Analysis, segmentation and marketing mix of Apple

Analysis, segmentation and marketing mix of Apple Introduction The aim of this report is to analyse the current position of the company which includes the products, current strategic position, and current financial strength. Different types of marketing tools are used in this report. PEST analysis and Porter’s five force model for looking into the external environment. SWOT analysis for looking into the internal environment of the organization. This report also looks into market segmentation and the marketing mix of the product. Apple was first introduced by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne on April 1, 1976 to market and sell the Apple personal computer kit. The first computer kits were hand built and was kept for a public display first at the homebrew computer lab. This computer kit consisted of Motherboard with RAM, CPU, and some video chips. Since then apple have come a long way in the market all over the world and they are one of the leading companies in electronic products. This can be known with the informat ion given below: Current Strategic Position Apple believes in continuous improvement and they look into all the key sectors like environment, health and safety management systems and the quality of our products, processes and services. Looking into the Principle and goals of Apple, Apple has set out their own principles where they look to meet all the health and safety requirements, promote energy efficiency, and their main goals are; innovation is the most important thing for apple, to increase the number of sales of the product in the education field, providing new and user friendly software for the customers, and last but not the least providing high quality products to the customers. Looking into the current strategic position of Apple, with the introduction of its own operating system, hardware, software application, and with a completely new design, Apple looks to meet all the customer requirements like new products, ease of use, and an innovative design of the product. Apple is currently focusing on, brand awareness and improving the product by increasing the financial investment on marketing and advertisement, they are looking at expanding the retail segment by opening more number of stores all over the world, they are looking at keeping it up with the competition by implementing a cost leadership strategy, and they are looking to continue the reputation of being the leader in innovation for new technology by implementing product differentiation strategy. Looking into the current finance position of Apple, on October 19, 2009 Apple announced the financial results for the year 2009. The company posted revenue of $9.87 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.67 billion. These results can be compared to the revenue of $7.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.14 billion in the previous year quarter. International sales also helped 46% of the quarter’s revenue. Gross margin is 36.6% when compared to the previous year quarter which was 34.7%. Appl e reached 17% increase when compared to the previous year quarter by successfully selling 3.05 million Mac computers during the quarter. PEST analysis and Porter’s five forces are very important tools to establish the external environment of Apple: