Apple Inc.

, 2015
Apple is the world’s largest corporation based on a market capitalization of about $650 billion,
approximately $200 billon more than Exxon, the world’s second-largest company. Apple de-signs,
manufactures, and markets the world’s single-most popular smartphone, the iPhone, even though Apple
has only about 15 percent of the global market share in smartphones. Apple also produces the iPad, iPod,
iCloud, Mac computers, and other accessory devices. Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Apple owns
iTunes, the popular app and store where customers can download music.

New for Apple with the release of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is Apple Pay, where customers can pay at
retail stores by scanning their phone. Apple currently operates 450 Apple stores and employs 98,000.
Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6+ offer larger screens to better compete with Samsung. Initial sales of the iPhone 6
and 6+ broke records, with the higher margin 6+ doing best of all. Apple’s new gold smartwatch released in
spring 2015 sells for $4,000 to $5,000. The aluminum model is priced at $349, and the stainless steel
model at $500.

On July 21, 2015, Apple announced financial results for its fiscal 2015 third quarter that ended June 27,
2015. Specifically, the company reported quarterly revenue of $49.6 billion and quarterly net profit of $10.7
billion, compared to revenue of $37.4 billion and net profit of $7.7 billion the prior year-ago quarter.
International sales accounted for 64 percent of the quarter’s revenue. In that third quarter Apple’s year-
over-year growth rate accelerated from the first half of fiscal 2015, with revenue up 33 percent and
earnings per share up 45 percent. The growth was fueled by record third quarter sales of iPhone and Mac,
all-time record revenue from services, and the successful launch of Apple Watch. The company’s quarterly
iPhone revenue was up 59 percent over last year. Apple Music was released in July 2015 and the
company plans to release iOS 9, OS X El Capitan and watchOS 2 to customers in Fall 2015.
Copyright by Fred David Books LLC. www.strategyclub.com (Written by Forest R. David)

History
Founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Apple began as a personal computer company
providing desktop computers for businesses and the home. The first computer, the Apple 1, was hand built
by Wozniak and did not come with a keyboard or an outer case to protect the computer. The products were
considered a kit, and users had to supply extra parts themselves. The Apple 1 sold for the interesting price
of $666.66, or around $2,800 adjusted for inflation. Apple was incorporated in 1977 after Wozniak sold his
share for $800. The Apple II was first sold in 1977 and had the first major piece of business software,
VisiCalc, a spreadsheet product.

Apple went public in 1980 for $22 a share and generated more money on its IPO than any firm since
Ford Motor Company 25 years earlier. Following a dispute with the Board, Steve Jobs resigned from Apple
in 1985 and started a new firm. With Jobs unaffiliated with Apple for the next 15 years, Apple experimented
with various other products, including CD players, digital cameras, speakers, and others. Throughout the
1990s, Apple experimented with several different product lines of personal computers, with limited success.
Apple’s products were generally significantly more expensive than that of competitors, not compatible with
much of the leading software or with the more popular Windows machines, and also were not able to
multitask as well as Windows-based machines.

By 1996, Apple was struggling immensely and the firm acquired Steve Jobs’ firm, NeXT. After the
Board fired the existing CEO in 1997, Jobs was back, acting as interim CEO of Apple. In the same year,
Jobs identified Jonathan Ive, and the two started working to rebuild Apple’s products and brand name. Ive
is currently the Senior VP of Design. After several Mac upgrades and new software products such as
iMovie, in 2001, Apple introduced the iPod and the firm sold 100 million units in 6 years. The year 2003
brought about the iTunes store, which synced $0.99 downloads to iPods and remains an industry leader.
Apple launched the iPhone in 2008 and the iPad in 2010. In 2011, Steve Jobs passed away and current
CEO Tim Cook now leads Apple.
Internal Issues
Vision/Mission

Neither at its corporate website nor in its Form 10K does Apple provide a written vision or mission
statement labeled as such. There are statements such as the following, however, that perhaps serve as
Apple’s vision and/or mission:
“We strive to provide users of Apple products the best experience possible though innovative product
designs and software.”
“Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and
professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store.
Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the
future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.”

Organizational Structure

As indicated in Exhibit 1, Apple appears to operate from a divisional-by-process design, but absent of any
presidents of divisions. However, Apple does report revenues by both region and product. Some analysts
suggest that titles of Apple’s executives more closely mirror how the firm reports sales, and many expect to
see a COO with divisional presidents reporting to that position.

Strategy

Apple was late in producing a larger screen smartphone, but did so with the launch of the iPhone 6 and 6+
in October 2014. Apple prides itself on simplicity. Apple products are generally more user friendly than
those of Windows, Android, and other operating systems, but at the sacrifice of the user being able to
customize or tailor the device for their specific needs. Apple’s overriding strategy always has been to
produce elegant, easy-to-use products, often at a premium price point. In a November 2014 interview, CEO
Cook reiterated this when asked if having just 15 percent of the global smartphone market share is a
concern, by responding, “Not all market share is equal, and Apple has never been about the most; we are
about being the best.”

Apple also has a culture of not collecting every detail about its users. For example, Apple does not read or
store iMessages or FaceTime. Even if a government were to ask for these data, Apple could not provide it,
for the company simply does not keep it on file. The latest version of iOS 8 is more encrypted than ever.
CEO Cook compares Apple to designing to an electronic Fort Knox.

With the release of the new iPhone 6 line, Apple introduced Apple Pay, a mobile app that enables Apple
customers to use their existing Master Card, Visa, or American Express card to make mobile payments at
retail stores. Apple Pay’s fingerprint technology is more convenient for consumers and also more secure
for credit card companies such as Visa, American Express, and MasterCard. However, competitors such
as Samsung currently have a similar technology on some of their phones, and all phones will likely have a
similar technology moving forward. Using Apple Pay, merchants are charged the same fee as normally
charged by a credit card company, which is an average of 2 percent in the United States. Transactions in
the United States annually produce more credit card fees than everywhere else in the world combined,
leaving open the door for Apple to possibly transition away from credit card companies in the future. Apple
could offer its own in-house credit system at much lower cost to merchants, in essence becoming a
financial institution.

Keeping in line with its user-friendly products strategy, Apple must approve all third-party digital content
through the iTunes Store or the App Store and iBooks store. Competitors, such as Android-based phones,
tend to have less control over apps offered to their customers than does Apple. Apple prides itself on well-
trained and knowledgeable salespersons with excellent customer service. Apple invests heavily in R&D,
over $6 billion in 2014 alone, up nearly 100 percent from 2012. In addition, Apple is expanding its retail
stores around the world.

During 2014, Apple acquired several firms, including Beats Music and Beats headphones. Apple obtained
a subscription streaming music service and a headphone firm in the process. Apple’s acquisitions in 2014,
however, increased the firm’s goodwill from $1.5 to $4.6 billion. To keep costs low, almost all Apple
hardware products are manufactured in Asia and many of these are manufactured at a single location,
except for a few Macs that are manufactured in the United States. While able to better maintain quality
control, this does put Apple at risk over strikes, poor management, or other disruptive activities at a single
location facility. To counter this problem, Apple tends to stock enough supply to cover its demand for up to
150 days, but dur-ing a new issue of an iPhone, for example, there can be supply shortages, where
customers must wait weeks or even months to receive their products.
Exhibit 1 Apple's Organizational Structure

Tim Cook – CEO

Angela Eddy Cue – Craig Jonathan Luca Dan Philip Bruce Jeff
Ahrendts – Senior VP Federighi – Ive – Senior Maestri – Riccio – Schiller – Sewell – Williams –
Senior VP Internet Senior VP VP Design Senior VP Senior VP Senior VP Senior VP Senior VP
Retail and Software Software and CFO Hardware Worldwide and General Operations
Online and Services Engineering Engineering Marketing Counsel
Stores

Source: Based on company documents.

 Exhibit 2 Apple Revenues by Region (in millions of USD)

Revenues 2014 2013 2012

Americas $65,232 $62,739 $57,512

Europe 40,929 37,883 36,323
China 29,846 25,417 22,533
Japan 14,982 13,462 10,571
Rest of Asia Pacific 10,344 11,181 10,741
Retail 21,462 20,228 18,828
Net Sales 182,795 170,910 156,508

Source: Based on Apple’s 2014 Annual Report, p. 27.

Apple has sued Samsung twice in the last couple of years for patent infringements in the hypercompetitive
smartphone industry. Apple was awarded $120 million of a $2.2 billion claim for Samsung violating three
patenting infringements. However, Apple was unable to prove that Samsung’s action caused significant
damage to its product line. To date, Samsung has been or-dered to pay Apple over $1 billion in damages,
and both cases have been appealed, and Apple has yet to receive any compensation. More important for
Apple than the $1 billion was the desire for the legal actions to impair Samsung from being able to sell
certain products. To date, this outcome does not appear likely for Apple.

Segment Data

Exhibit 2 reveals that Apple’s sales increased 7 percent in 2014, following a 9 percent increase the prior
year. Fiscal 2014 sales were boosted by strong iPhone 5s and 5c sales, and also ac-count for initial sales
of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+, released in October 2014 in the United States, one month before Apple’s
fiscal year ended. However, some preorder sales of iPhone 6 and 6+ are included in Apple’s 2014 fiscal
year. With the iPhone 6 and 6+ also comes Apple Pay, which allows customers to pay by scanning their
phones at selected retail stores. As of late 2014, 83 percent of all credit card transactions in the United
States were compatible with Apple Pay, with banks not offering compatible products quickly but rather
coming to agreement with Apple. The company reported sales increases in all regions in fiscal 2014,
except in the Rest of Asia Pacific region, which experienced a small decline. The largest percent growth
came from China and Japan.

Apple’s iPhone accounted for 55 percent of total 2014 revenues, up 11 percent from fiscal 2011, as
indicated in Exhibit 3. Apple’s iPad sales have been steady but have not increased since 2012. Apple’s
new iPad Air 2 hopes to reverse this trend. However, with the larger iPhone dis-plays with the 6 and 6+
products, many customers may opt only for having one device. In a bit of a surprise for analysts, Apple’s
Mac sales were up 12 percent in fiscal 2014, from stronger than expected back-to-school sales on Macs.
The back-to-school sales were strong enough to boost Mac revenues to $6.6 billion in Q4 of fiscal 2014,
more than iPad’s revenue of $5.3 billion. Mac now owns over 6 percent of the global PC market, its largest
market share since 1995. Mac has gained market share on windows machines in 33 of the last 34 quarters.
iTunes, Software, and Services also continues to grow, up 12 percent from fiscal 2013. This segment
includes the Apple Store, iCloud, iLife, iWork, AppleCare, and apps that many users pay to download and
use on their iPhones and iPads. Apple’s iPod, once the bellwether for the firm before the release of the
iPhone, has been in constant decline, with sales down 61 percent from 2012 to 2014. In summer 2014,
Apple discontinued making its classic iPod 160gb device on claims they could no longer get the parts.
Apple’s accessories segment includes headphones, Apple TV, cases, and Apple Watch. Apple Watch will
be compatible only with iPhone 5 and newer products running iOS 8.0 or newer.
Finance

For years Apple had no long-term debt on its balance sheet. But in 2013, the firm, for the first time since
1994, used debt to finance operations, and reported $17 billion in long-term debt, and then reported $29
billion in long-term-debt in fiscal 2014, with varying maturity dates out as far as 2044. Apple is aggressively
looking at financing further by debt and also for the first time with bonds backed in Euros as well. The firm
reported in April 2014 that a $90 billion stock repurchase had been authorized and also raised the dividend
to $0.47 per share for a 30 percent increase. Assuming $100 average stock price on the repurchases,
Apple will need to purchase 900 million shares back, or around 15 percent of current shares outstanding.

Apple’s current income statement and balance sheet are provided in Exhibits 4 and 5, respectively. Much
of the cash on Apple’s balance sheet is kept in foreign banks. In this way, Apple avoids paying U.S.
corporate taxes on those earnings.

Exhibit 4 Income Statement (in millions of USD)

Report Date September 27, 2014 September 28 ,2013

Revenues $182,795 $170,910

Cost of revenue 112,258 106,606
Gross profit 70,537 64,304
Operating expenses 18,034 15,305
EBIT 52,503 48,999
Interest additions 980 1,156
EBT 53,483 50,155
Tax 13,973 13,118
Net income 39,510 37,037

Source: Based on company documents.

Competitors

Apple competes in a highly competitive and rapidly changing industry that is often associated with strong
customer loyalty. Apple and rival firms typically roll out new smartphones, computers, and tablets annually.
Many of Apple’s rivals have prices 50 to 70 percent lower on com-parable products. However, in the tablet
and phone market, top rival Samsung prices its top products in line with Apple prices. Competition for
Apple should only increase in the future as rival firms are better able to duplicate Apple’s products or even
better able to persuade cu-tomers their products are just as good but significantly cheaper in price. Top
competitors for Apple are Samsung and Lenovo in the smartphone, tablet, and PC markets. However,
Apple faces significant competition from various other PC providers such as Dell, Sony, and Toshiba.
 Exhibit 5 Balance Sheet (in millions of USD)

Report Date September 27, 2014 September 28, 2013

Cash $13,844 $14,259

Short-term securities 11,233 26,287
Accounts receivable 17,460 13,102
Inventories 2,111 1,764
Other current assets 23,883 17,874
Total current assets 68,531 73,286
Long-term marketable securities 130,162 106,215
Property, plant & equipment 20,624 16,597
Goodwill 4,616 1,577
Intangible assets 4,142 4,179
Other assets 3,764 5,146
Total assets 231,839 207,000

Accounts payable 30,196 22,367

Other current liabilities 33,252 21,291
Total current liabilities 63,448 43,658
Long-term debt 28,987 16,960
Deferred income taxes 20,259 16,489
Deferred revenue 3,031 2,625
Other liabilities 4,567 3,719
Total liabilities 120,292 83,451

Common stock 23,313 19,764

Retained earnings 87,152 104,256
Treasury stock — —
Paid in capital and other 1,082 (471)
Total equity 111,547 123,549

Total liabilities & equity 231,839 207,000

Source: Based on company documents.

Exhibit 6 2014 Percent Market Share of Key Global Players

Apple Android Windows

Smart Phones 14% 81% 3%

Tablets 45% 51% 4%
Watches 0% 67% 0%

Source: Based on company documents and a variety of other sources.

Exhibit 6 provides a comparative analysis of Apple with some of its rival firms in terms of market share.
Note that Apple products trail Android products substantially in market share. Apple projects to take a 35
percent market share in watches in 2015, reducing Android’s share to 42 percent. In 2014, the total watch
market was less than 10 million, but is expected to expand to 35 million units by year-end 2015. Exhibit 7
provides additional comparative competitive information for Apple and rival firms.

Samsung

Founded in 1938 in South Korea, Samsung specializes in semiconductors and electronic appliances. The
firm did not enter the mobile communications arena until the late 1990s, but by
 Exhibit 7 Apple versus Rival Firms

Apple Samsung lenovo

# Employees 92,000 96,900 54,000

$ Net Income 39.5 B 27.7 B 817 M
$ Revenue 182.8 B 208 B 38,707 M
$ Revenue/Employee 2M 2M 716,796
$ EPS Ratio 7.39 180 7.88
Market Cap. 692.7 B — —

Source: Based on company documents and a variety of other sources.

2010 it was producing half of its mobile phones in China. Samsung has five R&D centers in
China. Samsung was 2 years behind first-mover Apple into the smartphone market with its
launch in 2009 using the Bada operating system. In 2010, Samsung provided an Android-
powered smartphone. In 2013, Samsung smartphones were 21 percent of the global smart-
phone market, making Samsung the industry leader. In addition to smartphones, Samsung also
today produces tablets, televisions, Blu-rays, DVD players, cameras, refrigerators, air
conditioners, washing machines, ovens, PC notebooks, printers, storage devices, and more. In
addition, Samsung is engaged in providing select medical equipment such as X-rays, ultra-
sound, and other items.

In popular products, Samsung competes with Apple directly on the Samsung Galaxy and
Note smartphones, Galaxy Tablet, TVs, watches, and laptop computers. Samsung reported
revenues of over $208 billion in 2013.

Lenovo

Founded in 1984 in Beijing and headquartered in both Beijing and New York City, Lenovo ac-
quired IBM’s ThinkPad laptops and more recently IBM’s lower-end servers. Lenovo did not
enter the smartphone market until 2010, but its LePhone is popular in China and increasing its
market share in the entry-level market space. Lenovo is also rapidly introducing the LePhone in
Russia, India, Indonesia, and other neighboring Asian nations that also have developing
economies. Lenovo competes with Apple primarily on PCs, since the firm has positioned itself
in a lower demographic market for its smartphones.

Lenovo’s 2014 revenues are expected to be in excess of $37 billion—the same as in 2013.
With Lenovo’s $2.9 billion acquisition of Motorola in 2014, the firm is now the world’s third-
largest smartphone maker, behind Samsung and Apple. Lenovo trades on the Hong Kong
Stock Exchange and currently employs 54,000 people worldwide.

External Issues
In 2014, there were 234 million smartphone Internet connections in the United States. The
growth rate was approximately 35 percent from 2009 to 2014, with a forecast of 313 million
connections by 2019.
China

Most of the world’s smartphones are manufactured in China, and the Chinese smartphone
market itself increased nearly 55 percent from 2010 to 2014. Less than 1.5 million units were
produced in 2003, increasing to over 500 million units in 2015. The top four smartphone
manufacturers in China are Samsung, Lenovo, Apple, and HTC, accounting for over half of the
total industry revenue in 2014. There is a growing fragmentation in the market as new entrants
enter and now comprise 50+ percent overall market. Smartphone industry revenue will
increase about 20 percent annually to around $180 billion by 2020, with over 1.5 billion units
produced annually. Worldwide mobile phone shipments (all phones included) were just under 2
billion in 2014 with about 70 percent of shipped phones considered smartphones. By 2018,
however, 2.2 billion mobile phones will be shipped and all but 400 million are projected to be
smartphones.

Computer Manufacturing and Tablets

Computer manufacturing is a $14 billion industry in the United States alone, but sales fell over
17 percent per year between 2009 and 2014. About 62 percent of all computers manufactured
in the United States are laptops, but this still leaves 38 percent of the computers manufactured
being desktops. Overall projections are 5 percent declines moving forward through 2020.
Tablets are projected to further make inroads into personal computers in U.S. manufacturing.
However, it is important to note that at least for Apple’s Q4 of 2014, Mac sales exceeded iPad
sales.

Most tablets are manufactured in China, with Apple holding 27 percent of the market share,
followed by Samsung and Lenovo with 12 and 8 percent, respectively, on tablets made in
China. The largest players in the U.S. computer manufacturing business, which also includes
servers, are HP, Dell, and IBM, with 25, 19, and 18 percent market shares, respectively. Two
relative new areas that may help boost laptop sales are the new ultrabooks, extra thin laptops
with no battery sacrifice, and laptops with touch glass where the user can touch the screen
much like on a smartphone or tablet. Worldwide PC sales are expected to be $190 billion in
2015, tapering down to $160 billion by 2018. In 2014, PC shipments alone accounted for 56
percent of the device (PC and Tablets) shipments, but this number is expected to be reduced to
45 percent by 2018, as tablets make further inroads on PCs. (Tablets are expected to grow 9
percent a year through 2018.) Currently, Android-based phones account for just over 60 percent
of smartphone operating systems, with iOS picking up much of the balance. Through 2018, the
outlook is projected to remain the same.

Operating Systems

Operating systems are another large market in the United States with 2013 revenues of $45 bil-
lion expected to grow to $57 billion by 2019. Major firms by market share include Microsoft and
Apple, with 62 and 20 percent of the total market. Microsoft’s prominent product continues to be
Windows, while Apple is the owner of iOS.
Geographic Outlook

Most smartphone markets in developed countries are expected to see growth rates subside
moving forward. However, with the current culture of customers being trained to update their
phones at least every 2 years, the long-term outlook for smartphone providers looks promising.
The real ex-ponential growth, though, moving forward should come from developing markets
such as Brazil, India, and China. Tablet sales in the United States are projected to increase
from $55 billion in 2014 to 63 billion in 2018, or a 15 percent total increase. In the Asia Pacific
(not including Japan) region, tablet sales are expected to increase from $65 to $93 billion over
the same time frame, or 43 percent. Sales for smartphones are expected to show similar results
with respect to the major growth being in China, India, and Brazil.

During its first month in operation (July 2015), Apple Music obtained 11 million trial mem-bers,
giving the App store a record-breaking month. The streaming service costs users $9.99 per
month with the first 3 months free. But 2 million of those subscribers opted for the more
expensive family plan costing $14.99 per month. Despite some bugs and glitches in the service,
which Apple is scrambling to fix, Apple Music is a popular hit so far. If all the trial users convert
to paying monthly customers, Apple will surpass most competitors. For example, 10-year-old
Spotify only has 20 million paying customers, but boasts 75 million active users, Pandora has
3.3 million paid subscribers from its 79 million active user base, and Deezer has 6 million paid
subscribers out of its 16 million active users. During July 2015, Apple’s App store did a record-
breaking $1.7 billion in transactions. Interestingly, 23 percent of the digital music market is made
up of paid subscrib-ers, who generated a collective $1.6 billion in calendar year 2014.

Future
Apple announced record financial results for 2015 fiscal first quarter that ended in December
2014. Total revenues and profits were $74.6 and $18 billion, respectively, up from $57.6 and
$13.1 billion in first quarter 2014. In addition, international sales accounted for 65 percent of
total revenue as the iPhone is now the most popular phone in China. International sales would
have been significantly higher if not for a significant rally in the U.S. dollar against other foreign
currencies over much of 2014.

Apple began shipping its Apple watch in April 2015. iPhone and Mac revenues were $51 and $7
billion, respectively, for the first quarter 2015, up 57 and 9 percent from first quarter 2014.
However, iPad sales were down 22 percent over the same time frame due to people not
updating their tablets as frequently, less demand than for phones, and also the new iPhone 6+
has cannibalized iPad sales.

In 2015, at Apple’s shareholder meeting, when someone questioned the profitability of Apple’s
environmental initiatives, Mr. Cook responded: “We do things for other reasons than a profit
motive, we do things b-cause they are right and just. If that’s a hard line for you . . . then you
should get out of the stock.”

Reference:

David, F. R. & David, F. R. (2017). Strategic management concepts and cases: A competitive
advantage approach (16th ed.). Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited