Question

In your own words, explain the stages of the product life cycle. Next, choose a product and describe the stage of the product life cycle the product is in. What line extensions or product modifications has the product you chose undergone?

Answer 1

A product life cycle has different stages. The first stage is the introduction stage where the product is launched and introduced for the sale. In this stage, company brings advertisement to make the product popular and product sales starts increasing. Then, it enters into the growth stage. Here, the expansion of product takes place very fast and company also deploys resources to increase the market share. In this stage, the top line increases strongly and product is established in the market. Then, the maturity stage comes where the product generates revenue, but companies spend lesser on advertisement, brand building and channel development. As a result, bottom line increases with less expenses. The fourth and final stage is decline. Here, the revenue level decreases and firms launch a new version or new product to succeed this existing product and existing product is launched in other developing market  for sales.

The product selected for the discussion is windows 10 operating system that is in growth phase. The Microsoft is still spending a lot of money on its promotions, channel development and market share enhancement. At present, Window 10 has gone different upgrades and versions for use of the consumers. Though, the product was launched few years back, but there are new versions with fixing of the bugs, are launched in the market to make it remain in the growth phase.