2. Apple
Apple belongs to the Information Technologies
sector of the media. Apple are well known for their
products such as the Macintosh computers and
iPhones. The company became part of the media
industry when they created the iTunes software in
2001.
3. Ownership
Apple was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve
Wozniak who generated the money to start the
business together. Shortly after the pair decided to
make the company public in order to raise funds to
expand the business, this means that the company
is owned by lots of different shareholders. The 3
main shareholders are Steve Jobs, Sina Tamaddon
and Ron Johnson. After Steve Jobs died his shares in
the company to his wife and children.
Source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/apr
/30/apple-bond-buying-programme
4. Apple are a vertically integrated company, they
make own and control most of the production
including research and manufacturing. Vertical
integration works better for Apple as they are a
huge company. The benefits of this is that they
receive all of the profit but if there was a problem
Apple would be solely responsible and would have
to pay all costs themselves.
Source:
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?
articleid=2959
5. Apple has lots of competitors due to having
products in all different sectors of the industry.
Companies such as Blackberry and Samsung are
competing with the iPhone, the computers bring
competition from Dell, Alienware and many others.
Another big competitor is Microsoft as they rival
the OS operating systems. Apple do a good job at
out doing the competition.
6. Apple has a wide range of customers, the
computers are often used in professional
businesses along with home use. The
iPhone is one of the most popular used
phones today with over 250 million sold,
some people will only buy apple products;
these are known as apple fanatics. Apple
mainly aim their products at upper/middle
class teenagers to middle aged people.
7. When the company was started by Steve
Jobs and Steve Wozniak they were the only
owners but in 1980 the company changed
structure and gained shareholders, they did
this in order to raise funds. The biggest
change in the organizational structure was
the death of Steve Jobs which caused many
investors to drop out.
Source- http://www.zdnet.com/apple-
showing-vulnerability-year-after-jobs-
death-7000005289/
8. Although being such a large company
Apple have managed to stay free of major
controversy, there have been a few issues
with software such as maps being
geographically incorrect. These problems
were solved very quickly.
Source:
http://9to5mac.com/2012/09/28/tim-cook-
apologizes-to-customers-over-apples-
maps-controversy/
