Apple’s Mobile Future: Corporate and Business Strategy
Apple’s Mobile Future: Corporate and Business Strategy
June 16th, 2010
For my final undergraduate business paper, I wrote an analysis of Apple as it transforms into a mobile company. I am posting it here in its entirety (except for financial exhibits) below.
Especially since they released the iPhone in 2007, Apple has been spectacularly successful. In 2009, sales totaled more than $36 billion, compared to just $5.3 billion in 2001, and their market capitalization is nearing Microsoft’s. This growth is driven by incredible iPhone and iPod touch sales and Windows users switching to Macs. In second quarter 2010, for example, Mac sales increased by thirty-three percent.
Mac sales, though, offer little future opportunity. The PC is a mature market with little growth and innovation potential. Therefore, Apple should be looking toward other markets to offer their next growth opportunity. Apple started down this road with the iPhone in 2007 and it has proved to be the next growth market. In 2010, just three years after its release, iPhone sales now account for a greater percentage of Apple’s net sales than Macintosh sales. As such, since the PC is mature and mobile devices are the future, Apple should shift to a mobile focus. Their goal should be to define what these mobile devices are and take a controlling share of the market.
This paper will consider Apple’s purpose, briefly look at what Apple has done recently, what corporate strategy they need to achieve success in the mobile market, and finally what their mobile business strategy should be.
Changing Things
In Apple’s 1997 “Think Different” ad campaign, the narrator declared, “And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” The ad was referring to a number of the twentieth century’s great minds, but it aptly captures Apple’s purpose: to change the world for the better. Bill Gates spoke of a
June 16th, 2010
For my final undergraduate business paper, I wrote an analysis of Apple as it transforms into a mobile company. I am posting it here in its entirety (except for financial exhibits) below.
Especially since they released the iPhone in 2007, Apple has been spectacularly successful. In 2009, sales totaled more than $36 billion, compared to just $5.3 billion in 2001, and their market capitalization is nearing Microsoft’s. This growth is driven by incredible iPhone and iPod touch sales and Windows users switching to Macs. In second quarter 2010, for example, Mac sales increased by thirty-three percent.
Mac sales, though, offer little future opportunity. The PC is a mature market with little growth and innovation potential. Therefore, Apple should be looking toward other markets to offer their next growth opportunity. Apple started down this road with the iPhone in 2007 and it has proved to be the next growth market. In 2010, just three years after its release, iPhone sales now account for a greater percentage of Apple’s net sales than Macintosh sales. As such, since the PC is mature and mobile devices are the future, Apple should shift to a mobile focus. Their goal should be to define what these mobile devices are and take a controlling share of the market.
This paper will consider Apple’s purpose, briefly look at what Apple has done recently, what corporate strategy they need to achieve success in the mobile market, and finally what their mobile business strategy should be.
Changing Things
In Apple’s 1997 “Think Different” ad campaign, the narrator declared, “And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” The ad was referring to a number of the twentieth century’s great minds, but it aptly captures Apple’s purpose: to change the world for the better. Bill Gates spoke of a