one of the best in the field of
marketing and advertisement. The way in which the company has placed the product
is remarkable. The strategy used by the company is divided into subparts which are as
follows:
a) Concentrating on People rather than the product: The advertisements and the
marketing strategy never talks about the features of the phone like the processor
speed, screen resolution or camera quality. This is because they realized that most
people do not care about the internal features of the phone and the people who
really care are smart enough to find those in the company website. Therefore,
rather the strategy focuses no how the product can change the lives of the people
by making it easy and convenient.
b) Consulting Opinion Leaders and Taking Action: Apple has an acute strategy of
using influencers and opinion leaders as the local speakers on behalf of the
company. They are used as suggesting agents and suggested customers are the
dream of every company.
c) Revolution in Personality: The former owner of the company whenever took the
stage, the whole world waited for him to speak up. This is not due to its huge
financial backup or great vocational skill, this is because apple is not afraid to
innovate and be the initiator of change in the world. The company has
successfully changed the perception of the people about any product category.
d) Converting Product launch campaigns into events: Apple always selects the
best venues to launch their product worldwide. However, the main point of
importance is that they transform these launching campaigns into events
decreasing the rate of formal interaction and increasing informal engagements in
the form of events. It covers up the whole event so that every audience have their

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full attention on the stage. In addition, the product launches are never like normal
readings of pages in front of the press. It has been always Steve Jobs who spent
weeks and even months to prepare the speech and gestures. This is because he
wanted the world to get amazed after the whole event.
e) Pre-Order System: The first company in the smartphone business to take pre-
order was Apple Inc.
Weakness: Another crucial segment of the internal analysis where the inner
drawbacks are to be considered to perform internal checking and solving the
problems. They are:
1. Limit Product Line: One of the main drawback of the company is it has limited
variant of every model. It mainly has only two or three variant, which are mainly
based on color and texture and not on specifications.
2. Elevated Customer Experience: When Apple launches any of its products, it raises
the aesthetic value of the product at such a level that the expectations of the
customer are always high. However, it has been seen that the company does not
provide the required software updates all the time to all the customers. In addition,
some updates have even created problem during hardware and software
compatibility.
Opportunity: For the purpose of external analysis, opportunity plays a crucial
role in acting upon the future prospects. If not properly taken into consideration.
They are as follows:
1. Apple Watch: Apple earlier in the year 2015 had launched Apple series 1
watches that proved to be a revolutionary product, which was a huge success.

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Other companies like Xiaomi and Samsung followed its footsteps. They are
planning to launch another apple watch i.e. series 4.
2. Apple OS Television: Apple should try in the field of smart television like
Google, Amazon and Xiaomi who have already used the android platform
successfully. Therefore, apple must use the iOS platform to capitalize on this
opportunity.
3. Apple Electric Car: Apple is renowned for being a bug player in the field of
innovation and technology Project “TITAN” on which the company is already
working on has a high probability of gaining success in the market. However,
it will face a stiff competition from Tesla but Apple has its own set of loyal
customers who will surely create a craze in the market.
4. Distribution Channel: Apple has many opportunities to increase and
strengthen its distribution channel. Due to globalization the per capita income
of the people of many Asian countries such as India, South Korea and Hong
Kong. So, the distribution network of these areas must be strengthened as
other competitors such as Samsung and Huawei has a strong network in these
places.
Threat
It is that area of External Analysis, which helps to analyze the future hindrances,
which may affect the balance sheet of the company directly by affecting sales adversely.
They are as follows:
1. Competition from other Smartphone Companies: Now all the players in the
market are aware of the strategy that apple uses to target customers. So,

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companies like Samsung have launched a premium segment for which equivalent
specification and similar prices.
2. Competition from other Laptop/PC companies: The main competitor of the
company is Dell, which is a big player in desktop and laptop manufacturing
sector. Moreover, Dell has one of the most successful models like Inspiron and
XPS, which directly is challenging MacBook. Lenovo in recent years have
emerged as another stiff competitor in the market. On the other hand, Hewlett
Packard hugely dominates the economy range around the globe and mainly in
developing countries.
3. Apple Television Competition: As mentioned above, Apple will face a stiff
competition from Android based smart televisions such as Amazon, MI TV and
Google who has already captured a significant portion of the market.
Macro-Environment Analysis
Porter’s Five Forces Analysis:
Porter’s five forces analysis provides an overall market scenario, which exposes the
current position of the market with accuracy. The five forces of Porter’s model are as follows:
1. Bargaining Power of the Customer.
2. Bargaining Power of the Supplier.
3. Threat from Substitutes.
4. Threat of New Entrants.
5. Competition among existing players.

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1. Bargaining Power of the Customer: Apple Inc. customers contains strong bargaining
power over the company. As the price of products offered by Apple are quite high,
customers demand the best experience against the price that they pay. The main
factors on the basis of which customers possess a strong power over the company are
as follows:
a) Low Cost of Switching
b) Small Customer Base
c) High buyer information
2. Bargaining Power of the Supplier: The bargaining power of the suppliers for Apple
Inc. is very weak. The manufacturing of Apple Smart phones and laptop sector are
based in china and the switching cost for the company is very weak. The factors
which affects this area are:
a) Medium to High Number of Suppliers.
b) Medium to High Component and Raw Material Supply
c) Proportion of firm concentration to Supply Concentration
3. Threat from Substitutes: The substitute of Apple is yet to be found. The customers of
Apple rarely switches to other companies due to the market reputation of making only
premium products. The factors which are associated with this section are as follows:
a) Medium to High availability of Substitutes
b) Inferior Quality of Substitutes
c) Low probability of Buyers preferring Substitutes

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4. Threat of New Entrants: The smartphone and laptop sector requires huge amount of
capital. Therefore, the threat of new entrants to the company is very weak. On the
other hand, people’s preference and acceptance rate of a new company is almost
negligible and requires lot of time to generate break even. The main factors affecting
this section are as follows:
a) Huge requirement of Capital.
b) Excessively high cost of brand establishment.
c) Capacity of the new entrants.
PESTLE Analysis
PESTLE analysis helps the examiners to achieve a detailed understanding of the
macro environmental factors that affects the organization. From this framework,
analysis The Threats and Opportunities are identified which are used in SWOT
analysis. The components of PESTLE are:
a) Political
b) Environmental
c) Social
d) Technological
e) Economic
a) Political: Apple is one of the biggest companies in the world in terms of
Revenue and Market Capitalization. It has an estimated capital of around
35 billion USD. Therefore, people are demanding to raise tax proportion,
as income inequality has become one of the main problems in the United

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States of America. The manufacturing sector of Apple Inc. is based in
China. The Communist Party of China rules China’s governance so any
changes in rules and regulation or political unrest may result in increase in
manufacturing cost. As Apple heavily relies on low manufacturing costs
this change may directly affect the revenue of the company adversely. On
the other hand, finding China’s replacement is very hard. Apple is highly
of China’s manufacturing sector thus putting the company in a vulnerable
situation in front of the Chinese Government. It may become the target of
anti-foreign dominance with increase in nationalism in China which may
reduce the market share of Apple. On the other hand, the biggest market of
Apple products are United States of America and Japan which are facing
nuclear threat from China.
b) Economic Factors: Economic factors are those, which govern the nominal
value and real value of the company. The sub factors include raw material
cost, labor cost and opportunity cost among others. As the manufacturing
units of Apple are based in China, increase in the cost of labour may take
away the cost advantage of iPhones and MacBook. On the other hand,
stagnation of per capita income in the developed and developing countries
will surely result in sales reduction. As American Dollar is the most
widely used international currency of transaction, dollar is becoming
stronger compared to other currencies. This will have a huge effect in the
maximum retail price, which may result in reduction in sales in other
countries.
c) Social Factors: Social factors has a big connection with the behavior of the
people. Though this phenomenon cannot be measured in terms of quantity,

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it is very important to understand these factors. In the last decade as we
have seen that, the chunk of money has shifted from North America to
Asia due to advantages in opportunity, average age and income among
others. The next market for the company is the African Subcontinent. This
is because people are still unaware of products of Apple. The main
demographic population of Apple in the United States is young having an
average age of twenty-five. This population does not have an emotional
connection with the company, which increases sales. People have realized
that spending more money does not mean more utility so many people in
America and Europe are becoming more conscious and restraining
themselves from buying Apple products. People are also aware of the
socially ruled Chinese Economy and know that apple manufactures its
products in China, so people forming a negative impression of the
company. On the other hand, Apples improving relationship with China
may offend countries like Japan, Taiwan, France and even America. The
music marketing strategy of the company is also facing public criticism
that is adversely affecting the brand image of the company.
d) Technological Factors: Technology is the most important physical aspect
of a smartphone that acts as an interlink between the real and virtual
aspects of life. Its main competitors Samsung and Google has proved that
Apple’s technology is not at all unique and is successfully replicated by
these companies. The Stock Keeping Unit of Apple is very low with very
low variants giving the consumer less options. The personal computer and
laptop sector is being hit hard by the changes in preference of the
consumer highly concentrating on smartphones and tablets. It is not

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compatible with other operating system such as Android and Window
making the corporate use restricted so bulk buying is hugely affected.
Legal Factors: Apple has entered the financial sector services via Apple
Pay, which contains complex rules, and regulations Apple is planning to
enter the automobile sector that is also governed with huge rules and laws.
As the company, charges for various services Intellectual Property Rights
govern it. Therefore, the company is vulnerable to piracy and litigation.
5. Environmental Factors: The biggest problem Apple faces is disposal of inactive
electronic devices. The expenditure incurred by the company is very high. Pollution is
also increasing in China due to large volume produces.
Conclusion
The above study is a detailed analysis of Apple Inc. from the perspective of
marketing. Firstly, with a brief introduction and company background the report is a twofold
analysis assessing the micro and macro environment. SWOT Analysis has been used to
analyze the microenvironment whereas PESTLE and Porter’s five forces has been used to
analyze the macro environment. Apple Inc. has embarked the extent of innovation by
constantly challenging the conventional ways of the world. This report successfully identified
the factors on which the company should emphasize and factors which should be critically
taken care of to avoid losses. However, competition in the premium technology sector Apple
still stands above all.

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