Question

Comparative advantage and disadvantage for Apple Inc company based on other competitors? presentation slides (year: 2015-2019)

Answer 1

Apple Corp. manufactures and markets a variety of computers and consumer electronics products, including smartphones, tablets and music players. The investment analyst firm Market Realist identified brand strength, innovation, supply chain management and premium pricing strategy as key factors in the company’s competitive advantage.

Brand Strength

Apple was the world’s leading brand in 2017, ahead of Google, Coca-Cola and IBM, according to annual rankings published by brand consultancy firm Interbrand. Brand strength gives companies like Apple great visibility in the marketplace and helps build consumer loyalty. The company’s strong branding, and the interrelationships between its products, encourage customers who buy one Apple product to try another. Products such as the iPhone, iPad and Mac share the same software and applications, and operate in a similar way, making Apple a natural choice when customers are considering another device.

Innovative Products

Apple has a long-established reputation for innovation and a commitment to developing new products. The company developed the graphical user interface, first used in its own computers, and, more recently, pioneered the iPod music player and introduced new levels of performance for smartphones. A key competitive advantage for the company is its ability to develop innovative products that share the same operating system, software and applications. This minimizes the risk, timescale and costs of product development, enabling the company to introduce a stream of new products and stay ahead of competitors.

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Apple Corp. manufactures and markets a variety of computers and consumer electronics products, including smartphones, tablets and music players. The investment analyst firm Market Realist identified brand strength, innovation, supply chain management and premium pricing strategy as key factors in the company’s competitive advantage.

Brand Strength

Apple was the world’s leading brand in 2017, ahead of Google, Coca-Cola and IBM, according to annual rankings published by brand consultancy firm Interbrand. Brand strength gives companies like Apple great visibility in the marketplace and helps build consumer loyalty. The company’s strong branding, and the interrelationships between its products, encourage customers who buy one Apple product to try another. Products such as the iPhone, iPad and Mac share the same software and applications, and operate in a similar way, making Apple a natural choice when customers are considering another device.

Innovative Products

Apple has a long-established reputation for innovation and a commitment to developing new products. The company developed the graphical user interface, first used in its own computers, and, more recently, pioneered the iPod music player and introduced new levels of performance for smartphones. A key competitive advantage for the company is its ability to develop innovative products that share the same operating system, software and applications. This minimizes the risk, timescale and costs of product development, enabling the company to introduce a stream of new products and stay ahead of competitors. Apple’s innovative strategy of developing products that complement each other strengthens customer loyalty and helps build a barrier to competition, according to the website Innovation Excellence.

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Strong Integrated Supply Chain

An ecosystem of suppliers, developers and business partners provides Apple with a strong competitive advantage. The company owns chip manufacturers, controls manufacturing, follows extremely strict software standards and operates its own stores. Deals with leading music and entertainment companies provide a vast source of media for all the company’s products. It also has a community of more than 6 million independent software developers creating applications for Apple products. This gives Apple control over the entire process of product development, manufacturing and marketing – an advantage that competitors find difficult to match.

Premium Pricing Strategy

Apple sets premium prices for its products and minimizes discounts to wholesalers to keep prices consistent across the market. The company aims to offer customers a high-quality product with unique features and uses high prices to reinforce the perception of added value and maintain profitability. The high-pricing strategy also sets a benchmark for competitors, which must offer equivalent features to match Apple’s perceived value without losing money.

Samsung has long been a major tech corporation. It’s a meme on the internet that Samsung steal all of Apple’s ideas, reproduce them, and sell them for less than Apple sell the original product. I’m sure Samsung would deny this claim, but we know for sure that they are a strong competitor to Apple in the smart phone industry. Samsung also operate in industries like ship construction and financial services, but the only concern of Apple is their hardware production. Samsung produce tablets and televisions at a lower standard price than Ipads and Apple TVs. Their electronics tend to host Android operating systems, which are licensed by Google. Many of apple’s biggest competitors work together to weaken Apple’s market share.

A lot of people have no idea that Apple is in the online payment business, but they have been for almost 2 years now. Being worth over 46 billion dollars, PayPal is among the biggest online payment services, and it’s the most recognizable brand in the business. But Apple’s online payment service is actually bigger than Paypal, having more users and seeing more growth than others. It is likely Apple will see further growth as they can easily integrate Apple Pay into the mobile and tablet devices they constantly sell. Apple pay is still only available in a handful of nations, so it’s growth is only just getting started.

Tesla is the leading producer of electric cars; any corporation wanting to move into the industry would be in direct competition with them. For several years we’ve been hearing rumors that Apple is running a secret project to develop electric cars. Prospects of the iCar seems inevitable at this point, Steve Jobs wanted to develop a brand of car, and it seems like that dream didn’t die. It’s been reported that Apple has hired over a thousand engineers with experience necessary to create an electric car. It’s reportedly known as “Project Titan” by those involves, and is treated with incredible secrecy. Elon Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla, has made it clear that he believes Apple will be a strong competitor in the electric car business.