Has Apple any competitors ? Is there any company even close ?

We may say that Apple has positioned itself very specifically, and it seems like it is impossible for other brands to compete with.

Apple produces computers, telephones, tablets, music players, operating systems, television set-top boxes, lifestyle and productivity software, professional media software, wireless routers, and  finally Apple has an “app store” where you can buy movies, music and applications.

Today Apple is one of the leaders in the PC and smartphone markets. Due to the wide range of proposed products and services (providing content and applications for users)  it is really difficult for a company to compete with Apple. The competition is not coming from the “traditional” PC players, but from Amazon, Google, Real Networks, Sony and Hewlett Packard, because of their strong investment in content.

Amazon is the content competitor: it proposes digital music, films, TV shows, and books, but only for PCs.  

Google with Android OS and applications for smartphones, can become a real threat for Apple leadership.  

Microsoft with Windows OS is the main operating system competitor for Apple, but if not the price advantage, customers would be likely to chose Mac operations systems with an easy, commerce-based solution to content access.

Sony directly challenges Apple. Sony proposes movies, music, e-books, consoles, mobile games as well as advanced smartphones and PCs. 

Concerning iPhone hardware competitors, Nokia, HTC, LG and Samsung are strong but they  depend on someone else for the software. So all in all competition is weak taking in consideration the iPhone as a whole: hardware plus software.

Usually the competition in the technology market is very intense. Apple works very hard on R&D and marketing to keep the popularity of iPod, iPad, iPhone and Apple Mac. Apple’s success lets us even think that the company has No Real competitors. That no company has the same positioning, advantages and range of product as Apple.

Do you think Apple has no competitors? If yes, how long will it last?

Purchase Motivation

Great Appearance

The iProducts are always very good looking. For example iPod shuffle and iPod nano offer seven bright colors with sliver, black, blue, green, yellow, pink and red. It’s very simple but fashion. The Mac air is the thinnest laptop in today’s notebook market. With width of only 11.8’’ and height of 0.68’’, it’s just 1.08 kg light. Its sleek surface is faireshaped and durable. The iMac’s all-in-one beautifully package with wireless keyboard and mouse make your desk more orderly and clutter-free. The modern appearance of iProduct is really attractive for people who care about style.

Operation Experience

            Recently, Apple has launched the new operating system OX S Lion for Macs and iOS 5 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Those new systems are much more intuitive, fast, powerful than Windows from Microsoft and Android from Google. Besides, there are thousands of software provided in the Mac App store, sorted by featured, top charts, categories with paid and free. Furthermore, it’s very user friendly, and quite different from the other background system, it’s just a click to both install and update application during all the process. In addition, Apple also offers the iCloud for iproduct user for helping integrate the information between your apple devices more conveniently.

Security System

            Operating system such as Microsoft, Apple’s latest operating system OS X Lion phone is more security than Windows’ system. It has less bug and leaks, and harder to get in the background system.

It’s cool!

Another one of the main motivations of buying an iProduct is: it’s cool! Apple has built itself an advanced image successfully and it did a great marketing job to make the iProduct with the cool label. They had put it into people's consciousness that Apple is cool, advanced, high tech, having an iProduct make you looks cool. People are willing to pay more for this cool label even it’s much more expensive than other digital products.

What’s your purchase motivation of buying an iProduct? Its appearance? Its function? Its security? Or just because it looks cool?

Tim Cook = Steve Jobs?

For his first public apparition at the Keynotes for iPhone 4S, Tim Cook looked like Steve Jobs… a man in dark, casual clothes walking around a stage telling the world about how wonderful his company and its products are.
But appearances are misleading… Apple's new boss recognized that this was his first launch since taking over, as if to say, "be gentle with me". After, he talked about stats in the familiar manner with new shops in Asia, more Macs sold and so on.
Just one statistic did not look so great - the iPhone has just 5% of global phone sales, although its share of the smartphone market is much higher.
Mr Cook's point was that the whole market is going to be smart - so there is plenty for Apple to aim at.

But then just as we were waiting for the big reveal, Tim Cook left the stage and handed over to a succession of his colleagues.
It’s the first change after Steve Jobs; Tim Cook gives importance to the real makers of Apple’s products. Is he more discreet and friendlier? Yes, for now. It is better? We don't know...

At the end, Tim Cook finally came back on stage to tell us that Apple was not about the individual products, more about how they all worked seamlessly together.

Do you prefer an almighty CEO or a social and respectful CEO?

What do you think?

What about working conditions in China?

As you all know, in 2010 there was a wave of suicides (12 in a few days) in one of the factories –based in Shenzhen- producing Apple’s products.

Foxconn is a unit of Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry, and the firm also produces for brands such as Dell, Sony Corp. Hewlett-Packard and Nokia. Out of 900,000 workers, Foxconn employs nearly half of them in Shenzhen.

The first suicide was done by a 19 years old who had joined the factory the month before. Then a 21 years old suicided too, and the investigation revealed there was no link with Foxconn. Apparently, the person was suffering from loneliness and depression…but then suicides happened again.

The China Labor Watch accused Foxconn of a military-style management, which leads to a lot of pressure and overtime work. See after an extract from International Business Time:

“Most of whom are in their early 20s with little or no social support, labor for up to 12 hours at a stretch on highly-repetitive, assembly-line tasks without any break and sometimes the workers are forced to work even on weekends. The workers, the group said, have often complained to them that they are "extremely tired, with tremendous pressure." Li Qiang, the group's executive director, said Foxconn "tramples" workers' personal values for the sake of efficiency.”

Plus, employees on the same production line are not allowed to talk during working hours. They are really isolated as being cut from their families and lovers. It is kind of a microcosm.

Last year, Steve Jobs was asked about these working conditions, he said first than the suicide rate was lower than in the US. Also, he said: "It's a factory, but they have restaurants and movie theatres.”

In addition, workers are manipulating hazardous chemical. The n-hexane used for screen is very strong and made dozens of workers fall ill, faint, and having fertility issues. One of them – Guo Ruiqiang- wrote a letter to Steve Jobs to alert him on health issues and to ask the company some compensation. They never got any answer from the firm and Guo said last week: “I care more about my health than Jobs' passing away,” said Guo. “With Jobs dead, I feel more lost than before. I really don't know what to do.”

 Foxconn is not an isolated case, in China, lots of factories have similar rules, and the 12 suicides at Foxconn denounced “sweatshops” general low labor conditions in the whole country.

After reading this, do you think your buying process will be affected next time you want to buy an Apple product?

How do you think Apple should have reacted?

Apple Doesn't Target Markets. It Targets People!

           Apple focuses on users with customer experiences, as the central strategy, always targets people, not market.

Target of people

1) Creative Professionals in media and design industry

At first Apple's strategy when launching products was to target the media and the design industry, in order to help them dealing with professional task. Apple develops professional applications and softwares such as Aperture, Final Cut Studio and Logic Studio for photographer, music and movie producer.

2) Engineering expertise

Beside the hardware device, Apple also provides different software solutions in Medical, Visualization, Genomics, Chemistry, Microscopy fields, and support Mac OS X, Windows and Linux system for running all the research application.

3) Business people

Apple has set up many useful tools for business users to monitor and to schedule their business activities. Furthermore, it had updated its MobileMe into iCloud service for business people to be able to manage profiles, communication and information and to share. For business people's convenience, Apple also supports Microsoft Exchange Server to keep all they need as before.

4) Education people

Apple offers special discount for education purpose users, and provide different applications and technologies for teaching and learning support. Beside, Apple has been implementing partnerships with school and even set up experience stores in university.

Marketplace targets - North America, Europe, Japan and Asia-Pacific

Apple Store global deployment

State	Number／Quantity	Year	Month
USA	245	2001	May
Japan	7	2003	November
UK	33	2004	November
Canada	22	2005	May
Italy	9	2007	March
Australia	13	2008	July
China	5	2008	June
Switzerland	3	2008	September
Germany	7	2008	December
France	2	2009	November
Spain	3	2010	September
Hong Kong	1	2011	September
Netherlands	Opening Soon
WHERE DO YOU THINK WILL BE THE NEXT?

·              Sources from Apple website and Samsung Economic Research Institute Beijing Representative Office.