The focus of this report is on the Apple iPod that has created increasing demands in various outlets. The iPod allows consumers to download their favourite music but also books, movies and now even allows one to surf the internet.
In this reports you find an extensive analysis on how Apple has became such a huge company within its market and will show us how the popularity of the iPod has seemingly helped Apple to be become one of the most well known brands worldwide. In order to do this, the main areas of discussion I am going to focus upon are the company itself.I will look at the firms' internal and external Marketing environment in order to provide an insight in what position the firm is in. Furthermore, I will look at the competition they are facing and what affect this have upon their marketing strategy. I will also provide recommendations will be provided on how Apple can strengthen their position in the market.
Established in April 1976, Apple, develops, sells, and supports a series of personal computers, portable media players, mobile phones, computer software, and computer hardware and hardware accessories.Rather than releasing multiples of little products to try and win over consumers through market saturation, Apple releases higher end, high quality, and user friendly products. They believe in bringing in simplicity and innovation to the mass market and for that reason have been extremely successful. As of September 2007, the company operates about 200 retail stores in five countries and an online store where hardware and software products are sold.
Its products include the Macintosh line of desktop and notebook computers, the Mac OS X operating system, the iPod music player and a portfolio of software and peripheral products for education, creative, consumer and business customers. [1] Apple introduced its first iPod portable digital music player. The product has proven unbelievably successful; over 100 million units have been sold in the six years since its introduction. In 2003, Apple's iTunes Store was introduced, offering online music downloads in integration with the iPod.
The service quickly became the market leader in online music services, with over 3 billion downloads by August 2007. Steve Jobs announced that iTunes had reached 4 billion downloads during his keynote address at the 2008 Macworld Conference & Expo. [2] Apple is recognized as an unparallel in computer designing and compatibility. The sleek and state of the art design of the Apple's products snatch away the consumers mind quite easily than the rest. The iPod is the fastest selling music player in history.Apple has sold over 100 million iPods since the player's introduction in October 2001, [2] although sales have said to have started slowing; the company currently enjoys a Microsoft-like domination of the MP3 player market.
From the early iPods to the new iPod touch, it has gone through a significant change and has opened the user's world from the palm of their hands. In January Apple reported the best quarter revenue and earnings in Apple's history so far.Apple posted record revenue of $9.6 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.
58 billion. 42% of Apple's revenue for the First fiscal quarter of 2008 came from iPod sales. [3] Another interesting statistic for this is that 40% of last quarter's iPod sales went to first-time buyers, and just shows that the music player market is far from saturated as some have stated. [4] This iconic product is considered by many to be a must have item.
"The iPod is to music players what Kleenex is to tissue or Xerox is to copiers. "[5]
