Time for a Change?
The smartphone business is getting increasingly competitive. Whilst Android phones such as Samsung, HTC and LG holds 51.6% of the smartphone platform market share, Apple only holds 40.7%. Although Apple is holding a lot of the market share as its own company, this is still a growing concern.
There have been complaints that Apple is only making trivial changes to the phone. Whilst other companies are making their phone screens way bigger, Apple is only elongating the screen. The new iPhone 5C has the same hardware as iPhone 5 but has polycarbonate casing, whereas iPhone 5S also only incorporates an A7 processor and fingerprint sensor. Not a big change for a long wait from the Apple fans. Android phones are increasing its’ functions and designs, whilst Apple is just changing a few functions here and there.
To evaluate Apple’s competitive advantage, we can use positioning (marketing) to see the Point of Difference its products are offering compared to other companies. The iPhone 5s is only offering a marketing edge of fingerprint sensor, A7 processor and its’ iOS software. Other companies are bringing more to the table; it might be time for Apple to expand their Point of Difference in order to lead the game!
Bibliography:
Reed, Brad. “Apple and Samsung Are Still the Only Smartphone Companies Winning in the U.S.” BGR. N.p., 4 Oct. 2013. Web. 6 Oct. 2013. <http://bgr.com/2013/10/04/apple-samsung-us-market-share/>.
“Best Android Phones.” CNET. Ed. Jessica Dolcourt. N.p., 15 Nov. 2013. Web. 6 Oct. 2013. <http://reviews.cnet.com/best-android-phones/>.
“Apple – IPhone 5s – Features.” Apple – IPhone 5s – Features. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Oct. 2013. <http://www.apple.com/iphone-5s/features/>.
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[…] In a blog posted by Clement Kong, the main issue regarding the new phones released by Apple last months (Iphone 5S and 5C) is the lack of point of difference (POD) compared to previous Iphones and phones from other competitors. The author argued that only a few new features that are not so attractive can be found—new colors, polycarbonate phone cases, new fingerprint sensors and A7 processors. This lack of POD, along with increasingly fierce competition within the industry, has posed a threat on Apple’s market share. […]