Apple Swot Analysis 2

1 Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronic, software and personal computers. The mission statement of Apple is “Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.” The vision of the company is "To make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind.” Apple operates around 300 retail stores in ten countries, also have an online store where hardware, software products are sold. In Hong Kong we only have the online store of Apple, still do not have any official retail stores.

(1) Introduction is an American business magnate and inventor. He is well known for being the co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple.
Steve Jobs

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(2) Existing PEST

Economic ecnvironment
Apple is not the market leader of the computer industry no matter in Hong Kong or all over the world, it only got around 7%, and in the computer industry Apple has many competitors, like Dell, HP and Lenovo. Due to the economic crisis, Hong Kong has a very high inflation rate recently, people will think twice before they buy such a expensive product like Macbook. But still have good news, is the increase of the income level, it will higher the willingness of the publics to purchase the Apple products.

Technological & Information environment
Apple has many well-known software programs, like IOS, iwork and the photo booth. All of they are specially designed for the Mac computers, there are the comparative advantage of Apple. Apple also make good use of the technology to develop many multi-functional products, and they keep improving the existing programs like itunes, quicktime, and the system will remind the users to upgrade the software that they are using.

Demographic. Social & Culture environment
Hong Kong become a multi-national culture city after the return to China, so there are so many different life-style in Hong Kong, like luxurious and environmentally- friendly life-style. And Apple products are very diversification, so that can fulfill their needs. The size of the family has become smaller. Primary and secondary reference groups such as friends and advertising can affect people’s behavior. In Hong Kong, we have the problems of aging and unbalance between male and female. Late marriage and the postponed childbearing also affect the people of buying Apple products.

Political & Legislative environment
According to the Hong Kong Basic Law, there are an Import and Export Ordinance, Chapter 60, to give definition of import and export, and concern about the environment during the process.
Because the technology keep improving, people always want to purchase the latest computers, then the old one will become the electronic wastes, and them will release some toxic chemicals, so Hong Kong Government and Chamber of Hong Kong Computer Industry conducted the Computer Recycling Programme, to help reduce the wastes and protect the environment.

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Threats
Because of the global economic crisis, Hong Kong just had a economic downturn, people want to save their money instead of purchase some luxury products, like computers. And the decrease of the purchasing power also makes fewer customers to buy Apple products. More and more competitors appear in the industry, for both direct and indirect competitors, now people would like to use Smartphone to browse the net and handle their daily business; these will compose the threat of Apple. Not only Apple is improving, the competitors are also keep improving for their products and systems, like Samsung just launch the Galaxy Tab, to fight against the Ipad form Apple, and the other brands start copy the design and the functions form Apple, like the Cover Flow form Apple for the Ipod and Iphone.

Opportunity
Apple will launch press conference twice within a year to release the latest news of the company, both of the sales result and the products. And for both software and hardware, Apple still has a great space for improving, like the upgrade version of Ipad. Also, the technology and the system of Apple is keep improving, the research and develop department keep doing investigate. Nowadays more and more people are willing to spend more money on buying the high- technology products, this is a great chance for Apple to gain more users and market share.

Weakness
Promotion is very important to every products or services, but promotion is the thing that Apple lack of, Apple does not have any advertising in Hong Kong, not like its competitors, Sony or HP. Apple also lack of the patent protection, like Ipad, many manufacturers in China just copy and paste the design, although the system running is totally different, the outlook and the menu is exactly the same. The most important thing is the price of the Apple products is more costly and expensive when doing the comparison with the other computers.

Strengths
All the Apple products are of high quality and fashionable design, and these help Apple attract many loyalty users and staffs. Other point is the system of Apple computers is different from the rest of the computers, Apple is using IOS, and most of the computers nowadays are using Window. People are looking for trendy and high- technology computers now, and Apple can give surprise to them, Apple keep refresh the publics by launch some new products or the upgrade version of the existing products, like the Macbook Air. Due to the online Apple store, we can find Apple’s products all over the world, which means Apple has a very strong brand name.

(3) SWOT Analysis

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Future Economic Recommendation
When it is in the economic boom and recovery, people are willing to pay more money to buy new products, Apple Inc. can launch new products, attracting existing customers and new customers to upgrade their products. In this period, Apple’s marketing department can plan more promotions to promote their products.
When it is in the economic downturn, we can sell the products in a package price, pack several types of products together and sell them at a reasonable price. Otherwise, we can give discounts to the loyal customers who always buy our products.
For the competitors, we can improve our own design and technologies in which can be differentiated from the competitors, keep the quality control at the highest standards, less mistakes and sustain existing services.

Future Economic
For economic, it can be divided into two parts, economic boom to recovery and economic downturn to recession. During the boom period, buyers find themselves paying increasingly higher prices until the downturn at which time the goods and commodities for which they have paid inflated prices may end up as valueless or nearly so. When it is in the economic downturn and recession, GDP, inflation rate, income of households are fall. And the unemployment rate will rise, many companies go bankrupt at that time.

Future Political Recommendation
Hong Kong government should increase the regulatory frameworks for the computer industry, such as set up policies monitor the safety of the imported computers, quality control on the computers and setting higher standard for the imported computers to prevent the accidents. Not only adopt policies, but also establish a department that is responsible to keep under surveillance and keep a watchful eye on the imported computers. This department included people whose good at IT and also spotters whose under the government. Their works should be test the safety standard of the computers and oversee the quality of the imported computers.

Future Political
For Political, as most of the computers in Hong Kong are imported, and those products enjoy zero tariff. Because of this advantage, many the Mainland people come to Hong Kong smuggling Apple’s products back to china, to earn extortionate profits. Also everyday, many computers product import in Hong Kong, the quality and safety of the product are irregular and difficult to control. To protect the Hong Kong residents and companies, Hong Kong government have to do some works control the foreign merchants.

(4) Future PEST & Recommendations

After understand the existing PEST and the SWOT Analysis, we are willing to look into the future PEST and suggest recommendations in different aspects.

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Future Technology
There are many strong competitors like IBM and Samsung and new challengers in the computer industry. In order to maintain a good position, it is a must for Apple to invent some more innovative products to attract existing target customers and potential market. There is a great demand for computer with greater processing speed and it is worthwhile for Apple to research and develop new products with high processing speed as the people are looking for a speedy and easy way to use computer.

Future Technology Recommendation
In software, we can improve the staffs’ skills, such as the knowledge of using the computers, ways to handle complaints from customers, ways to introduce the products to the customers.
In hardware, it is necessary of us to establish an Apple official store in Hong Kong. As Hong Kong still has not an official store yet, customers cannot directly communicate with the company and the company cannot communicate with the customers as well. If the customers have problems, they need to go to the internet and ask questions, as not all the customers have extra time to surf the net, so they may think it is trouble to check out the solutions.
Hong Kong people look for speed in their life, therefore Apple can launch a faster CPU (multicore) to fulfill their needs, so users can handle their business in a shorter period of time. People tend to have a higher quality of life in the future, so developing new processor can let the customers faster access to cache data and have a greater application performance.

Future Social
Nowadays, there are more and more working females, at the same time, they are willing to spend for having a better life. People also started to enjoy their life, paying more to get a better treatment. Aside from this, we also found that people are having longer life expectancy. Elderly can be one of our company’s target customers as they are willing to catch up with the world and our products can fulfill their wants.

Future Social Recommendation
Focusing on different groups of customers and provide them different kinds of products.
Our products are now suitable for both females and males. As we found females are more than males nowadays, we may launch some different color of Macbook, may be pink, red… just some colors which are especially for the females and we may attract them to buy. For elderly, we can offer some simple-to-use products to them. Developing some simple systems which can read newspaper everyday, get the latest information all over the world, or contact with their relatives which are not with them.

6 http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=107357&p=irol-faq#corpinfo2 http://www.legislation.gov.hk/eng/home.htm?SearchTerm=Import%20and%20Export%20Ordinance%2C%20Chapter%2060

http://www.umpcfever.com/viewthread.php?tid=12686

http://www.apple.com/

http://www.apple.com/macbookair/

(5) Reference & Appropriate