The Environment and Consumer Segmentation for the Apple Iphone 5s

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For this report the two competitors that have been chosen are the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One (M7). These competitors have been chosen because they exist in the same strategic group as well as being very similar in regards to the 4 P’s. These companies go beyond offering just similar products but offer products that could substitute the iPhone 5S. There is no doubt that Apple is the market leader when it comes to mobile smartphones, after all Apple released the very first smartphone and has almost yearly iterations of the product. Samsung is a market challenger with a very similar product and similar marketing strategies. Samsung even develop their own Samsung experience store that closely resembles an Apple Store. Samsung’s weaknesses stem from the fact that it appears they are trying to imitate Apple, they even lost a $2bn legal battle over proprietary software (The Guardian, 2014) and the lack of a dedicated, fanatic user base that Apple clearly has. The second strategic group that that competes with the Apple iPhone 5S is the HTC One (M7). The One actually has a higher score for usability and hardware for tech critics and has been judged the better product but the product was not as successful as the iPhone 5S due to its lacklustre marketing.

1.4 Analysis of other Micro-Environment players

Suppliers.

Apple runs a program that allows retailers to provide service to Apple customers. Known as “Apple Authorised Service Providers” (Apple, 2016) or AASP’s, these companies offer a far wider reach for Apple to gain exposure to potential customers. This certification cuts costs for Apple by eliminating the need for their own brick and mortar stores in every shopping centre but still being able to guarantee a level of service quality that is expected of the Apple brand. These companies receive their certification to be an AASP and are able to sell Apple products, access replacement parts directly from Apple, be eligible for the performance-based bonus incentive and be visible on the official Apple resource locator. The risks that are involved in with a relationship breaking down between Apple and a supplier are left over Apple products ending up in the hands of unauthorised resellers. Product knowledge and secrets that will then be with people and companies that no longer hold the certification opening up the possibility of the retailer continuing their services without the certification. So once a supplier is given an AASP certification it is important to maintain an amicable relationship to keep this from happening. This AASP also offers a chance for leverage because the certificate is hard to obtain it is a seal of approval and can influence the supplier to promote Apple products over the competition.

1.5 Environmental factor influencing the company

Trend

Direction

Explanation

Strategic implication

Arrow up or down

Why is this trend happening ?

What does this mean for our strategy ? How might we change our strategies in order to anticipate the trend ?

Natural

Solid waste

[pic 2]

The demand for the particular country to minimize the solid waste of electrical devices (Abs,gov.au 2007) .

Revolutionize the product to protect the environment to with reducing the use of the carbon footprint . (Apple Australia 2016)

Demographics

Occupational trend

[pic 3]

Occupational trend refer to the varies between the people in the business sector and the people that worked in the technological sector (Hixon 2014)

Target the business people that buy more of the product .

Economics

Household income

[pic 4]

Lower income people cannot afford to buy the phone because it is so expensive . (Hixon 2014 )

Reduce the price to cover the pace of the customer acquisition .

Recession

[pic 5]

Economic turmoil in China has reduced the sales of the phone slightly . (Bloomberg 2016)

From the table above , we can see that they are various external environment that affect the company .It started with natural environment trend that received a high demand especially in this millennium ages . The awareness of the society to create a better future for the youth has been spreading all around the world aggressively as they has taken important steps to start reducing the environmental impact .

Next , economics environment is one of the most important environmental factors to consider . Being the manipulated variable that affect the company revenue , the company has really to analyse the stabily of the economy globally so that the target area market can be revised .

2. Consumer segmentation

In the relation to the environmental factors that affect the company , we have come up with the ingenious plan to compare the customer segmentation with the responding frequency that the potential customer will buy for .

USE FREQUENCY

NEED FOR REDUCING SOLID WASTE

NEED FOR ADDITIONAL FEATURES

NEED FOR QUALITY

WILLINGNESS TO SPEND

LOW

Low

Moderate

High

Low

MODERATE

Moderate

Moderate

High

Low

HIGH