Monthly Archives: October 2013

Apple became the world’s No. 1 company with the best brand value. This is a big deal especially when  it’s competing with all different types of companies, from McDonalds, Samsung, Intel and Google this is surely something Apple can and will brag about. Apple took over the top position from Coca-Cola because of it’s unique deign, performance and customer service. Apple’s brand value jumped 28% to US$98.3 billion and Google came in second place at US$93.3 billion. The Coca-Cola Co. lost the top spot after 13 years to third place at US$79.2 billion. The brand value is determined by examining the company’s financial performance and how they influence customers to buy their products. As expected technology names saw the greatest change in brand value. Google and Samsung both saw an increase in their brand value. But, Nokia, Yahoo and Blackberry all saw very large declines in their brand values.

I think this article is good because it quantifies what we have learned in lectures over the past month. We’ve focused a lot on how to improve brand value and the tools we can use to increase it. I believe this article shows how to measure it and how important is actually is. I think it also relates to the finance lecture since it shows us how revenue plays into brand value.

Read more on this story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/business/media/apple-passes-coca-cola-as-most-valuable-brand.html?_r=0

Everyone has now probably heard about the new iPhones that Apple released last month. More specifically called the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C. This move by Apple to introduce a more affordable phone by their company into the market has critics and competitors wondering about Apple’s market share.

Apple is known as the company that “breaks the rules [and] changes the world”, and when that company starts to offer lower, cheaper prices the high class value just does not apply. Even though the iPhone 5C is by no means affordable it is seen or portrayed as a cheap alternative to the iPhone 5S.

I personally think Apple made a mistake by offering two relatable products into the market at the same time. We went over these concepts when we learned about Porter’s Five Forces. Even though that tool is used more for when companies try to enter a specific market I think we could use the same ideas for this new iPhone 5C as well. I think the threat of substitutes and rivalry are the main concepts that can be applied to this situation.

Read more about Apple here:

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20130904-the-end-of-apple-as-we-know-it 

Air Canada has been able to cut down on costs considerably over the past year which has caused their stock price to soar. Not only that but the company has also been able to fill their airplane seats by at least 86%. And putting the two together has caused the share price of the company to increase by a whopping 50% since last August. Mr. Doerksen, a National Bank Financial analyst, has said ” The company’s cost performance is outperforming expectations.” His statement shows that many experts are quite surprised at how Air Canada has been able to bounce back. I think these decisions and outcomes will really benefit the company in the future by not only improving their profits but also to help finance the new aircraft in the coming years.

I think that this story fits well with what we have been covering in class so far, since it showcases the benefits of cutting costs and maximizing profits. I understand that most of the work to cut down costs would be carried out by the Accounting team and they would’ve used tools such as financial statements to make these decisions.

Read the full article here:

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/10/04/air-canada-continues-to-soar/