Apple Needs To Increase its Market Share for iPhone 7

Every company operating in a market situation achieves its goals by formulating effective and sustainable strategies for business growth and maximization of market share. Otherwise, the competitors might encroach all the available opportunities causing business failure in the market. Other companies strategize on the best ways of introducing new products into the market while others focus on increasing the market share of the existing products. In this regards, strategic marketing becomes one of the important aspect that drives the company’s growth and development. The formulated marketing concepts help the companies on improving the performance of their products in the competitive market. However, this research paper identifies Apple, Inc to discuss their needs of increasing its market share for iPhone 7 due to competitive force from the competitors. The competing companies include Samsung and Google.’

Product Statement

Apple, Inc is an American company that develops designs and sells computer software, personal computers, online services, and consumer electronics. It is headquartered in Cupertino, California. However, the company is best-known for its hardware products such as iPads, iPhones, and iPods. In addition, it provides the online services such as iTunes Store, iCloud, and App Store. The company develops innovative products that have shaped the market situation since its competitors have adopted their product models by developing complimentary products. Such trend has caused stiff competition to the company including the newly released iPhone 7 (Seifert, 2013). The increased demand for iPhone in the global market has attracted several companies to develop similar models to share the ripe market. For instance, Google and Samsung released their Smartphone’s to share the ready mobile markets. The adoption of creative and innovative tactics by Apple’s competitors might wide out its products in the market if the company does not reexamine its market strategy.

The competition issue needs to be addressed by strategic marketing since the customers are the final judges of the products. Attracting the customers’ attention is the most important for the company to increase its sales of products. Marketing is the only way to attract the consumers’ perceptions towards the product, thereby maximizing sales and market share.

Situation Analysis

The issue affecting the Apple’s iPhone 7 is the external environment. The company’s objective is to increase the sale of the products by aiming the top market of the fashionable iPhone 7. Even though it has incorporated several known applications in their devices, the technological methods adopted by Google and Samsung are awesome. They used an open-source platform called android where you can install or create other applications without costs. Such technological trick is advantageous to the consumers at the expense of Apples’ iPhone 7 since all applications owned by Apple are limited to their own devices. The notion of open-source platform of the competitors’ devices creates a lot of pressure to Apple to adopt the same tricks. It has created a lot of impact to the entire company including losing products’ customers to the competing products (Woyke, 2014). Fortunately, this can be reversed using a strategic marketing including creating a positive image of the products that could convince the consumers to purchase iPhone 7 rather than other Smart phones in the market.

As a new market product, the company needs to increase its market share through various tricks such as creating offers, promotions, advertising, or any marketing strategies aimed at persuading the customer to buy the products.
Adequate supplies to all emerging global markets are necessary to ensure its availability for everyone, as well as penetrating on new markets. Pricing is also another factor that could be considered for a competitive advantage.
Internally, Apple should create an effective management and personnel to come up with the best applications for the device that satisfies the needs of the consumer (Ahmed & Rafiq, 1995). This includes hiring and training the best personnel to come up with applications in relation to the market demand. In this regards, the employees should be training to develop consumer-related products rather than technology-related ones. This means that consumers’ interests provide a guidance or framework when developing any application or devices

Another consideration that Apple should adopt to increase the market share of iPhone 7 is the determination of the existing devices in the market. However, iPhone 7 is the latest Smartphone released by Apple but Samsung’s products are giving the company pressure to continue upgrading their products as fast as possible. It quickly released Samsung Galaxy S4, then Galaxy S5, and will be releasing Galaxy Note 4 in September this year. Therefore, Apple should rethink in their process of product development and their introductions to the market since other competitors are fast on upgrading their products. The company tends to be slow in the advancements of technological or behind its competitors. Therefore, there is an urgent intervention to strategize on how to market the released products. Apple is known for developing quality and durable products and its slowness in upgrading their products cannot affect their sales. Unfortunately, there is need for Apple to come up with effective marketing strategies to counteract the level at which its competitors upgrade their products after a short duration.

Apple, Inc has the financial capability of following the competitors’ suit of upgrading its products in a shorter time. Alternatively, the company can strategize on coming up with other ways of improving the existing products such as developing compatible solutions to enhance their workability. Its financial pool is capable of sustaining the required market force to drive the sales of its products. This includes through campaigns and promotions in the market environments where there is high competition for its products. All these solutions could only be achieved by deliberating on the best marketing strategies that would improve the market share for the iPhone 7.

However, the company needs to understand its market environment including then cultural, political, legal, and regulatory trends across the world market. The company needs to formulate the strategies to have a good relationship with the leadership and the society of each market positions. For example, the company needs to come up with better strategies on strengthening their relationships with the existing leadership of every opportunistic nation. This is because the governmental principles differ according to the local leadership, which might affect the performance of Apple’s products. On the other hand, cultural trends are identified from the feedback given by the society, especially with the issues that would improve the market performance of the product. As a result, the company needs to act on the proposed strategies in order to maximize its market share.

In conclusion, Apple, Inc needs to formulate effective market strategies in order to increase its market share for iPhone 7. It is because the competitors have taken an advantage of its poor marketing tricks to have an opportunity to end reduce the product’s market share. The solutions include formulating the effective marketing strategies such as creating a good customer environment by addressing their needs. The needs include availability of the product in the market, affordability, and durational upgrades on the product

References

• Ahmed, P. K., & Rafiq, M. (1995). The role of internal marketing in the implementation of marketingstrategies. Journal of Marketing Practice: Applied Marketing Science, 1(4), 32- 51.
• Seifert, D. (June 10, 2013). “Apple announces iOS 7, ‘biggest change’ since the introduction of the iPhone, coming this fall”.
• The Verge. Vox Media. Retrieved August 23, 2014 from http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/10/4407630/apple-announces-ios-7
• Woyke, E. (2014). The Smartphone Anatomy of an Industry. New York: New Press, The.