PC Industry versus Apple Analysis

Apple's case study In today's society, we focus on research that can provide people with a competitive advantage to the organization. In 2008, Michael Porter wrote an article entitled "5 Competitiveness of Strategy". In this article, he wrote five different powers to deal with the appeal of the industry. All of these forces form the behavior of every industry in today's competitive market. To better understand the structure of the PC industry, it is very useful to use these five power analysis.

Apple's position in this analysis is noteworthy. Apple is the only pure hardware / software integrator that allows Apple to build a unique PC industry position. Apple's 5-year rolling margin is about 23% on average, far exceeding the PC industry (2 shows) (YCharts, 2012). Large enterprises: Computer manufacturing is labor intensive. Players in major industries moved production abroad to take advantage of low cost labor and geographical proximity to Southeast Asia's electronic component manufacturer (ECM).

Apple began to play a role as "Apple Computer" in 1976. For that reason, the first major industry that Apple has been managing and currently operating is the personal computer (PC) industry. Since the industry began offering the first Macintosh computers, the industry grew rapidly. In 1978, Apple Computer released its first home computer and soon became the market leader in the PC industry (Yoffie & Kim, 2010, p. 2). However, in the next 18 years, Apple has lost its position as a market leader. Other vendors such as IBM and Compaq have acquired market share through better, cheaper products. According to a survey conducted by Dataquest and International Data Corporation (IDC) in 1996, IBM and Compaq market share were 9% and 10%, respectively (Heichler, 1997, paragraph 3). In contrast, Apple's PC market share is only about 4% of the year (Yoffie & Kim, 2010, Exhibit 3). (reference)