A Critical Evaluation Of Apple And Samsung

The sensation of the iPhone is obvious in person; everywhere you go, someone has one of these devices in their possession. With millions of units selling every year, it is no wonder that the device is becoming highly ubiquitous and iconic. Like other Apple products, the iPhone is something that is easily recognized all around the world. The same phone has been selling for over four years now with cosmetic and hardware updates for each year’s new iteration, along with an operating system that is becoming more refined. Since its release in 2007, the iPhone has been a massively successful product for Apple, who has sold more than 100 million units in the iPhone's first four year, including 18.6 million in the first quarter of 2011 (Artman). Other competitors make smartphones that are better than the iPhone in many ways, yet Apple is selling more than ever. Other companies release new phones faster than the yearly refresh of Apple’s iPhones, but the latest isn’t always the greatest. It isn’t the technology that makes the iPhone successful, but rather the cool factor that the device expresses (Mintz).

Technology has become a huge part of everyday life, and people seem to have one great debate and are fighting over which is the best phone, iPhone or Android. The Apple iPhone is a cellular smartphone that was created and is maintained by Apple Inc. Android is another type of smartphone that is accessible to consumers, but the operating system is powered by Google and many different companies produce Android devices. The different operating systems and interfaces have created a long and carried out debate to which was superior. iPhone is the better phone and there are many reasons as to why it is superior to its rival, Android. The iPhone’s sleek and beautiful design has users’ hands fondling the device and never putting it down. The

The company has been growing its sales by 17.45 percent yearly for the last 5 years, to a total of 141.21 Billion Dollars by end the of year 2012 (Bloomberg, 2015). If they keep this pace, they are going to meet their sales goal by 2021. Samsung move from 49th place in 2008 to 4th place 2012 in top global brand, and still remaining now, making one of the company’s goals already achieved (Rankingthebrands.com, 2015).

Apple was established as an IT company dealing in exclusively in computers. However, competition in the technology sector forced the firm to focus on other consumer products. The diversification strategy has seen Apple’s sales grow tremendously in the last decade, earning the firm the No. 1 brand position at Forbes. The Apple brand is recognized on an international scale and enjoys a strong recognition thanks to its aggressiveness when it comes to creativity and innovation (Tar, 2013). It has a large number of loyal customers who would purchase the new products regardless of the market price, which guarantees profits from the new division.

Over the mid-year, Apple was offering a little more than half of the worldwide premium cell phones, and Samsung was offering just shy of 25%. By December 2016, those figures had developed to 70% and 17%, separately” (Richardson, 2017).

I learned that Apple is a juggernaut when it comes to their technological products and marketing goals. Apple focuses on the needs of customer’s light years ahead of their competition and even before most consumers have realized they want Apple’s products. Through their innovative marketing involving social media, word of mouth, Apple Stores they have convinced consumers about the high value of their product even lending to the formation of a “Mac cult” for its diehard fans. The way ahead for Apple is not to lose sight of its brand loyalty and continue to service the customers and entice them with the brand’s prestige. Even with the death of Steve Jobs, I believe Apple forge ahead to differentiate itself from the markets they are in.

Even though, Samsung Company exists longer than Apple Company, it has number of major advantages and disadvantages. One of the biggest disadvantages of Samsung is that it has lost in the court against Apple and was forced to pay huge amount of money to Apple, thus undermining the authority of the company as a whole. On the other hand, the advantage of the Samsung is that it exists longer than Apple Company and has its well-established world-known brand and customer loyalty. Similarly to Samsung, Apple is also well-known company and advantage of that is that it is still growing company and has tendency to expand even more. According to the aspects described above, there are no major disadvantages related to Apple, which makes this company looks better comparing to others.

In 2013, Samsung surpassed Apple gaining more profit than them in the second quarter. In the same year, Samsung reported a profit of 27.06 billion dollar (27.74 trillion won) making it the highest earning company in each quarter after they passed Apple. On the other hand, Apple Inc. sold 442.35 million unit in the same time span. It sold 72.3 million unit in 2011, 125.04 million unit in 2012, and almost 150.3 million unit in 2013. The company recorded a profit of approximately 37 billion dollar in 2013. The difference between the profits of Samsung and Apple is that in the first quarter Apple had a net profit of 13.1 million dollar while Samsung had a net profit of only 7.2 million dollar.

Ever since 2010 there has been a battle going on. This battle has set the standard for new technology being released every year. The battle is between two companies: Apple and Samsung. Though these two companies compete against each other with almost every product they sell, the battle is between their smartphones. Apple’s smartphone is the iPhone. The iPhone was the first of its kind. It brought the aspects of an iPod, cellphone, computer, and camera into one device. Samsung’s smartphone is the Galaxy S. The Galaxy S takes all the capabilities of the iPhone and enhances them. It does that, while also allowing its user to fully customize his device how he or she pleases. Both products have their similarities and differences, but only one company can be on top. English author Francis Edward Smedley once wrote, “All’s fair in love and war”. Neither Apple nor Samsung have hesitated to use that quote in their ethics when it comes to advertisements against each other.

Apple's positioning is slightly different. It is certainly not the cheapest computer system on the market: one of the reasons that PCs still dominate the market in terms of units sold is because of Apple's greater expense. "Apple's share of the PC market has been below 5 percent for most of the past 15 years, and even with the much-hyped 'iPod halo effect,' this level hasn't changed in recent years" (Paczkowski 2010). While Apple has been able to outsell rivals in some areas, such as music, even in arenas in which it is famous such as the smartphone market, Apple is not the undisputed rival. "Samsung and Apple are persisting in their tug-of-war to lay claim as the world's top smartphone vendor" (Foresman 2012).

Smartphone market is fast-moving and very high competitive due to intense competition between two big smartphone producers, Apple and Samsung. At the beginning, Apple dominated this market solely by introducing a new innovative type of smartphone by Steve Jobs that has revolutionized people lifestyle and mobile industry. A few years after launching iPhone, a new fast following competitor, Samsung came into this market, and their sales have outperformed Apple from the year 2011 (According to Chart A1 in Appendix). In term of developing their product, Samsung has created its products by following Apple’s technology since the beginning of producing its smartphone, therefore there are many patent lawsuits between them. Since Steve Job passed away, Apple has continued to develop its core competence, which is an innovation of new type of smartphone that could help them to take back their market share from its rival, Samsung. Nonetheless, the competition between Apple and Samsung will still continue intensively in the future.

With Apple being so far ahead of their competition, the only problem one can foresee in Apple’s future is how long they can sustain such innovation before they plateau. Apple does a phenomenal job at releasing their innovative products before their competition, but if their innovation cannot hold steady, this may lead to changes in demand for their products considerably. This can be seen with their release of the iPhone, the first successful touch screen cellular phone. Although people swarmed to the iPhone when it was first released because of its advanced technology, as the years have passed, other similar designs, including those with android and windows based operating systems, have drawn a considerable portion of the market. A clear representation of Apple’s attempt to regain some of this market can be seen when the iPhone was released to Verizon Wireless’ customers in

the overall market share of Samsung is more than 21% whereas apple is still at 13.9% which clearly states that there are still many areas in which Apple Inc. can develop its market and get a good numbers. (corporation, 2015)

1. The Smartphone industry is a well established market and the threats of a new entrant is low, as technology needed to rival the devices already available is quite advance if they want to differentiate from them

Samsung is one of the world’s premium electronics manufactures. The estimated value of Samsung brand had risen from US$6.37 billion in 2001 to US$10.85 billion in 2003. A major factor behind this impressive growth had been Samsung’s effort to redefine itself as a vendor of cutting-edge, “gee-whiz” consumer technology. Samsung believed that repositioning the brand is a vital to the company’s future success.