Apple
Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded the Apple Company in 1976 and later on, its incorporation occurred in 1977. They named the company as Apple Computers Inc. with its headquarters in Cupertino in California, U.S.A. At the end of 1977, they introduced Apple II, which acted as a turning point for the company because it entailed dissimilar revolutionary features such as color display as well as the floppy drive used for storing data. On June 29, 2007, Apple Inc. launched their first mobile phones in U.S referring to them as iphone, which market the company’s entry in the highly competitive mobile phone market. The telecom industry eagerly waited for the new mobile phone from the period that Apple announced they would be introducing their phones. On the iDay, which was the officially launching day for the iphone, the most of the Apple funs made queues outside the Apple stores so that they can purchase the phones immediately after the launch (O'Grady ,39).
During the first two days after the launch, the sale estimates were between 500, 000 to 1 million making it an extremely successful launch. Later on in 2007 Apple launched the phone in Europe and in 2008, it launched it in Asia. The company set a target of selling 10 million iphones by the end of 2008, which was accounted for 1% of the total market share for the mobile industry. The research conducted by the mobile phone industry indicated that it was the best ever launch of the product. The company sales were successful because between June 2007 and September 2007, the company had sold about 1, 389, 000 units. This surprised the marketing experts because Apple had not conducted an overboard promotion of the new brand product and yet it was entering new market with new product. This made them to appreciate the fact that the company had created a buzz around the new product that fostered effective marketing efforts. The launch of iMac, iPod and iPhone was successful in the mobile market, which indicated that Apple was excellent in implementing innovative products as well as good in implementing marketing strategies (O’Grady, 40).
The launch of iphone had dissimilar effects including enhancing the emergency of another aggressive player in the competitive field of mobile handset makers. This is so because the iphones capabilities of having music and email were likely to affect the share of dissimilar companies. These included Sony, Ericsson, which had marketed their walkman series phones. However, the existing competitors in the market responded cautiously to Apple. Some of them introduced new models in the market in order to meet extreme competition that was coming from the iphone. For example, Nokia, which is among the market leader, announced its release of a new phone model in the market (Klemens, 130). The company asserted that the new model would have touch screens as well as offer easier navigations compared to the iphone. However, Nokia Company also introduced other phone models that benefited from the music stores including Nokia N81, N 95-8GB. The company supported the sale of their new products by convincing the customers that the music store had a powerful combination of great music as well as devices, which are easy to use. Nokia claimed that their new phone models were better than iphones. This is because they allowed the user to download the music direct to the phone unlike the iphone, which required the user to download to the PC first before transferring them to the phone. The high competition forced Nokia to introduce Ovi, which offered dissimilar services such as music downloads games together with other online services. The high competition of the market enabled Apple to come up with innovative and viable phones to their customers (Klemens, 131)
Samsung
Samsung is a Korean based conglomerate company formed in 1938 by Lee Byung-chull and it has dissimilar subsidiaries. The company focuses on different things including electronics, heavy industry, construction and defense industry. The significant subsidiaries of the company include insurance, advertising and the entertainment industry. The company is among the largest industries in Korea as it provides almost fifth of the country’s total exports. In 1997, most business in Korea dropped in their production and Samsung was of no exception. This forced the company to sale some of its businesses in order to settle some debts. Furthermore, it cut off some of its employees thus lowering its personnel by 50, 000 but later on, the company managed to curb the losses hence moving on. In 1993, Samsung implemented the lightest mobile phone of the period know as the SCH-800, which was available on the CDMA networks only. Notably, towards the end of the 20th century, the company developed smart phones as well as a phone with an mp3 player. Up to date, the company has much dedication to the 3G industry as it is implementing video and camera phones at a high speed in order to keep up with the pace of its customers. The company has enabled steady growth within the mobile phone industry (Chang, 23).
Later in 1993, it introduced the SH-700 series, which possessed a smaller and sleeker model with a better sound quality. Due to better products with aggressive marketing campaign, the company dominated more than a half the mobile phone market in Korea. Interestingly, the Samsung cell phones introduced its phones in the American market for the first time in 1996. It did this by collaborating with Sprint Company and after sometimes, dissimilar countries were enjoying the unique designs of Samsung mobiles. In 2009, Samsung had a global market share of 17% making it to stand the second company after Nokia. However, in 2008, Samsung shipped more than 50 million handsets despite of the high recession. Since Samsung joined the cell phone market, it diversified its products and services. It made the company famous for its innovations hence becoming the second largest vendor of mobile phones around the globe. Samsung mobile phones have succeeded in becoming an excellent company. For example, in 2006, the company achieved dissimilar accomplishments for the mobile phones production and innovation (Chang, 23).
Initially, it came up with the first ever One DRAMTM, it sold over 10 million mobiles in U.S, implemented the 10M pixel for the camera mobile phones and it developed a manufacturing mobile phones company in India. Currently, the Samsung mobile phones have excellent deals such as the most admirable technology mobiles including SGH-E950, SGH-E840 and SGH-J600 among others. The company introduced the most recent and modern luxurious mobile phones in Singapore. The mobile phones have stylish design, innovative and excellent features that comes hand in hand with high technology multimedia features. The company believes that it will continue ruling the global mobile phone industry due to its unique designs, functions and uncompromising features (Chang, 24).
Nokia
Nokia refers to a telecommunication company in Finland with its headquarters in Espoo. The company is among the world’s most known mobile phone manufacturers as well as the provider of different consumer products including the set-top boxes, broadband internet tool, IP and the mobile internet. Engineer Fredrick Idestam founded the company in 1865. However, the current Nokia Company came into existence in 1967 through the merger of Nokia Corporation. The company introduced its first portable mobile phone in 1987. It the increased its production of network and other entertainment technologies to differing countries such as Finland, China, Germany, Mexico and Poland among others (Besanko, 460).
Nokia has been leading the China mobile phone market since 2004, and currently, it dominates more than half of the mobile phone market. The company holds more than 32.5% of the total Chinese handset market. However, more than 49.3% of the university students around the globe use Nokia handsets and almost 72.7% of all students hope that their next handset will be Nokia. The successfulness of the company originates from its consumer-based strategies. This is so because the company prioritizes people first by understanding their needs. Remarkably, the company appeals to identified consumer groups as it leverage dissimilar channels of distribution. The company also enhances research in the development capabilities and manufacturing centers. Most consumers assert that Nokia meets the most vital features that a phone should have compared to other mobile manufacturing companies. These include the quality and function. The company has phones that are attractive to varying budgets and lifestyles thus appealing to varying consumer market in both the rural and urban areas (Besanko, 461).
Nokia extended its distribution by opening up new sales offices as well s increasing its partnership with retailers and distributors. This is so because in 2003, the company had three sales offices but by 2007, it had increased its sales offices to 70. Additionally, it had eight national distributers in 2003 and by the end of 2007; it had shifted to more than 50 provincial distributors. The company opened up five R&D centers in China in order to increase its design of diverse Chinese products. It integrated and made manufacturing centers local in order to upsurge efficiency, lower the involved costs as well as maintain the quality of its products (Daft & Dorothy, 69).
However, Nokia has been able to compete with other cell phone manufacturers in order for it to become the best mobile handset maker globally. In India, the company dominates as more than 70% of the total population uses Nokia. The strategies and management styles that the company applies have earned it respect from dissimilar consumers. The research conducted by the Weekly magazine in the business world in 2007 indicated that Nokia was the most respected consumer durable company in India. The company has amazing branding, focused marketing exercise and distribution strength. The company’s advertisement aims at enhancing communication and strengthening consumer so that they can connect with the brands. Interestingly, it did not use the pricing plank in marketing its phones. It also adopted unique pricing strategies, which helped it in fighting against the grey market. This is so because the grey market accounted for 80% of the mobile phone sales because of the large price differential that existed between legally imported and the grey market (Daft & Dorothy, 69).
Sony
Sony mobile communication formerly called the Sony Ericsson Mobile communications. It is an international mobile phone manufacturing company that has its headquarters in Tokyo Japan a wholly owned subsidiaries of the Sony Corporation. The company came into existence in 2001 as a merger between Sony and Swedish Telecommunication Company dealing with equipments known as Ericsson thus forming the name Sony Ericsson. Consequently, Sony Company has increased its services in dissimilar countries including Tokyo, Japan, Chennai, India and China among others. Being in the competitive market, Sony has been striving so that it can become the leader of the mobile phone industry. The company applies varying dimensional organizational orientation strategies in its operation. These include product, marketing, production and sale orientation (Nathan, 3).
Sony Company has different communications with companies like Orange, T-Mobile and MTN, which conducts sales promotions for it. The company introduces online sales hence increasing their sales because it enabled retailers to put their commands online as they receive their goods in whatever places they reside. The company has positive products together with the production orientation. However, this has been beneficial, as it has equipped it with competitive edge in the market because it can always find unique ways and methods of innovation within the mobile phone industry. Consequently, this has placed the company in an upper hand all the time. The Company has put more efforts in the areas of manufacturing phones and accessories. This is so because it believes that most of its accessories are not strong, as most of their consumers have been making complaints concerning their durability. As a result, the company has reacted to the complaints by providing guarantees to that that buy walkman and the cyber shot phones. However, this has turned out affecting consumers who purchase low quality phones negatively (Nawal, 34).
Currently, the company has introduced different types of phones including Bravia, which entail the branded line of phones. The phone came into existence in 2007 in the Japanese market only. Until today, the company has only introduced five types of Bravia branded phones, which as capable of showing seg terrestrial television. In February 2008, the company introduced the Xperia range of mobile phones. The first Xperia phone had windows mobile operating system and it later introduced Xperia 10 that had android operating system. Furthermore, the company launched other products including the walkman branded W series, the cyber-shot branded lines of phones, the UIQ smart phone range of mobiles together with the green heart range of mobiles (Nathan, 4).
Currently, the company aims at boosting all its vital electronic business as well as maintaining market leadership in high profile segments including the television, mobile phones and portable videos. To achieve this, the company is majoring in three corporate initiatives. The first one is the customer viewpoint initiative, which draws attention on the staff so that they can appreciate the benefits of their products and services on the customer perspective. The company also aims at increasing the application of technology so that it can reinforce its cutting edge in the targeted areas. Finally, it is the Genba initiative, which focuses on increasing the frontline operations including the location, design, sales offices and the manufacturing facilities (Nawal, 33).
Works Cited
Besanko, David. Economics of Strategy. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Print.
Chang, Sea-Jin. Sony Vs Samsung: The Inside Story of the Electronics Giants' Battle for Global Supremacy. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Internet resource.
Daft, Richard L, and Dorothy Marcic. Understanding Management. Mason, Ohio: Thomson/South-Western, 2006. Print.
Klemens, Guy. The Cellphone: The History and Technology of the Gadget That Changed the World. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland, 2010. Print.
Nawal, Mallika. The Eleventh Commandment: An Introduction to Religio-Marketing. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2009. Internet resource.
Nathan, John. Sony: The Private Life. Boston [u.a.: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. Print.
O'Grady, Jason D. Apple Inc. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2009. Print.
Appendix
An image of Apple Iphone 3G
A graph showing the historical prices for a Nokia E71 mobile phone, the prices were collected daily from dissimilar online mobile phone resellers.
A table indicating the shipment of different mobile phone manufacturing companies
