The new entrants can not only bring new productively and new resource, but also it might cause a huge influence for the industry. Apple Inc has a dominate position in the information technology market, like portable music market, computer and mobile phone etc. and its customers` loyalty has improved its competitive. According to expand technology market, it is not only need a huge funding, but also the corporation should have advanced technology as competition to access new market. Therefore, the new entrants have litter power for Apple Inc. But the government has encouraged the development of IT industry, there are several of electronics would emerge that the Apple`s products market has been divided up. Thus, Apple Inc should innovate more new product to gain more competitive.
- The threat of substitute products
For Apple Inc, it has the best advance technology like software, hardware and chip as the competitive advantage, which can produce and sale by the professional implementers and developers. But currently, there are different and diversification of production have been emerged, and the new productions has a better value and cheaper then Apple`s product. Thus it could be a big threat for Apple`s. In the hardware Lenovo and Dell have a common design tendency, which the computer should be light and thin like the idea pad from Lenovo. In the software, Microsoft is always a strong competitor as its operating system for Apple. And the Nokia and Samsung as a handset competitor to carve up Apple`s market share. Samsung utilize its special design and color to attract a lot of young person. However, Apple’s product differentiation strategy appears defensive against the substitutes, thus reducing the threat of substitutes.
- The threat of established rivals
Apple`s timetable was established through its special operation strategy and its long-term target that there is few effect from the market and competition. Because Apple Inc can innovate more new products to catch market initiative and expand its market share. As price advantage, HP, Lenovo and Sony are the main competitors in the hardware of computer. In the handset and portable music market, the competitors have Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung etc. the number of competitors have increased, which is a bad news for Apple. According those corporations has held a major market share that Apple Inc cannot ignore it.
The aim characteristic of Apple Inc is innovation, therefore, the production department should focus on research and development rather than special component of process scale. Thus the price of suppliers could affect the sale of Apple`s production. However, the production of Apple requires low technology content and it has different types of option to chose, that Apple has a strong bargaining power. The high quality and secrecy is a standard for suppliers, which always suffered different difficult for completing for Apple. In addition, the profit would be controlled in a low standard by Apple, such as the supplier of Foxconn Ltd.
- bargaining power of buyers
Apple`s production has its own particular design and style, there is no big distinction between productions such as IPHONE and IPAD. While a customer brought IPHONE, he can use anther product immediately. Therefore, convenience and special product can help Apple reduce the bargaining power from buyers. When new Apple Store open or new products for sale, there are always a mass of customers focus on it and intend to buy.
Differentiation of Product can deal with making changes in the marketing mix of a product so as to differentiate it from whatever the competition is offering or to offer a product which stands out in the market (Bhasin, 2012). For Apple Inc, it has direct and indirect competition. However, innovative production can enhance its competitive by a completely unique selling proposition. Thus productions of Apple are differentiated directly at the core level, which is the reason why Apple attract so many customers and obtain so much respect in the technology market. For instance, Apple pioneered the PDA market by introducing the Newton in 1993. Later, Apple introduced the easy-to-use iMac in 1998, and updates following 1998. It released a highly stable operating system in 1999, and updates following 1999. Apple had one of its critical points in history in 1999 when it introduced the iBook. This completed their “product matrix”, a simplified product mix strategy formulated by Jobs. This move allowed Apple to have a desktop and a portable computer in both the professional and the consumer segments (mbaknol, 2012). In 2001, Apple hit another important historical point by launching iTunes, which means the new strategy of Apple can make the Mac the hub for the ‘digital lifestyle’. Apple computers and electronics are frequently designed to be ahead of the curve of contemporaneous public opinion. Mac computers differ from competing Windows systems, which has a single corporation is responsible for both the operating system and the hardware on its running. Mac has complete control over the variety and range of Mac hardware, which minimizes end-user technical support issues and guarantees that every Macintosh owner will have a common hardware platform creating their user experience (Davidson, 2012). Moreover, the devices of IOS, which can connect over time to Mac while Iphone configuration utility was running. All of users` data can transfer within Apple`s product through IOS. In addition, Iphone and Ipad are two special products for electronic market, both of them has opened a new start to enhance competitive advantage.
Apple has the best-designed hardware from an aesthetics point of view of any vendor, which cannot be exceeded by the design of Apple`s ipod to other MP3 player. When questioned about the future of the iPhone, Apple’s largest revenue stream, cook underscored that smart phones only represent 9% of the global handset market and even within smart phones, 3 out of 4 customers bought something other than Apple (Enderle, 2004). Apple is pulling away in the smartphone market, with roughly 120 million units sold since the Iphone first went on sale in 2007 (Magee, 2011). The Iphones and Ipad are obviously popular on its own merits like the touch screen, app-based products, which are 9.52 million iPads, and the product has only been available for roughly a year. That is why Apple has a strong competitive advantage for its operation.
Conclusion
Apple Inc is indicated that the corporation has a huge innovative ‘DNA’ flows to help Apple achieving the peak of successful, while review the history of Apple Inc. Currently, Apple Inc can suffer low or few threats from the competitors in terms of the market share analysis and customer loyalty. However, Apple Inc cannot satisfy in the current situation, it should be innovated more particular production, not only update the software like Ipad3 to Ipad4. If Apple Inc has no any significant change, it will lose its customers.
Reference
Bhasin. H (2012), Product Differentiation, Available at: [Accessed: 27, November, 2012]
Enderle (2004), Apple`s Competitive advantage, Available at: [Accessed: 27, November, 2012]
Magee (2011), Apple's Competitive Advantage: Multiple Products That Integrate as One, Available at: [Accessed: 27, November, 2012]
Mbaknol (2012), Case Study on Apple’s Business Strategies, Available at: [Accessed: 27, November, 2012]
Qickmba (2010), Porter`s Five Forces ---- A model for industry analysis, Available at: [Accessed: 27, November, 2012]
Small business (2012), ---- Apple business strategy: business continuity strategy, Available at: [Accessed: 27, November, 2012]
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