Apple is the second largest and most profitable mobile phone company in the world and together with Samsung have dominated the smartphone market, accounting for over 62% of this market in the last few years. Despite recording breaking profits and sales, the last two years’ results have relied on the incredible performance of the IPhone range which saw sales increase by 12% and 52% in the 2013/14 and 2014/15 period respectively. Using PESTLE, SWOT, Apples BCG matrix and Porters Five Forces framework, the report will examine how Apple can take advantage of its strengths, and opportunities in the market created by a competitive mobile phone and tablet environment and faltering rivals like Samsung to benefit.
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Apple is a technology company engaged in the design, manufacture and marketing of smartphones, tablets and personal computers. This report examines the global smartphone market, which has become highly fragmented into high-end and low-end players. Apple being a high-end market player faces competition primarily from Samsung. Nevertheless, in 2018, Apples share of the global smartphone market had fallen to third, behind Huawei and leader Samsung. It is the first time Apple is not in the top 2 global smartphone firms since 2011. Apple has also lost market share in China, falling from top spot to 4th as it battles low cost Chinese rivals.
Using a pestle analysis for Apple, this report examines how various external factors have impacted the growth potential and performance of Apple. The analysis includes the effect of US tax cuts, and how escalating US-China trade tensions are likely to affect its future revenues and performance.
In addition, the report looks at how developments in technology and demographics can favor further growth of Apple.
Using examples of one or two countries, this essay critically discusses whether globalization condemns smaller and economically vulnerable countries into further depths of poverty or whethter it has been a positive force for good.
As Trump escalates trade war tensions between the USA and China, Huawei has found itself, like many Chinese mobile and telecommunications companies including ZTE and China Mobile, a victim of the hostile climate the rivalry between the two countries has induced. With investigations underway by the Justice Department on whether Huawei violated U.S. export sanctions related to Iran, Huawei is facing a potential ban on its operations in the US, a fate already suffered by ZTE. Its Mate 10 smartphone has already been blocked from sale in the USA after AT&T and Verizon dropped it due to government pressure, putting Huawei at a competitive disadvantage against major rivals like Apple and Samsung who have established leading market positions in the USA. Using key strategic frameworks including PESTLE, SWOT, BCG Matrix and Porters Five Forces, the report will identify the major drivers of change behind Huawei’s external global environment looking at the general trends and shifts driving the global mobile and telecommunications industry in general. This will help us understand how Huawei can utilise its brand competencies so as to take advantage of ever changing environmental opportunities while at the same time neutralising emerging threats that threaten to chip away at its success.
Huawei is an investment and holding company majorly dealing in the design, manufacture and marketing of smartphones, tablets, PCs, extra. Huawei also offers a wide range of services to other companies and consumers such as Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, among others. Huawei’s smartphone market is an oligopoly with both high end (Apple and Samsung) and low-end players. Huawei on the other hand is a low-end smartphone vender having an 11.4% market share with major competitors Samsung, Apple and Xiaomi having 22.6%, 15.1% and 8.2% market shares respectively according to smartphone shipments for the first quarter of 2018 (Statista 2018). The following BCG analysis demonstrates how market growth has affected the profitability of Huawei’s strategic business units depending on their respective market shares.
China Mobile is an investment holding company engaged in telecommunications and related businesses such as mobile businesses which offer voice, roaming and data services, wireline broadline businesses and Internet of Things. China’s telecom market is a prominent oligopoly with China Mobile accounting for over 80% of all net profit in China’s telecom market (Yoo 2017) China Mobile has over 887million customers (Statista 2018) with competitors China Unicom and China Telecom having 284.16million and 249.96million customers respectively. It accounts for 70% of China’s telecom market. Various external factors have hindered the growth of China Mobile and by using a pestle analysis, we realize how the political factors like Trump’s order to block China Mobile from operating in the US affects its profitability, the effect of unemployment on China Mobile. In addition, we look at how developments in technology and demographics like increase of consumers using smartphones can favor further growth of China Mobile. Using the swot analysis, we identify Apple’s major strength and weaknesses that can be improved upon.
Tesco is a British food retailer and general merchandiser operating across the UK, Central Europe and Asian markets such as Ireland, Hungary, Thailand and Malaysia. Started 100 years ago (1919) as a market stall by Sir Jack Cohen, the supermarket chain has been market leader since 1996 when it overtook Sainsburys, maintaining the biggest market share in the grocery market upto today (Winterman 2013). With operating profit of £2.5billion on sales of £63billion in the year ending 2019, Tesco has overcome a difficult last 4-5 years to maintain its dominance of the food retailing sector in the UK (Annual Report 2019). This essay looks at its structure and culture and their contribution to Tesco’s dominant performance in its industry.
Spotify Technology S.A is a music streaming service mainly operating in North America, Europe, Latin America, among others. It offers both premium (for subscription) and ad-supported (free) versions of its streaming service. The music streaming industry market is highly oligopolistic with major players Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon prime music having over 120million in number of combined subscribers in 2018.
However, various macro factors are currently impacting the growth of Spotify. Using a PESTLE analysis, we describe how certain external environmental factors such as President Trump’s Music Modernization Act, the ‘Netflix tax’, changing demographics, or new technological developments such as the rise of smart speakers, are affecting Spotify growth.
Huawei is a globally recognized telecommunications, equipment and service company majorly dealing in the design, manufacture and marketing of processors, smartphones and tablets. This report mainly examines the smartphone market, one of the most prominent global oligopolies with both high end (Apple and Samsung) and low-end market players. In the smartphone market, Huawei is a low-cost producer, the most fiercely competitive hence it faces extreme competition from especially fellow low cost Chinese rivals including Lenovo, Xiaomi, OPPO, ZTE among others who produce similar products. This report analyzes how industry competition has affected Huawei and examines the various opportunities through which Huawei can grow and develop its brand name including the use of Artificial Intelligence. Nevertheless, Huawei still faces major threats such as major competitors who have greatly hindered its growth and development. This analysis concludes by showing major points (factors) where competition is intense and some strategies Huawei can use to overcome them.
Lenovo is a Chinese technology firm founded by Liu Chuanzhi in 1984, currently engaged in the design, manufacture and marketing of personal computers, tablets, smartphones, smart televisions, servers as well as related software, accessories and third party applications. Lenovo is the bestselling PC brand in China as well currently being the largest producer of personal computers in the world accounting for over 21.3% of the global market share, ahead of closest rivals Hewlett Packard and Dell. Key products include ThinkPad and Yoga tablets. But a recent report by Mintel (2017) showed Lenovo lagging behind Apple in terms of overall market volume share when it comes to tablet computers. It also lags behind Chinese rivals Huawei, BBK (which offers the Oppo and Vivo brands) and Xiaomi in the Chinese smartphone market. It further lags behind both Apple and Samsung in the global market for smartphones. In other words, Lenovo is stuck in the middle. Nevertheless, current macro trends actually favour Lenovo to expand global market share in the desktop, laptop and tablet computer markets if it can utilize its innovative strengths and market opportunities.
Using PESTLE and SWOT, this report thus examines how Lenovo can take advantage of certain core strengths such as new innovations, as well as opportunities arising out of a very competitive external environment (see Toshiba section) in order to benefit. Some of the favourable trends Lenovo can benefit from include firstly, the exit of Toshiba from the European PC market in 2016 which has already had a positive impact on the volume share of other major players in the UK computer market and others detailed in the report.
