Marketing Assignment

Competitive Analysis

Competition is a key aspect in every industry in the world and has helped speed up innovation and creation of products that suit the needs of the global consumers. This makes competition beneficial not only to the business entities but also to the consumers who enjoy quality and affordable products due to innovation. However, every firm that seeks to be successful in its industry should focus on increasing its competitive advantage and achieve better performance than its close competitors (Omer, 2019). Apple Inc. operates in a highly competitive and rapidly changing technology industry. As such, it is important for the company to ensure that it is able to keep up with the trends in the industry in order to be successful. Apple Inc. produces a wide range of highly competitive products which include smart phones, personal computers, tablets, smartwatches, and application software used by individuals and enterprises.

Apple Inc. Competitors

For every category of products produced by Apple Inc., the company faces fierce competition, which has become a major threat to its growth and profit margins expansion in the market. The realization that there are strong competitors in the industry has made it possible for the company to develop appropriate strategies to enhance its competitiveness in the global market (Menon, Bharadwaj, Adidam, & Edison, 2015). Apple’s competitors are strong and well established firms in the technology industry which makes them a persistent threat to the organization. The main competitors include Samsung Electronics Company, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd, OPPO Electronics Corp., Vivo, BlackBerry, Microsoft Corporation, Google Inc., Sony Corporation, Nokia Corporation, LG, Hewlett-Packard Company, and Dell Inc. among others. All these companies are Apple’s direct competitors in the technology industry for its wide range of products such as laptops, smartphones, smartwatches, and tablets.

To conduct an effective competitive analysis on the company, different types of information about Apple Inc., and its performance in the global market is needed. Some of this information include the market share controlled by the company for its smartphones, tablets, personal computers, smartwatches, and operating systems. Obtaining this data will facilitate comparison of the company’s performance in the market with that of the competing brands. In addition, using the market information on the revenue flow of the company, its profitability, market coverage, and stock market valuation will help determine how the firm is performing.

In order to make the information useful to my company, it is important to organize it in a manner that makes it easy to follow through based on each product’s performance in the market. This would entail classifying how each of the product performs compared to other products by competing firms. To do this, the products are classified in terms of the product category such as smartphones, tablets, personal computers, smartwatches, operating systems, and internet services. This would make it possible for the reader to understand how each of these products are performing based on the market share they control and that of the close competitors (Omer, 2019). As such, the company will be able to determine the strategies that will work best to address the competitive gap.

Samsung Electronics Company

Started in 1969, Samsung Inc. has achieved significant growth in the global market, becoming one of the strongest competitors in the technology industry. The company produces a wide range of products including personal computers, smartphones, smartwatches, TVs, and household electrical appliances among others. The company’s competitive advantage has been in its ability to seek out new opportunities in the global market that enables it to compete favorably in the market (Menon, Bharadwaj, Adidam, & Edison, 2015). This way, the company has been able to maximize its output and offer highly competitive products. Globally, Samsung has managed to capture well above 31% of all smartphone sales, making it a market leader. One of its key products in the smartphone category that competes closely with Apple’s iPhone brand has been the Samsung Galaxy S series (Krigsman, 2018). Samsung Electronics Company is the main Apple Inc.’s competitor in the global market with its Samsung Galaxy S series smartphones.

The launch of the Samsung S series smartphones in June 2010 intensified the competitiveness of the company in the global market. At the time, the Galaxy S smartphones were the most advanced in the global market and still remains as one of the most advanced smartphones in the world. In addition, the Samsung Galaxy S series became the most successful phones using Android OS in the market with the largest volume of sales (Steenkamp, 2017). The latest model of the Galaxy S series is the Samsung Galaxy S9, S9+, and Note 9. These compete closely with Apple’s new iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max, which have managed to command a significant share of the global market. In the smartphone industry, Samsung controls an estimated 21% of the global market share while Apple Inc. controls 12.5% of the market share.

The Samsung Galaxy S9+ has unique qualities that have enabled it to become very appealing among the target consumers. The phone has a large screen size at 6.2 inches with a resolution of 2960 x 1440. The large screen size impact other aspects of the smartphone, which have contributed to making it a preferable smartphone among the customers who are sensitive about the product features (Samsung Electronics America. 2019). The screen size makes everything on the screen to appear bigger and easy to read. In addition, the phone has a larger keyboard in as much as it makes the pictures and videos captured using the device to appear more beautiful. Additionally, the large screen supports multitasking applications by facilitating multiple windows. On the other hand, Apple’s iPhone XS has an equally large screen size, at 5.8-inch screen size and 2436 x 1125 resolution (Krigsman, 2018). However, the iPhone XS does not make much use of the multitasking function on its large screen. On the other hand, the camera on iPhone has better dynamic range as compared to Samsung’s smartphone. The performance speeds for the iPhone are better compared to the Samsung smartphone while in terms of storage capacity, the Samsung S9+ provides bigger storage capacity at 512GB, which is expandable to 1TB unlike Apple’s iPhone XS, which is 512GB and not expandable. In terms of price, Apple’s iPhone XS is more expensive as compared to Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Samsung Electronics America. 2019). This gives the Samsung Galaxy S9+ a better rating among customers in the market given its features and the cost of the device.

Samsung uses a range of marketing mix strategies to enhance its performance in the market. This has enabled it to achieve greater competitiveness in the smartphone market, with most consumers in the market viewing it as a symbol of quality, efficiency, and reliability (Krigsman, 2018). Price skimming has been a key strategy used by the company whereby it sets prices for its products in a manner that enables it to gain an upper hand in the market over the competing brands. Samsung sells its high end products at prices that the customers are willing to pay, which has enabled it to boost sales despite the presence of equally good products from competitors (Omer, 2019). Competitive pricing has also been a key strategy used by the company in marketing its products. This enables the company to set competitive prices for most of its products based on the prices that have been set by its close competitors. The company leads in innovation, which has made it possible to use price leadership for its products (Menon, Bharadwaj, Adidam, & Edison, 2015). The price changes eventually as competing brands produce products with similar features. Additionally, the company has made effective use of advertising, investing billions in marketing campaigns and sponsorship creating awareness.

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