Читать книгу Defensive Strategy – Apple's Overlooked Key to Success - Sharam Sadeghi - Страница 6

In 2011, Apple sold 147 million post-PC devices (iPod, iPhone, and iPad), accounting for 75% of the company’s annual revenue (including sales from related products and services). With $6.3 billion, the iTunes store contributes 6% of Apple’s total net sales,^[5] where we can already assume a prospective growth potential in correlation with the increased sales of the post-PC device category on one, and penetration of the iTunes software installment base on the other side. By the end of 2011, the company counted 357 own retail stores, generating $14.13 billion revenue, that is 13% of its total sales revenue.^[6] The reported net income in the fiscal year 2011 was $25.9 billion, equivalent to an increase of +85% vs. fiscal year 2010.^[7] Finally, with a market cap of about $500 billion, Apple is more valuable than Exxon Mobil by $100 billion, as reported by Fortune magazine in its June 2012 issue.^[8]

The success story of Apple is a story of a company that has revolutionized a variety of industries, from personal computers, music, mobile phones, tablet computing, digital publishing, and mono-brand retail business. It has achieved this position by attacking the core of an existing segment (e.g. portable music devices and legal digital music distribution), or by creating a new, redefined segment (e.g. smartphones, tablets). At the same time, the success in existing and new categories increases the company’s vulnerability through a number of different flanks that will and already have become targets of competition from a variety of industries. Thus, the company is only able to sustain its leading position by having the right defense strategies and tactics implemented to protect its diverse flanks.

In the further course of this work, we will focus on the era from 2001 until today, and examine the defensive moves Apple has taken to protect its business. Here, we will focus mainly on its iPod category (including the business generated by the iTunes Store) that represented nearly 50% of Apple’s sales revenue in 2006, before iPhone was launched in 2007. As we will see, most of the key strategic moves and tactical patterns that helped Apple to strengthen its iPod business are now protecting its post-PC fortress, including the iPhone and iPad category. To understand why the company is there, where it is today, it is essential to know where it came from.