Apple Inc. Case Study 

Introduction

Apple Inc. is an international business that makes and offers PC virtual products, consumer electronics, and personal computers (PCs). However, the company is based in America. The corporation is famous for its products such as the iPhone, iPad, Macintosh line of PCs, and the iPod. Apple is one of the biggest organizations worldwide and the most admired innovation organization in the entire world. Apple Computers began the development of individualized computing operations in 1977. Nevertheless, through changes in administration and contrasts of opinions together with missed open doors, the company lost its leading positions to organizations like Dell, Gateway, and Microsoft. Apple works on different lines of the PC and music industry today, and its operations incorporate the designing as well as the assembling of its PCs and software (“Apple Inc. Company Profile”, 2015).

Apple keeps on pursuing the PC market yet not as eagerly as in the prior years. The company’s management has decided to change directions a little by wandering into the music world through the marketing of iTunes, an advanced music player, and iPod. The opening of 65 new retail outlets, including one in Japan, has accelerated Apple’s turn into this new world (“Apple Inc. Company Profile”, 2015). Apple keeps on dealing with giving inventive items to its clients yet promoting to, for example, the little market has brought about a few issues. Its piece of the market pie has been diminished to beneath 5% and its working framework varies extensively from the Wintel working structure utilized by predominant Microsoft (“Apple Inc. Company Profile”, 2015). Expenses of keeping up this distinction have expanded in comparison to those using the competitive operating framework. Programming creators are not enthusiastic about composing projects to backing Apple’s operating structure due to restricted potential sales (“Apple Inc. Company Profile”, 2015).

Apple’s contenders immediately remove the advantages that the company possesses because they have the capacity to duplicate, take, and share them. The one point of interest that Apple has is its operating framework; however, it has neglected to persuade the universe of its predominance. Apple’s operating structure has not experienced the issues that Microsoft and its kindred working structures have suffered. Viruses and other programming issues, including the ability of hackers to break into the context and get to one’s PC from another remote spot, have tormented Microsoft overhauls. Apple has not profited by these issues. It has picked up a couple of clients yet nothing in the numbers needed to turn the organization upwards in recovering a significant piece of the market pie. Apple’s clients are a devoted group that comprehends the predominance that they have, yet persuading the other 95% of the world turns into a relatively large assignment (“Apple Inc. Company Profile”, 2015).

This case study will start with Apple’s external environment, a list of its current strategies and objectives, and a monetary examination of the company using ratio analysis. Moreover, it will examine where the organization will be in five years to come if it continues with its present strategies and objectives. The study will cover Porter’s Five Strengths and give an understanding of the open doors and dangers that Apple faces. In addition, there will be the incorporation of an internal investigation so that Apple’s central goal, vision, and financial objectives are caught on. Products and services will be analyzed.

External Environment

PEST Analysis

Political actors

There exist numerous issues that cannot be controllable by the organization. For example, geopolitical vulnerabilities, the war against terrorism, the power to work, and well-being issues that can influence the sales of Apple products around the world are among such issues. In order to decrease operating expense, Apple has outsourced in distinctive nations like China, Ireland, Korea, Ireland, and the Czech Republic. If it happens that these countries confront any political instability or any issue that cause to defer in manufacturing operations, this will prompt the ruin of Apple resemblance in the eye of buyers and its merchants (Atif, 2013).

Economic factors

Buying force relies on the world’s monetary conditions. As indicated by recent years, the unemployment rate was high in numerous nations, which caused the diminishing of demand for Apple products. Another reason was the increment in oil costs that caused inflation in the world’s economy. Because of these monetary components, the purchasing power of individuals decreased, which adversely influenced the sale of Apple products because of their higher cost. Nevertheless, the current state of the world’s economy shows signs of improvement, and the organization has bought foreign currencies, so Apple’s income has expanded in the worldwide business sector.

Social factors

Two components have been on the front line of Apple products throughout its history – the outline and the quality. The purchases of luxury items have gone up because the buying force of buyers has ascended in the distinctive market over the world, and individuals want to purchase iPod, iPhones, and Apple’s most recent innovation iPad. As for the music industry, its development has expanded as well. This sphere has had the greatest social impact on Apple because the primary key music store is Apple’s iTunes. Along these lines, Apple has picked up such an enormous amount from social elements because of its defining current way of life (Atif, 2013).

Apple takes advantage in light of its inventive and high advanced items. The amount of resources that it has put into innovative work field is the reason Apple comes on top of the new creative things (Atif, 2013).

Competitor Analysis

As everybody realizes, Apple is a major industry that has a great variety of products to offer to its consumers. The key contenders of Apple in per mobile phone industry and different products are Samsung, RIM, Nokia, HTC, HPQ (Hewlett-Packard Company), and Google (Atif, 2013).

The Analysis of Industry Competition

Rivalry in a given industry is characterized by Michael Porter’s five aggressive powers demonstrated below. This model can help to assess the effect on Apple and its capacity to contend in the business sector.

The intensity of rivalry within the industry

The first force of five strengths of Michael Porter’s model is a force of competition within the business. The Apple Company has done an incredible job by giving technical support, creating client loyalty, and producing items. Therefore, Apple has no stress over that element because its products never go on sale. Apple keeps up its efficiency while never denoting an object by creating predominant elements from Android cell phones, eReaders and rival tablets picking up the marketing share with lower costs (Atif, 2013).

Bargaining power of suppliers

Haggling force of vendors can bring Apple’s benefits down by demonstrating high costs for supplies. Subsequently, the organization searches for new suppliers because there is no doubt that the Apple Company is in continuous development. The organization permits new suppliers to decrease the bargaining force of vendors by enrolling online on Apple’s website. Due to this, Apple can diminish their bargaining power through more intensity among a vast number of suppliers (Atif, 2013).

The bargaining power of buyers

The Apple Company ought to meet the desires of their clients with a particular end goal to accomplish the dominant part shares of the market by diverse fragments that originate from educational level, age, and salary. Another thing is that buyers are more cost-sensitive, and they can change to another retailer if the items are not differentiated. Google offers rivalry on the overall smartphone and tablet market because the manufacturer of Blackberry (RIM), who initially was a pioneer of the smartphone market, currently has just 1 percent of the American market. Apple holds around 75% of the benefit in the industry, so the chances of Apple’s client to switch to another brand are less because of its robust image reliability (Atif, 2013). However, the rivalry is high these days, and contending organizations attempt to pull in new customers because this has been done by picking off RIM once more, the move of Nokia and Android’s ascent.

The threat of new entrants

If many organizations enter the market, it will lead to a diminished piece of the overall industry of Apple. The body can keep up the market share and create benefit through differentiation of brand and product as well as through making substantial advertising procedure like a competitive advantage. For a new organization, it is exceptionally difficult to contend with corporations like Apple that have a stable brand image, development, perceived quality, and great client services (Atif, 2013).

The threat of substitute product

If the need of customers is the same, then an item can be substituted; otherwise, it cannot be substituted. Hence, the danger of replacement may have two components (cost and performance), which permits the client to switch the products. There can be a decrease in the risk of the substitute as much as buyers get to be faithful to the products. No organization can exhibit an environment, which Apple has made. Individuals purchase iPhone for standard applications, and other Apple products for upgradeability and dependability, which gives the client the capacity to exchange learning and applications among gadgets (Atif, 2013).

Internal Analysis

SWOT Analysis

The SWOT analysis is utilized to find the organization’s qualities, shortcomings, its chances, and threats. The SWOT analysis is a vital marketing planning approach that is usually used to help every enterprise comprehend and dissect its qualities and shortcomings, recognize the dangers of different companies. The strengths and the shortcomings allude to the organization and its products as inside components, while the risks and the opportunities refer to the outside variables of the corporation in which it has no control. The Apple Company produces phones, PCs, music players and related administrations, networking solutions, software, and peripherals. The organization’s business position can be measured by its stable operating performance, which has additionally expanded the certainty of investors. Then again, the organization’s edges can be influenced by extreme rivalry (Pidun et al., 2011).

Strengths

Apple is an organization that produces an assortment of items, including PCs, operational programming, cellular telephones, compact advanced music, and related accessories. The organization’s brand has a reputation of involving top-notch products, which help separate them from contenders. The company possesses one of the top brand names in innovation worldwide with 54% of its incomes originating from outside business sectors (“Short Term”, 2014). Clients are constantly keen on attempting the most recent and up to date bits of change. By understanding customers and knowing how to satisfy their needs, Apple makes its products with a remarkable outline with hi-tech capacities, pulling in the consideration of their intended target group. Therefore, the market share is persistently increasing (“Short Term”, 2014).

The organization works on the motivation behind growing new items that offer a less demanding and more proficient method for utilizing innovation. The final products dependably appear at the most advantageous and simple to use on the market. Apple is an overall pioneer in tackling a portfolio of product broadening. With its product lines, the organization focuses on a colossal group of audience in every technological business. More to say, with such a substantial client base, the organization has a huge system of corporate and business buyers who are loyal to the brand, even though the value paid is higher than options in the market.

Weaknesses

It has been recorded that Apple has had a few issues with its item quality control. For instance, toward the start of the iPod period, there were problems with the broken battery, and after that, there had been cases of screen deficiencies of the iPod Nano. The organization has gathered high substitution costs due to the need to supplant broken items. With its latest and exceedingly advanced product, the iPhone, there are still disadvantages, for example, the gadget is not being 3G perfect (“Short Term”, 2014). The cell phone is additionally out of reach in nations, for instance, Japan, and Korea. A few product elements of the iPhone are likewise not particularly great when contrasted with market choices. These elements include iPhone’s camera that has a limited capacity of two megapixels as well as its undaunted memory. In addition, the iPhone is valued at around 300 with a restricted choice of conveyance channels, this high cost, and absence of choice has been met with solid doubt by sections of the market (“Short Term”, 2014).

Having the capacity to accomplish and hold market authority in a quickly evolving industry, Apple needs to concentrate many of its assets on product research and development. Due to this, the company is not able to stay aggressive in regions, for example, with its operations and retail procedure. The corporate process of constant advancement implies that Apple needs to contribute an expanding measure of income consistently for its innovative work purposes.

Opportunities

Apple has a history of being creative, and the company has built up a product line that offers great usefulness and engaging quality. Joint endeavors, for example, the operation with Nike, where both corporations deal with a venture that consolidates an iPod with Nike running shoes is a pointer of Apple’s drive to make an inventive item. Podcasts, or downloadable radio tracks, demonstrate that people can access the Internet, download, and play these podcasts on their iPods and other MP3 gadgets whenever they like. The audience can subscribe to Podcasts for free; but income could eventually result from paid memberships or through revenue produced from sales of different downloads (“Short Term”, 2014).

In the motivation behind giving a superior computing background to the client with the iPhone, Apple tries to join both capable computing and entertainment. In addition, individuals have noticed that the Mac OS applications for the desktop can be consistently adjusted for the iPhone (“Short Term”, 2014). Thus, it is the initial move towards an Internet Protocol-based system. The rise of Wi-Fi systems pushes for there to be guest charges as opposed to having a supplier that locks on its clients only. It is likely that the gadget costs and pay-per-view framework will take flight, disposing of month-to-month membership expenses (“Short Term”, 2014).

Threats

Innovation development is an open door as well as a risk for Apple Inc. Despite the fact that Apple has increased competitive advantages through technological advancement, the organization likewise has been confronted with contenders that are more inventive. Samsung has utilized that point of interest and turned into one of the strongest contenders of Apple Inc. right now (“Short Term”, 2014). The developing of technology gives more opportunities for organizations to join the innovative market and abbreviate the life cycle of a technological item.

Financial Analysis of Apple Inc

Growth Ratio

Apple’s financial performance has kept on strengthening throughout the second quarter of 2014. The income expanded by 23% from $28.6 billion to $35 billion throughout the prior-year quarter (“Short Term”, 2014). Apple was number three after Dell, Inc. and, Hewlett-Packard Co. in the US PC market with 12 percent of the market. As for the tablet market and advanced cell phone market, Apple is the pioneer in market share and volume with 29% piece of the mobile phone market and 61.5% of the tablet market (“Short Term”, 2014).

Valuation and Financial Strength Ratio

As of now, Apple the lower Price-to-Earnings proportion of 14.5 contrasted with the business standard of 15.7 and the S&P 500 average of 15.3 (“Short Term”, 2014). Moreover, this demonstrates that Apple is to a lesser degree an unsafe venture than different organizations in the computer hardware industry and several firms in the business worth weighted index. In addition, Apple has a current ratio of 1.6, which is equivalent to the business and higher than S&P 500 ratio of 1.3 (“Short Term”, 2014). The current rate shows Apple’s assets that can be changed over into money are sufficient to cover its fleeting commitment.

The Quick proportion of 1.5 will be a bolster pointer to demonstrate Apple’s liquidity because the quick ratio additionally tells the capacity of ending a short-term organization commitment by its current assets exclusion of stock. The long-term obligation to value proportion demonstrates that Apple does not convey any long-term commitment to equity ratio. Moreover, it implies that Apple does not have any long-term debt, which means that it has a proportionate equity base and the capacity of mobilized capital in need (“Short Term”, 2014).

Profitability Ratios

Apple’s gross net revenue proportion of 44.11 is higher than the business normal of 43.5 and the S&P 500 of 39.4 (“Short Term”, 2014). The truth of the matter is Apple claims a few retail locations that help Apple, dispense its selling and administration cost viable, and remove the discount expense to wholesalers or merchants. Moreover, Apple products take after the premium estimating method that could be a variable in the higher gross profit margin proportion. The net benefits portion of Apple, Inc. is 26.97, speaking to the same with the average business ratio of 26.38. Apple utilizes 2.5 % on R&D expenses in light of their blue ocean procedure, and this could put off their net revenue margin to be the same with the business (“Short Term”, 2014).

Apple’s Current Strategies and Objectives

One of Apple’s goals is to grow their deals to clients who have not yet possessed an Apple item. They do this through publicizing as well as by extending their dissemination network too. In my assessment, for Apple to grow its dispersion system, it should have the items, for example, the iPhone sold in different internet suppliers like Smartphone, 3, and CSL. For example, stores that sell smartphone should expect to offer long-term phone plans with the iPhone. By advancing the prominent eras of the iPhone, they find themselves able to provide programs alongside the iPhone. Apple additionally offers its items in outside retail locations, for example, Broadway and Fortress (“Apple Inc. Company Profile”, 2015).

Lastly, they additionally offer their items in flagship stores such as the new store that opened in Central, Hong Kong (“Apple Inc. Company Profile”, 2015). The utilization of a flagship store takes out the need for individuals to visit stores, like DGA-Design in Causeway Bay or the past DG situated in the IFC Mall (“Apple Inc. Company Profile”, 2015). A lead store located in the heart of Hong Kong, for instance, is an impressive approach to drawing in clients. Likewise, they offer anything Apple-related, from products to programming and servicing.

Another target for Apple is to develop hassle-free items that will provide service and happiness to clients. To achieve this objective, Apple has faith in the consistent interest in its Research and Development division to keep creating quality items. Case in point, in a previous couple of years Apple has changed the worldwide networking world through their enhanced eras of the iPhone. I accept, with the up and coming fifth period iPhone turning out, Apple will be pulling in a greater number of clients than it has recently managed to attract. Moreover, the enhanced times of the iPhone offer new elements, for example, Voice Control, FaceTime and access to new versions and software updates (“Apple Inc. Company Profile”, 2015). Clients have the capacity to appreciate films and play their most loved amusements in the palm of their hands, and they find themselves able to communicate with their loved ones considerably quicker than before.

In conclusion, one of Apple’s greatest targets is to turn into the main business in the corporate mobile sector. Their strategy connected with this objective is to turn into an online quest machine and platform for internet publicizing. This methodology includes partitioning their business into two classifications. The primary classification would be for business common-or-garden cell phones of the kind there are now – those that do text, voice, MP3s and maybe radio and TV. The second class would be the iPhone platform, permitting people to access the web and get the computer feel in their hands (“Apple Inc. Company Profile”, 2015).

Apple’s Future Projection Using Current Strategies and Objectives

Despite the fact that Apple’s 68% income reliance on the iPhone resembles a significant danger, it has other businesses to bolster its future development (“Apple Inc. Company Profile”, 2015). Right now, the iPad is the primary business that is in a declining mode. In the interim, Apple is hopeful that its association with (IBM) will help support iPad deals in the venture market. Macintosh is another vital business for Apple, helping it pick up market share in a declining PC market. Regardless of the fact that Apple is the fifth-positioned player on the PC market after Lenovo, HP (HPQ), Dell, and Acer, Apple beats all of them as far as average offering cost. Apple figured out how to build Mac’s typical selling cost by $58 to $1258 in the last quarter (“Apple Inc. Company Profile”, 2015).

The greatest aspect about Apple is that does not rely on its built-up establishments. It keeps on developing to verify that its development proceeds in the future. Case in point, the organization attempts extraordinary endeavors in building up its more up to date organizations Apple Watch, Apple Pay, and its music streaming administration. Apple has even labeled 2015 the year of Apple Pay (“Apple Inc. Company Profile”, 2015).

Conclusion

Apple Inc. has an unmistakable system, which is in agreement with its primary goal, vision, and targets. They concentrate on client experience and mean to make the utilization of their items as smooth as anyone could expect under the circumstances. Apple creates and develops the organization with a nonstop interest in innovation, research, and marketing. Apple’s methodology is exceptionally proficient which indicates straightforwardly in their income and business position. Nevertheless, there is an opportunity to get better. Apple does not give careful consideration to sustainability, which is astounding since this is a major subject in the present business life. Therefore, I prescribe to execute sustainability in their products to produce a superior reputation and a considerably more stable market position. Moreover, it is great to work with some particular qualities, yet they ought to be cautious with underestimating contenders.