Swot Analysis - Apple

After a review of Apple's income statement it showed to be impressive. The statement shows Apple made a record in revenue of 28.57 billion with a net profit of 7.31 billion

(Apple,n.d.). Apple seems to be in a healthy state financially. The company is profitable and the stock is moving upward daily. Overall Apple is one of the best companies to invest in at this moment. They are marketing in new areas and upgrading with innovative ideas. There is a demand for Apple's products and their innovation.

Apple's income statement doesn't show any information of concern. If it shows anything it shows the company doing well and growing in their markets quickly. It also shows there is a demand for the products Apple's produces. Dell and Hewlett Packard's (HP) income statement showed a positive number as well but Apple is out performing them in the net income. This also shows Apple, even though it is an exclusive line of product, is the leader in the industry. Apple's system not being compatible or a big seller in the business world has really not affected the sales partially because they are doing well in the personal sales and other product lines.

Apple's income statement also showed they spent less money than Dell and HP in research and design but yet still out performed both companies. This information shows how

Apple has their niche in their market. Management could use this information to back up what is currently done in Apple. Not staying stagnated but yet not placing a lot in research and design because they understand and know their market. Management could also go another way with this information. Apple may want to place more in their research and design to give them more of an edge on new and innovated ideas for the future. Management could see where Dell and HP are spending more to get more of a competitive advantage over Apple in their respective markets.

Overall, Apple is doing well in their markets of products. The company is doing exactly what is necessary to stay an exclusive and innovated company. Apple's net income statement is increase in profit and net income and and share in shares over Dell and HP shows their assets are revenues are strong and moving in the right direction, upward. This is not to say Dell and HP are not also moving forward but Apple is having record profits this year because of their ability to market to the right people at the right time. Apple has even crushed their own estimates for the second quarter and reported a net income in June of2011 of 7.3 billion dollars or a diluted share of$7.79 per share (Caulfield, 2011, para.2).

Apple has a significant technological advantage over Dell and HP. Apple is always upgrading their operating system to make their computers run faster than a PC like Dells and

HPs. Markoff (1995) explains that "in contrast to the PC world, where Microsoft sets the software standard while dozens of computer makers compete for hardware sales, Apple designs the operating system software that controls the inner workings of the machines it makes and sells

(para. 3). This gives Apple an advantage of controlling every aspect oftheir computers versus having to comply with other software requirements to install on their hardware. Apple also has the advantage of upgrading their software instead of waiting for another company to upgrade their software to place on Apple's hardware.

Having an exclusive hardware and software, as Apple does, allows their product to never have leaving the Apple platform for any applications. According to Burrows (2010), "Apple's neatest trick is that this platform would expand even if Apple were sitting still (it's not). Forget Apple's 34,000 salaried employees. More than 125,000 developers now work to make apps for Apple products. Apple pays them nothing" (p. 94). Apple is building a platform that is all Apple,

Apple, Apple. They are have a competitive advantage over building relationships with collaborators to help produce applications, called apps, on the Apple platform which means these collaborators are not working on applications for Google's android or PC computers. Apple has over 500,000 apps for their product in 2011 and Google has about 250,000. Apple clearly has the competitive advantage over Google and their open source applications.

A disadvantage of Apple is their Proprietary software. The issue is iPhone users were only able to use apps from the Apps store but there were more apps out on the market that were better and more useful than the ones offered by Apple. Apple's software and hardware is not compatible with other products. For example, Google is offers Android phones but they are not exclusive to one wireless network and for years the iPhone was only available on AT&T but it is moving into other networks like Verizon and this year Sprint..

Apple's brand is one the most well known in the world which helps them in their approach to becoming a global company. Apple has out branded some of the most known names like McDonalds, Google, and Microsoft just to name a few (Millward Brown Optimor,

2010). Having a name that transcends cultures and countries it allows Apple to market their products globally. Apple is now in 88 countries and shipped 9.3 million iPads in the second quarter of 20 II (Strategy Analytics, 2011).

Since going global with their products Apple and their collaborators have seen an increase in sales and downloads because Apple refocusing their efforts on being exclusively on certain networks. Apple prides itself on being an innovator and a quality producing company in the United States. In the foreign markets they do the same by offering the new products simultaneously with the United States because they are Apple's fastest growing market. Nokia, the dominate mobile maker over in Europe, is slow to respond to the smartphone era and cannot keep up with Apple who is new and exciting ideas to their overseas markets that weren't offered before (Kane & Rohwedder, 2010).

Benchmarking Analysis

Apple's best practices approach is diversity. Apple is in three main product arenas, computers, music products, mobile devices, and testing out the television products (Datamonitor, 2011a). Google also has a diverse platform which includes search engines, advertising services, and mobile phone devices. (Datarnonitor, 2011b). Dell for a while was only in the computers arena but has slowly moved into the television, mobile phones and devices. Apple approach is to take advantage of their core competencies, quality and innovation, and use them to gain their competitive advantage in a market. Dell on the other hand uses their core competencies, cost efficient and IT, to gain competitive advantage