INTRODUCTION

The report helps in understanding the ways in which competitive forces impinge on an organization’s performance. The report tries to provide an insight into the key issues facing Apple. The primary focus of the article is on Apple company profile, its competitor analysis, financial analysis, micro environment analysis (five force analysis), Marco-environment analysis (PESTLE), strategic directions of apple using Bowman’s strategic clock, BCG Matrix and Ansoff’s Matrix.

COMPANY PROFILE

Established in 1977, Apple is a US MNC. It is exclusively into designing, manufacturing and selling personal computers, portable digital music players, mobile phones and other communication devices. Apple’s main services & products are Mac, Apple TV, IPod, i Pad , iPhone and professional software applications, OS X operating systems, the iOS  & iCloud, and a wide range of  accessories , a portfolio of consumer other services and  client support offerings.  Digital Content & its varied applications is offered & sold by the company from its iTunes Outlets, Mac App, Store App bookstores, & StoreSM. The company’s products are available on its outlet across all the countries through online stores, retail store, direct sales agents, retailers, wholesalers, through third –party network and value added reseller channel. Apple acquired APP-search engine, Chomp, in February 2012 and is enjoying leading position as the world’s most powerful brand as per the market report by Forbes (2013). Its total market value was $416.62 Billion and it stands on second position at $41.7B in terms of profit generation (Forbes, 2013). The data of 3^rd quarter reveals that Apple has approximately 72,800 permanent employees and around 3,300 as temporary fulltime employees and servicing contractors. From the total work force, around 42,400 employees work in retail division (Apple, 2012). In order to have wide reach across customers in an effective manner, the Apple group visualizes to expand its distribution network and plans to avail high class sales & after sales services. 

At Apple’s WWDC keynote function of 2013 Tim Cook, Apple CEO, illustrated past one year performance statistics of Apple which included average daily footfall in each Apple store had been around one million people in last year, around 600 million iOS devices were sold and for the ninth consecutive time J.D. Power consumer satisfaction awards was given to iPhone (Lee, 2013). Apple gets its maximum revenues from iPhone as shown below.

Source: Brandt (2013)

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

Global market of mobile phone devices has been grown a bit slow at around 4% in first quarter of year 2013 with Smartphones out shipping feature phones for the very first time. The figures of first quarter taken from IDC reflect a total 418.6 million cell phones were sold in comparison to 402.4 million in 2012 first quarter (IDC, 2013). Due to not only the additional features of smartphone like display etc. but the other most important factor of decline in numbers had been evolving Chinese companies as top smartphone vendors offering products at cheaper price. Just a year back, premium brands like Blackberry, HTC & Nokia had been among top five brands. As these companies were witnessing various transformation stages, however in meanwhile Chinese vendors like Lenovo, Coolpad, ZTE and Huawei have successfully forayed in the market and penetrated with their Smartphones with Android features for the new users.

Source: IDC (2013)

According to TrendForce, in the first quarter of 2013, Apple’s market share of smartphones comprises of about 17.3% of the smartphones globally, which was 1.2% lower as compared to previous year (Epstein, 2013). However the company’s biggest rival Samsung sold smartphones over 65mn units in Q1.  Thus the research firm analyzed that share of Nokia was at 4.3% in first quarter & it was considerably low by.9% and HTC surprisingly crossed Nokia, though slipped back three tenth of 4.4% and Sony on the contrary earned three tenth of 3.8% of overall global shipments of smartphones (Epstein, 2013).

Source: Epstein (2013)

Over 55 age group people in UK are mainly Nokia loyalists with 32% users while 25% use Samsung and only 7% use Apple. This ratio is also because few people use a smartphone.

FINANCIAL ANALYSIS

In the financial analysis section comparative financial analysis of Apple Inc. with its counterpart Samsung and Nokia will be presented for the three years period of 2010-2012. For the comparative financial analysis different financial ratios have been used, which make it easy to compare financial health of one firm with that of others. Overall consumer electronics market has been estimated to growth at a CAGR of about 10% during the period of 2013-2015.

Apple Inc. is one of the leading consumer electronics company with $ 156,508 million revenue for the year of 2012. The company is known for its brand, and has distribution all over the world. Its’ close competitor Samsung has also been doing well in past few years. Samsung has $187,754 million revenue in 2012, higher than that of Apple, while Nokia was able to generate revenue of EUR 30,176 million.

1) Gross Profit Ratio

The gross profit margin ratio of Apple for the year 2012 is 35.6% which is highest over the last three years. This indicates the company has been continuously working to improve its financial performance. But still the company is behind it close competitor Samsung, which is able to manage margin of 37% for 2012. But the financial performance of Nokia has been worsening over the year, as we can see from the table above that over the year gross profit margin of Nokia has decreased from 30.6% in 2010 to 27.8% in 2012, which is the lowest among all these three companies. In this way, Apple has been doing well over the years in the industry.

2) Operating Profit Margin

Apple has recorded best operating profit margin of 35.3% in 2012, which is its own highest over the last three years. Through, the operation profit margin of Samsung has also increase from previous year to 14.4% in 2012; it is not able to show consistent result. On this indicator Nokia stands nowhere as its operating profit is into negative. Apple has been also been able to outperform the sector, as the sector has 21.63% operating profit margin in the last quarter of 2012.

3) Return on Equity

There is good news for the shareholders of Apple as well, as the company has been able to earn higher return on equity 35.3% in 2012 compare to 33.8% in 2011. This return is far more than its competitors Samsung and Nokia. Samsung is able to earn only 19.6% return on equity, which it is negative for the shareholders of Nokia. ROE of Apple is nearly double from the ROE of the whole industry which was about 15.0 % in 2012.

4) Return on Capital Employed

Apple is again the clear winner in race of RoCE with 46.7% for the past year, which is double from Samsung, as Samsung was able to earn 23.9% for the year 2012. This is also notable here that RoCE of Apple has been improving over the year. RoCE for Nokia is in negative as the company has negative operation profit for the year. Apple has also outperformed the industry in term of RoCE. RoCE of the Industry for the same year was 8.5%, where Apple has 46.7%.

 5) Current Ratio

Current ratio shows the short term debt paying capacity of a company. The current ratio for all of the three companies seems to be up to the mark for 2012. Apple has current ratio of 1.5, which shows the company has current assets 1.5 times of its current liabilities. But it should be noted that current ratio of Apple has been decreasing over the years, which is an issue of concern and the company has to work to maintain its current ratio. In this term, Samsung has been performing well and has been improving its current ratio to 1.9% in 2012 compare to 1.7% in 2010.

 6) Receivable Days

Apple received money from its trader partners in 25 days average in 2012, which is best among all three companies. As receivable days for Samsung is 48 days in 2012 and 67 days for Nokia. Samsung has also been improving its account receivables, as it decreased slightly from 50 days in 2010 to 48 days in 2012. But the situation is not good for Nokia with 67 days of receivable in 2012.

7) Payables Days

Payable days indicate the ability of the company to use vendors’ money for its operations. Apple has 49 payable days in 2012, which has decreased from 67 days of 2010. This helps the company to seek better deal with its suppliers. Samsung has consistently maintained its account payables at only 3 days over the analysis period from 2012- 2012. Nokia is also able to use its suppliers’ money for 53 days in 2012, but this can also be the reason that the company is not able to pay its bills, which also seems to be true as it has negative operating margin.

8) Inventory Turnover

Inventory turnover rate of Apple is 111 in 2012, which mean its inventory turns into sales in only 3 days, which is very good indicator for the company. It means the company doesn’t keep finished goods for long and thus it saves on storage and results into higher efficiency.  Apple has also improved inventory turnover rate from 37.6 or 10 days in 2010 to 3 days in 2012. This is quite high for Samsung with 51 days in 2012 and also for Nokia 26 days. Nokia has also improved its inventory turnover from 31 days in 2010 to 26 days in 2012.

Limitation of Analysis

• This study is based only on the financial information of the company, which is alone not sufficient to analysis the performance of a company.
• The analysis of the ratios just tell us on which parameter the company has performed well or not, but what the factor behind them are not known, which make the conclusion limited to the available facts and figures.
• All of the three compared companies are operating in the same industry, but they also have revenue from other business segments. So, the revenue of other business segments can have an impact on the final outcome.

MICRO ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS: FIVE FORCE ANALYSIS

Threat of New Entrants:

Entry barriers and profit margins are directly related to each other as minimum barrier will affect & reduce margins and in turn lead to less profitable industry. However Apple’s volume sales, consistent rating in client satisfaction, brand loyalty and lastly effective operational capabilities had no match in the industry (Sparks, 2012). Due to these attributes the new entrants struggle hard to sustain & compete with its iPad & iPhone devices and even shattered PC market of its rivals. As the chart below shows Apple’s market share is just 8.8% still the company enjoys biggest share of profits to the tune of 73% in mobile phone segment (DeWitt, 2012). The other brands following are Samsung with 23.5% of market share but with only 26% of total industry profits, Profits are almost nil for other companies.

Source: DeWitt (2012)

The total risk is considered to be low for the new players in global mobile phone industry. According to Chen (2006) for a startup venture, huge capital is required as the major part of investment thrives to achieve scale of economy of existing top brands. According to Wong (2012) the differentiation factor of apple products serves as major constraints for new players & thus minimizing new entrants overall threats.

Power of Suppliers:

In terms of Marketer–supplier relationship, Apple is the leader among suppliers fortunately. As the company’s financial data indicates about cash, cash equivalents and other marketable securities of over $110 billion, and suppliers on the contrary are very few, thus help Apple to contribute around 25% to even 90% of its overall suppliers market (Sparks, 2012). Apple’s TTM profit margins have been 27% as compared to its largest supplier, Foxconn whose profit margins were just 4%. According to Wong (2012), the product differentiation strategies of Apple can offer this cost to its clients and in turn reducing supplier’s threat broadly.

Industrial Rivalry:

Since the Company’s product range as well as various level services has been very competitive and still company encounters fierce competition that is present across all the business arenas. However it is not possible for all companies to really compete with Apple, as we recall announcement by Hewlett-Packard (HP) to halt smartphone & tablet business segments last year (Sparks, 2012). However its mainly Samsung-Apple rivalry that describes about the ever increasing list of new & struggling entrants in the worldwide mobile industry. Jointly these two mobile phone giants constitute more than 1 out of every 2 smartphones sold worldwide (Wagstaff and Kim, 2012). As per Wong (2012), he suggests that there is phenomenally less rivalry threat to Apple from other competitors as it caters to a niche market.

Substitutes:

The synergic trend is observed in various product line & service segments of Apple Company.  The company has lot of product line to offer to the customer unlike its rivals. The customer gets amazing integrated OS hardware that is built exclusively for Apple products; these are availed seamlessly with Apple iPod & PC when the customer buys an Apple iPhone. Moreover Apple avails world’s largest iTunes, iCloud & biggest App Store to its OSX & i SO users. This synchronized sales strategy not only binds the clients but also force them to opt for other Apple products adding to its synergic style (Spark, 2012). None of the competitors are so well equipped to match this Apple strategy. According to Wong (2012) the products differentiation strategy of Apple seems as defensive against its numerous substitutes, henceforth lowering substitute threat.

Power of Buyers:

Just like Apple’s Competitors, its customers also are highly segregated. Of course the segregated segment of customers with minimal purchasing power as compare to big volume customers. However the actual picture is much larger. The company’s infinite switching cost and magnanimous sale volumes clearly reflect its customers buying power (Spark, 2012). Mostly its Customers buy more than one Apple product as per the synergy of company and thus own varied Apple products. In fact this lead to the ever bonding client brand relationship & generates big changing costs. Moreover, company offering retail stores and Carrier as mode help company gaining enhanced sale volume and most importantly crazy customers.  Availing Heavy subsidies on iPhones indicates the low buying power of Carrier.  Thus we understand here that product line of Apple seems to competing in oligopoly market criteria that too in a niche market the threat of buyers is significantly reduced (Wong, 2012).

MACRO ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS: PESTLE ANALYSIS

POLITICAL: Apple’s total global sales during the year 2012 had been observed as 61% of the total $156508mn net sales. Launching new product frequently, reducing gross margin and keeping competitive product cost support as main attributes for the Company to compete & lead in fiercely competitive international markets. Moreover due to ever changing standards of Industry there is a need of consistent improvements in price, quality and features. This is done by applying new technological developments, sensitive pricing analysis of customers and quality enhancement of product by other market players (Apple, 2012). In fact the organization’s capability to adapt ongoing technological innovation in market across product line helps the company to strive successfully.

ECONOMICAL: Global economic scenario directly affects company’s performance and its other various operations. Often the global economic uncertainty throws a bigger risk; this defers consumers & business houses postponing their plans of spending. This may be due to joblessness, tougher credits, doomed financial scenario and most importantly lowering asset costs & income. Let’s take for instance, in Europe Apple has observed, the lowering of consumer & business activity is affected by ongoing debt crisis of sovereign, volatility in financial sector across various countries (Apple, 2012). Thus, this global or national level downtrends in economies affected adversely on the demand for Company’s services or products. Rising energy and fuel prices, recession in real estate market, increased healthcare & labor costs, lack of credit facility and reduced confidence of consumer have been various factors directly influencing reduction in demands of consumer products.

SOCIAL: The quality and designing have been the most significant features of all Apple Inc products since its inception. Effect of globalization is seen across all products of company. It is really hard to imagine gadget free world and various Apple products have worldwide presence successfully. Since in genral the buying capacity of common man has enhanced as a result there is a phenomenal rise in buying of Luxurious products like iPods, iPhones and latest model of iPads. This is considered as status symbol across societies by possessing these products, as a result helped enhanced sales of Apple products Fast growth in Music industry that affected internet space too has been also considered as one of the other biggest social factor for growth in sales of Apple products. Since iTunes has the prime virtual music stores therefore as these products defines modern personal lifestyles thus help various Apple products growth socially.
TECHNOLOGICAL: The organization’s capability to apply and adapt constant technological evolutions & innovation in market across product line helps the company to compete effectively with other market players. To compete globally Apple ensures to spend & invest in Research and development technology remarkably for designing and for ensuring all types of solutions regarding hardware, software applications, Operating Systems and other such services & developments (Apple, 2012). The company owns remarkable quantity of copyrights, licenses & patents & continuously applying & registering itself for various trademarks, patents & other service licenses. Apple thrust on research and development for enhancing the product line by developing existing products & launching new one. To achieve this Apple strives on intellectual property licensing, R&D and acquiring business of third party. In 2012 the total expenditure on these research activities was approximately $3.4 billion (Apple, 2012).
LEGAL: Every company has to abide by rule, regulations and laws of all countries worldwide. Any change in these laws directly increases the cost for company or otherwise may affect company’s business adversely. This has been observed that Technology based organizations frequently faces litigations regarding charges of infringement of patent or other such legal violations of rights of intellectual property. Apple is rigorously fighting & defending legally itself in various US court’s jurisdiction and at US International Trade commission in Asia & in Europe as well (Apple, 2012). The petitioners of these cases often demand heavy penalty and seek substantial harm to the company. Thus to exemplify , the various regulations and laws regarding media devices and cell phone communications  are found to be elaborative, time taking  and keep on changing as per the government’s policies. The legal changes can be restricting productions, manufacturing and even locking & barring use of mobile phones of company from particular carrier’s network. The mobile phone devices have to be government certified and regulated, so are the carriers to be certified & well regulated to authenticate its use across network. Such certification procedures are extensive and time taking in nature and often subject to further qualifying requirements for products , & its modifications , as a result this delay the shipment date and refrain the company to sell some products.

ENVIRONMENTAL: Every company has to conform to environmental requirement. Apple Company vows to reduce and minimize the negative impact on environment through its functional & product units. It also entrust its supplier to fulfill the environmental responsibility related to their operations. For instance, wasteful air is auto bio –filtered via tree bark bed can be located at the supplier unit’s roof (Apple, 2013). It may be the last stage of company’s strategic & complete system of air emission management. According to Woody (2012) by applications of renewable energy options to fulfill the ever increasing demands of its data center, the Apple Company constantly thrives to be committed to adopt energy & fuel efficient growth. This is implemented at various company projects and with the utility partners and with providers of renewable energy.

Apple Supplier Responsibility Progress Report 2013

Source: APPLE (2013)

STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS

BOWMANs STRATEGY CLOCK

Apple had always been very particular & specific in choosing its strategy. Apple generally decides on the basis of product type. In the very beginning the company adopted Differentiation Focus Strategy (Blatchford, 2012). During that period Apple were only selling Mac computers. The company had been extremely well positioned during that period and was focusing only on initial level adopters and Innovators. When Apple implemented the Differential Focus strategy, Apple brand, as a result of this strategy, became known & recognized in huge segment of customers. Later the company adopted exclusive Differentiation policy (Blatchford, 2012). This is observed in iPhone and iPod and ipad user segment.

The Boston Consulting Group Matrix

 The world famous Boston Consulting Group Matrix basically based on classification of company’s Product line  in  four main strategic Business units (SBU).These four SBUs are as named as Question Marks, Stars ,Cash- Cows &  Dogs. Moreover in every SBU, there exist four main potential strategies to implement like market share building, market share holding, harvesting (reducing investing) and divesting (winding-up).

Star: – It surely includes IPad due to its majority share of fast growing tablets device market. Since iPad device is transiting from growth stages in the product life cycle, this product started losing advantage of its being very first mover due to the fact that other market players initiated launching their own manufactured devices. This prompted Apple to invest into marketing in a big way so as to keep its market share intact and to enhance sales as to maintain market share the pre-requisite is to keep a pace of sales growth and that with overall market need (Blatchford, 2012). However for future, when sales in market stabilize, the company should reap the benefits & harvest to turn the product in to Cash Cow in order to invest in other SBUs.

Question mark: – Microsoft operating system based PC widely occupying & dominating the market irrespective of Apple Company’s best efforts to penetrate strategically. This can be attributed to effective B2B marketing & greater cost of switching for both customers and businesses. Apple can opt to implement the below three approaches for its Mac computer.

1. To Divest:- This strategy facilitate Apple to spare greater time & efforts on its most profit generating products although its too difficult to adopt due to Mac being the company’s identity brand.

2. To :-Build:- The company using this strategy possibly can broadly make big investment in resources to make Mac as a Star brand, though the company is enormously cash rich, it raises further question regarding the possibility of Apple company to supersede PCs of Microsoft brand.

3. To Hold:-This is the most implacable strategy among all. The company would keep on developing new Mac computers & its supporting system for its consumers, although through minimum investing and focusing more on iPads.

Cash Cow:- iPod and iPhone had been prime income sources, and due to the fact that he Cell phone and MP3 market attained  saturation level Apple company enjoys remarkable shares in these two  products. Trends indicate the diminishing phase of iPod across the product life cycle. The Apple Company initiated product harvesting, meaning it gradually begun lowering investment in iPod promotion and profitability enhancement in turn increasing cash flow to further invest strategically.

Visualizing company’s future strategy, Apple may diversify and retain only its iPhone market share (Blatchford, 2012). This is more advantageous to obtain sales from set of already existing clients towards up gradation; it is almost sure since a customer already made huge investment in downs across Apple stores.

Dog: Finally its Apple TV, with such a wonderful facility to run media files on TV, this feature has never been highlighted. Apple Company proved that it is committed towards sale building as it consistently launched second generation and 3rd generation too. Although the possibility to really divest in this digital media segment arises until its market really grows.

ANSOFF’s MATRIX

Product Development:

Product development entails introducing entirely new product for the company’s already existing clients. Thus any organization with an international presence like Apple, specifically in main markets and knows the client need thoroughly then this rationally provide good trade relationship between reward and risk components. As by introducing iPhone and iPod and operating system to the existing customer base, the Apple Company in turn forms synergic client relationship on varied platforms and in turn generates brand loyalty among them.

Market Development:

As a result of technological advancements, Apple Company adopted global expansion strategy and achieve stupendous earning and profits. The largest development al change is seen in global market when Apple launched iPhone 4. This was launched in 88 countries, was a small step after the US launching (Kane and Rohwedder, 2010). Presently Chinese continent is major thrust area regarding global expansion plans of company

Differentiation:-

Take for instance iPhone, in year 2007; Apple Company launched iPhone as its very first cell phone. Thus with one such specific product, the company forayed soon into the entirely new mobile phone market about which they had no prior expertise. After launching iPods, the company began focusing on large segment of clients that are truly different from its existing traditional clientele. Later company forayed into music world which was totally new concept for Apple.  Lastly the latest addition among the diversified product line of Apple had been launching of iPad in 2010.  The objective behind introducing this product was to catch that segment of the internet savvy clientele and avoid carrying note books. As a result since Apple Company already forayed in mobile communication computer devices like computer, TV and music systems can also enter into games world like 3 Play station and so on.

CONCLUSION

Apple, the world’s most powerful brand is exclusively into designing, manufacturing and selling personal computers, portable digital music players, mobile phones and other communication devices making $41.7B as profits in 2012. It gets its maximum revenue from iPhone. Apple is currently in 3^rd position in terms of total mobiles shipped in a year, behind leader Samsung, followed by Nokia. Apple has been doing well over the years, in our assessment period, as its most of the financial parameters are strong. Apple has been able to take the benefit for the market recovery from the recent recession and has increased its total sales from $108 billion in 2011 to $156 billion in 2012. Gross profit margin of the company for the year 2012 was 35.6%, which is highest during the last three year period, while ROCE is 46.7% for the 2012 which is highest in three years and higher than Samsung and Nokia during the given years. But the current ratio of the company has been decreasing from 2.0 in 2010 to 1.5 in 2012, which is lower than Samsung. This is because the current liabilities of Apple have increased (38%) more than its current assets (38%) in the year 2012. Apple’s financials are also strong because the company is able to recover its money from its traders in 25 days which was 31 days in 2010. One of the parameter on which Apple has done a good job is on inventory; in 2012 Apple had the inventory on an average just for 3 days. Apple has overall good financial health and has been able to improve over the years, now the company should also focus to maintain its parameter for consistent performance.

The differentiation factor of apple products serves as major constraints for new players & thus minimizing new entrants overall threats, supplier threat, substitutes while pursuing a niche market reduces industry rivalry and power of buyers. Apple now being a global player is affected by the political, economic, environmental, legal, social and technological environment of each country. It follows a differentiation strategy for its mobiles. IPad is the star for apple due to its majority share of fast growing tablets device market. Its Mac computers are the question mark as Microsoft single handedly dominates the PC market while iPod & iPhone make the cash cows as they are the firms prime income sources. Apple TV can be considered a Dog as the market is still at a nascent stage. By introducing iPhone and iPod and operating system to the existing customer base, Apple has successfully adopted the product development strategy. Apple has also successfully differentiated into music through iPod and ITunes, in mobiles through iPhone, in television sector through Apple TV etc.

RECOMMENDATION

• With increasing competition especially from Samsung and other android devices Apple should introduce some medium budget smartphones for challenging the rivals and increasing its sales and market share.
• Apple must also be more innovative and spend on R&D to launch features in the iPhone which truly differentiate it from the growing clutter of smartphones.
• Apple also needs to launch its products in more markets to increase market share and sales.
• Apple must focus more on India which is among the fastest growing markets.
• Apple must also market the phone to attract the elderly population which either don’t buy a phone or prefer a feature phone.
• Apple despite having a low market share takes bulk of the profits. Hence, now apple must look to penetrate its existing markets also to increase market share and further increase its profits.
• Though, Apple has been doing well on most the parameter considered for the analysis, it should have improve its current ratio which is lower than this close competitors.
• High inventory turnover is a good thing, but too fewer inventories is also not recommended as any uncertainty can result into order/business loss if it is not able to supply the good on time.
• Apple can also work to reduce number of payable days to its suppliers to have better trade deal, which is also higher than that of Samsung.
• There is also scope for Apple to improve its gross profit margin, which is lower than Samsung in year 2012.
• Apple must look for few more suppliers as its dependency on few suppliers can affect it in future.
  • When sales in market stabilize for the iPad, the company should reap the benefits & harvest to turn the product in to Cash Cow in order to invest in other SBUs.
  • To stay competitive and continue stimulating customer demand, Apple must successfully manage repeated product introductions and transitions.
  • Apple relies heavily on third party licenses which Apple can purchase on a reasonable price to minimize the legal battles.
  • Apple also depends on third party software developers; however there is no assurance if they would continue to develop software for Apple. Hence, if Apple can self-develop few of the vital software or buy these small firms, it might benefit Apple in the long term.
  • Apple must invest more on its retail store and have more retail outlets across the world.

REFERENCES

Forbes (2013) “Apple”, [Online] accessed on 30^th July 2014 from http://www.forbes.com/companies/apple/#

Apple (2012) “10-K Annual Report filed Oct 31, 2012”, [Online] accessed on 30^th July 2014 from http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AAPL/2583666601x0xS1193125-12-444068/320193/filing.pdf

Lee, C. (2013) “Tim Cook kicks off WWDC keynote with Apple stats”, [Online] accessed on 30^th July 2014 from http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/06/10/tim-cook-starts-wwdc/

Brandt, M. (2013) “Apple Reports Second Successive Profit Decline”, [Online] accessed on 30^th July 2014 from http://www.statista.com/topics/847/apple/chart/1292/apple-reports-second-successive-profit-decline/

IDC (2013) “More Smartphones Were Shipped in Q1 2013 Than Feature Phones, An Industry First According to IDC”, [Online] accessed on 30^th July 2014 from http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24085413

Epstein, Z. (2013) “Apple’s Q1 smartphone market share reportedly sinks as Samsung dominates”, [Online] accessed on 30^th July 2014 from http://bgr.com/2013/04/23/smartphone-market-share-q1-2013-trendforce-456567/

Mintel (2013) “Technology and the over 55’s – UK – January 2013 Ownership of Technology Products”, [Online] accessed on 30^th July 2014 from http://academic.mintel.com/display/650144/

Sparks, D. (2012) “Competing with Apple is No Fun”, [Online] accessed on 30^th July 2014 from http://beta.fool.com/danielsparks/2012/09/03/apple-2012-50-growth/10776/

DeWitt, P.E. (2012) “With 8.8% market share, Apple has 73% of cell phone profits”, [Online] accessed on 30^th July 2014 from http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/05/03/with-8-8-market-share-apple-has-73-of-cell-phone-profits/

Chen, Z. (2006) Cell Phone Industry Analysis.

Wong, K. (2012) “Apple’s Product Differentiation Strategy “Conquers” Porter’s Five Forces – GEC Business Review”, [Online] accessed on 30^th July 2014 from http://geconsult.blogspot.in/2012/05/apples-product-differentiation-strategy.html

Wagstaff, J. and Kim, M. (2012) “Apple and Samsung: A defining rivalry in a changed mobile market”, [Online] accessed on 30^th July 2014 from http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/07/us-apple-samsung-idUSBRE8B61B220121207

Apple (2013) “Apple Supplier Responsibility 2013 Progress Report”, [Online] accessed on 30^th July 2014 from http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2013_Progress_Report.pdf

Woody, T.  (2012) “How Apple Went From Environmental Laggard To Leader”, [Online] accessed on 30^th July 2014 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddwoody/2012/02/22/how-apple-went-from-environmental-laggard-to-leader/

Blatchford, J. (2012) “Apple – An introduction to Marketing Strategy”, [Online] accessed on 30^th July 2014 from http://manifestedmarketing.com/2012/03/29/apple-an-introduction-to-marketing-strateg/

Kane, Y.I. & Rohwedder, C.  (2010) “Apple Strives for Global Market”, The Wall Street Journal, [Online] accessed on 19^th July 2014 from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703302604575294530119152528.html

APPENDIX

1. 1.      The net sales by operating segment: has been shown in table as below:

Source: Apple (2012)

2.      Financials: Apple ($million)

3.      Financials: Samsung ($million)

4.      Financials: Nokia (EUR million)