Executive Summary
Apple Inc. a company founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne that initially developed and sold computers, is today the strongest smartphone OEM manufacturer in the United States, and the global top performer within the consumer electronics industry. In an industry where the market capitalization is $800 billions, the company registered a profit of $18 billion and a revenue worth of $74.6 billion in Q1 2015, compared to a profit of $13 billion and revenue of $57 billion in Q1 2014 (“comScore”, Marketing Research Firm). Apple possesses a considerable loyal customer base that perceives its products as innovative, high quality, trendy and sophisticated. The company has been able to maintain high average selling prices and high profits within an environment of falling prices, by targeting markets such as Business Professionals, and to some extent thanks to its unique iOS operating system, allowing the company to differentiate from its Android OS driven competitors i.e. Samsung, Motorola and LG (MarketLine). The excellent vertical and horizontal integration presented by Apple products, more concretely the iPhone makes itself a perfect fit for the Business Professional target market as explained in subsequent sections of this marketing plan.
Apple’s main revenue contributor is the iPhone product (69%), and because of the risk that this represents, this research advises Apple to continue investing heavily in R&D not only to improve the current existing products and remain a technology disruptor on its own but also participate in product diversification by expanding its portfolio. The latter, will help Apple to break its iPhone dependency. Considering the $200 billion cash reserves (Robert Pau Leitao 2013), that Apple enjoys and the latest news about its competitors bottom lines set backs due to patent litigations and unfunded pension obligations, Apple is in an excellent position to take off and separate even more from the...