Month: October 2016

Declining sales and apple were two things not many expected would be in the same sentence. However, 2016 is full of surprises. Apple for the first time in 5 years is experiencing a decline in sales and thus has decided to increase their focus in their services industry.

The revenues from their online services such as iCloud, App Store, etc. rose by 24% and thus this decision makes sense. It is very difficult to create new products with new features in the cutthroat Mobile Phone industry where the competitors are rising. Google just released a new phone, Pixel, which may be one of the many reasons Apple is experiencing a decline in sales along with other smaller companies coming up with new models too.

Apple’s loyal customers however will make this transition relatively easy due to their support. In a way, Apple’s loyal customers, through the word of mouth, could raise awareness further by spreading the word about how much they are enjoying their services and thus could act like a method of marketing their product. Apple’s good brand image also play a role in attracting new customers and thus their services could end up turning into a very successful and stable revenue stream.

Apple should also pay attention to expanding their content business. Trends show that people are shifting from Cable Television to online streaming more than ever. This is a huge opportunity for Apple, however may not necessarily be easy due to Netflix. Netflix dominates the online streaming industry and has been for years. Apple could try creating content and streaming shows that Netflix doesn’t, to start with and could develop this product more throughout the years.

In conclusion, Apple’s decision to putting more emphasis on their services industry is a very smart choice in order to generate more profits. Through innovative ways and good marketing, Apple can successfully expand their services.

Bibliography:

1. (n.d.). Retrieved October 31, 2016, from https://www.ft.com/content/68e80a44-9b28-11e6-b8c6-568a43813464

In this blog post, I will be commenting on my peer’s blog post.

The blog post I am referring to is about a new service which Amazon has just released, Music Unlimited. It is essentially an online streaming music service, exactly like the services already provided by Spotify and Apple music. Music Unlimited is also priced the same as its competitors at $9.99, however Amazon Prime users get a 20% discount and are charged $7.99 per month.

While Aika’s blog mentions the positive aspects of Music Unlimited, I will be mentioning the negative ones. Amazon Prime users already have access to music through Prime Music. Prime Music provides free music to Amazon Prime users however it does not offer behind the scenes artist commentaries, playlists or as wide of a range compared to Music Unlimited. Now the question is whether the current Amazon Prime users would consider paying an extra $7.99 a month for these extra features keeping in mind that Prime Music already offers around 2 million songs to its users without advertisements.

Along with that, the music streaming market already has 2 huge competitors: Spotify and Apple Music. Even though Spotify was not the first in the music streaming industry, they were however the first to be successful. With their success and well established brand and Apple’s loyal customers, it is difficult for any other company to enter this industry. The question is that how big is the pool of Music Unlimited’s potential customers if we keep aside the loyal Spotify users, loyal Apple (and Apple Music) users and Prime Music users who do not think upgrading the Music Unlimited is worth it. In my opinion, Music Unlimited is likely to get a majori

While their strategy of reducing prices for Amazon Prime users is a very clever one and could potentially work due to the large number of Amazon Prime users, predicting the success of Music Unlimited is very difficult at this stage as it really depends on Amazon Prime users and is a true test for the marketing unit of Amazon. It will be interesting to see if Amazon manages to market and sell their new service, Music Unlimited, despite their very successful competitors.

Words: 384

Peer’s Blog Post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/aikakim/

Uber, one of the most popular American multinationals, has recently expanded UberEATS to Tokyo, the 34^th city globally with UberEATS, an on demand meal delivery service. With previous attempts of expanding their privately-owned transportation into Tokyo which did not work too well, Uber decided to take a new approach while attempting to penetrate the Tokyo market. Due to the country’s strong taxi lobby, they were unsuccessful when it came to expanding their hail-cab services. Along with pulling out of the Chinese market, they were also unsuccessful at expanding in South Asian markets for example Singapore and Jakarta due to local competitors (Grab Singapore and Go-Jek).

With intensive market research, Uber decided to launch UberEATS in central Tokyo. Central Tokyo is a good fit for UberEATS due to the lack of food delivery services. Along with that, Tokyo has a larger number of Michelin Star restaurant and the most number of restaurants per capita. This opens up a huge opportunity for UberEATS to provide delivery services for restaurants ranging from fast-food joints to luxurious restaurants. To incentivize and attract customers to use UberEATS, they will not be charging their customers with delivery fees for their first order. This strategy never fails to work when it comes providing potential customers the exposure to a new product or service and could help UberEATS enter the market easier along with their already well established brand image.

Despite there being low competition, the demand for food delivery is considerably low and thus UberEATS will have to come up with better marketing strategies to make ordering food more conventional. A few ways they could attempt to do so is through using famous celebrities to help advertise their products or perhaps making it “trendy” to order take-out, which has worked well for Chinese restaurants in the United States.

UberEATS may be Uber’s best chance yet to squeeze revenues out of Japan since their primary business did not work too well. The circumstances and markets in Japan look favorable for the new business idea Uber has come up with and I believe that through the right marketing and product positioning, UberEATS could end up being very successful in Japan and other parts of the world.

Word Count: 367

Bibliography:

1. Tech in Asia – Connecting Asia’s startup ecosystem. (n.d.). Retrieved October 01, 2016, from https://www.techinasia.com/ubereats-official-tokyo-launch
2. Pascaline, M. (2016). Uber To Launch Food Delivery Service In Tokyo. Retrieved October 01, 2016, from http://www.ibtimes.com/ubereats-uber-launch-food-delivery-service-japan-2422954
3. McLain, S. (2016). Uber to Launch Food-Delivery Service in Tokyo. Retrieved October 01, 2016, from http://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-to-launch-food-delivery-service-in-tokyo-1475036873
4. Uber launches global assault on takeaway meals market. (2016). Retrieved October 01, 2016, from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-food-delivery-idUSKCN11W2LX