Secondary Research

The Apple Inc is concentrated in hardware and software markets.

According to the data, obtained from the BBC website, Apple shares on the US PC Market in 2006 were 4.6%. The graph, which shows Apple shares and the shares of its main competitors, is given bellow:

However, there’s also some other data available on the BBC website, which shows Apple shares on the other related markets:

•Apple holds a 23% second place share of the US education market

•Apple has a 15.2% leading share of the European education market

•Apple's share of the US retail PC market is around 6.6%

•Apple's share of the entire US PC market is at 4.6%

 

According to the Register website, US PC Market keeps growing in the worldwide and it has increased by 9.1% in the third quarter of 2006 despite stagnant growth in the US. Also, the latest shipments figures show an increase of about 10% from 2003 to 2005. In Addition to this, growth in the other regions was better than expected. This suggests that the PC market is growing quite rapidly.

 

There is also another graph showing an increase in the shipments of portable music players, given bellow, which shows that the market of digital music players is expected to grow quite rapidly as well.

Also, in order to prove that the digital music player market is growing very quickly I decided to give an example of an increase in Apple iPod sales from 2003 to 2007, which shows how dynamically Apple sales grow.

 

Although it can be seen that in the third quartile iPod sales were decreased, but it’s not very accurate as it doesn’t include the data with sales in the other quartiles, because the year 2007 is not finished yet.

Not only this, but dynamic increase in the shipments of Macintosh computers shows, that Apple computer sales are increasing year over year, and they’re increasing more rapidly than their closest competitors’ sales. This can be seen bellow:

 

From this table it is evident, that Apple shares and shipments of portable computers have increased by 30.6% in 2006, which is the biggest increase from 2005 to 2006 comparing to the other PC giants like Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba. This table also shows, that although other companies on the market have bigger percentage of shares, Apple increases their shares more rapidly, which suggests that soon it will reach similar percentage of shares as other big firms, and potentially in the future Apple can become a dominating firm on the PC market.

• Apple mainly targets young auditory between 12-17 years old, who are dependent on their parents and have limited willingness to pay; 18-25- who are students, but can work part-time and have slightly more willingness to pay as they are independent; however it also targets older people between 25-40, who are successful, want to be up-to-date and have willingness to pay for their products.
• Digital players, musical files and headphones, are targeted at the young group of people between 12-17 years old; sound speakers, computers, and certain programs (E.g. educational programs for students in the university, which help them with their subjects) are targeted at the slightly older group of people between 18-25 years old as they are more willing to pay for more expensive products. TVs, computers and software are mainly targeted at the older group of people between 26-40 years old, as they might, for example, need some of Apple computers and software business, and some other computers and TVs for home. Such products as TVs and computers are the most expensive products in the Apple product range, apart from the multimedia, design or architecture software which are also very expensive.

Product range:

Hardware:

• Desktops
• Laptops
• digital players
• TVs
• periphery, such as keyboards, mouse, headphones, cables, accessories for the players and computers, sound speakers and other sound systems

Software:

• Programs, like iTunes, operational systems like MacOS X85, and multimedia programs such as Quick Time player and etc.

• Selling music and video files over the world via internet, using iTunes.

 

Products, which are targeted at different customers have different features. For example, expensive software for businesses and firms might have many useful programs for business which make the life easier, but they might be useless for the young auditory, as they have different wants and preferences. For example, itunes program is very popular particularly among the young people. However, they are less likely to use complicated architecture programs, because they simply don’t need them or they might not be interested in them.

Another example is a digital player iPod. It is very popular among the young people. However, older people would buy and use an Apple computer or software, as it is more serious and fits their age category. 40 year old customers are less likely to need itunes program or any other similar programs.

1. New market/product information

a) Sports market.

b) (Uncertain) about 2.5 million sales

c) Growing, but very slowly.

d) Speedo, Umbro, Quick Silver, Adidas, Nike

e) -

f) Sports clothes, and sports equipment, like balls, goggles (sports watch) and etc.

g) Most of the competitors are specialised on producing sports clothes, but not sports equipment, such as goggles.

h) Professional sportsmen, children (sports in most schools in the UK are compulsory), and normal people who do sport as a hobby.

i) Package doesn’t have to be very big, because the product itself (goggles) is very small. There can be recyclable materials being used in the package. However, package has to have an attractive design, in order to show the difference between the products which are already available in the market.

j) Use of less plastic, and decrease in the use of paper and packaging materials by reducing the size of the actual box or package.

k) Price is very competitive, but at the moment there are no similar products available on the market, so there is the only price for this product.

l) Competitors’ products are mainly advertised on TV, in the Sports clubs and Fitness centres, sports shops, during different sports events (E.g. swimming competition).

m) They offer seasonal discounts

n) Competitors’ products are mainly sold in the sports shops, but also in the fitness centres and on-line.

o) Special auctions, like buying some ‘Adidass’ products before the 31^st of july and you getting a chance to win on of the 100 tickets to the Football World Cup 2012

 

Tech News | 22 Oct 2007 | Listen | Comment | Recommend?+1