Apple is an American technology company that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. It was founded in 1976 and is now the world's largest information technology company by revenue. Apple owns and operates retail stores and online stores. It produces hardware like the iPhone, iPad, Mac computers. It also produces software like the iOS, OS X operating systems. Apple faces competition from companies like Samsung, Google, Microsoft and others across different product categories. Its target demographic includes people of all ages. The document discusses Apple's organizational structure, history, products, services, competitors and recent controversies.

1. Media Company Case
Study
Task 1 Understand the structure
and ownership of the media sector
Nicole Melia

2. Apple
 Apple Inc. is an American Corporation that designs, develops
and sells electronics, computer software, online services and
personal computers. Its best-known hardware products are
the Macline of computers, the iPod media player, the
iPhone smartphone, and the iPad tablet computer. Its online
services include iCloud, iTunes Store, and App Store. Apple's
consumer software includes the OS X and iOS operating
systems, the iTunes media browser, the Safari web browser,
and the iLife and iWork creativity and productivity suites.

3. Ownership
 Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald
Wayne on April 1, 1976, to develop and sell personal
computers. It was incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc. on
January 3, 1977, and was renamed as Apple Inc. on January 9,
2007, to reflect its shifted focus towards consumer electronics.
 Apple is the world's second-largest information technology
company by revenue after Samsung Electronics, and the world's
third-largest mobile phone maker. On November 25, 2014, in
addition to being the largest publicly traded corporation in the
world by market capitalization, Apple became the first U.S.
company to be valued at over $700B. As of 2014, Apple
employs 72,800 permanent full-time employees, maintains
437 retail stores in fifteen countries, and operates the
online Apple Store and iTunes Store, the latter of which is the
world's largest music retailer.

4. Vertical and Horizontal
integration Vertical integration dictates that one company controls the end product as well as
its component parts. In technology, Apple for 35 years has championed a vertical
model, which features an integrated hardware and software approach. For
instance, the iPhone and iPad have hardware and software designed by Apple,
which also designed its own processors for the devices. This integration has
allowed Apple to set the pace for mobile computing.
 Apple started out as a company just making and selling their computers, they
expanded over the years and now their product list is as follows;
Mac
iPod
iPhone
iPad
Apple TV
OS X
iLife
iWork
iOS
iPad Mini

5.  Although Apple is such a big company they do not have their own production
facilities, everything is produced in China because the costs are less over there. This means
they have not expanded vertically in the production line, they still have other companies
producing components for their products. Apple have expanded their product line but not their
production line except for their shops which they own and operate themselves. Apple have
integrated horizontally because they have expanded on services. Expanding horizontally is
much simpler than vertically. Horizontally integrating simply means a strategy to increase your
market share by including a similar company.
 Their services now involve;
Apple Store
Apple Store Online
Mac App Store
iOS App Store
iTunes Store
iBook
iCloud
 Another example of horizontal integration is the software Apple uses, it is different to every
other competitor. The software is a key part to the products, without it the iPad and other
products would be generic. The software link is horizontal because it is something that unites
the apple products and differentiates them from the market creating an exclusive brand and
products.

6. Competitors
 The range of products and services offered by Apple Inc. (AAPL) is broad,
and the company is a fierce competitor in several industries, ranging from
personal computers to entertainment media to mobile payment systems.
Here is a list of the technology giant's main competitors by industry.
PERSONAL COMPUTERS
 While the personal computer running on Microsoft operating systems has
remained aww favourite of consumers since the 1980s, Apple has maintained a
loyal following of users who report high satisfaction with the company's Macintosh
computers and Safari operating system. Major competitors in this space include
Dell, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Acer and Lenovo (LNVGY).
MOBILE COMPUTERS
 The iPod revolutionized the Apple business model and spurred an entire industry
of mobile computing imitators. Apple is by far the most profitable and biggest
selling company in this industry. Competitors include Google (GOOG), Samsung,
Nokia and Asus.

7. SMARTPHONES
 The smartphone industry was once dominated by Canadian giant Research in Motion.
That changed quickly with the introduction of the Apple iPhone. The iPhone has literally
decimated Research in Motion's business model and caused the company to
restructure several times. Google produces the Android operating system, which is
installed on most non-Apple phones produced by Huawei, Samsung, Sony (SNE),
HTC, Lenovo and others.
ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA AND APPLICATIONS
 The two major players in this space are Apple and Google, with the Apple iOS running
on its iPhones and iPods, and Google Android running on most competitor phones and
tablets. Each operating system interfaces with iTunes and the Google Play Store
respectively, allowing users to purchase music, books, applications and other media.
MOBILE PAYMENTS
 Entering the mobile payment industry in October 2014, Apple is a relative newcomer to
this area. According to CEO Tim Cook, the company took on more than 1 million users
in its first 72 hours, making Apple Pay larger than "all competitors combined." Key
competitors in the mobile payment industry include PayPal and Google.

8. Customers
 In 2010, Apple had sold about 120 million iOS devices (about 60
million iPhones, 45 million iPhones and 5 million iPads.
 Since 2010 more apps, new devices etc. have been created by
Apple and still people are obsessed. Apple is suitable for
everyone nowadays even 7 year olds have there own iPhone,
iPad or mac book. Toddlers are growing up playing on games
from the App Store, Teenagers are growing up with Imessage
and FaceTime where they can speak/see anyone they know
from all around the world. Its even suitable for adults being able
to check there emails, shop online and transfer everything they
need from there phone to their laptop just by clicking a button.
Apple appeals to everyone.

9. Demographic Audience of
Apple The research also found that 5 in 10 consumers on both iPhone and iPod touch devices use
the mobile web more frequently than they read printed newspapers. More than 40 percent
reported using the Internet on their mobile device more often than using the Internet from
their computers or listening to the radio.
Highlights from this new research include:
 iPhone users are generally older. 69 percent of iPod touch users are between 13-24 years of
age, while this same age segment represents just 26 percent of iPhone users. 31 percent of
iPhone users are 35-49 years old, while only 12 percent of iPod touch users fall in this age
segment. In total, 74 percent of iPhone users are over the age of 25, compared to 31
percent of iPod touch users.
 More than 70 percent of users on both the iPhone and iPod touch are male.
 In line with the older demographic composition of iPhone users, they also have higher
incomes.
 78 percent of iPhone users have an annual household income of at least $25,000, compared
to only 66 percent of iPod touch users.
 iPhone users are more likely to have children than iPod touch users, most likely due to the
age difference in the two groups. 46 percent of iPhone users have children, compared to
only 28 percent of iPod touch users.

10. Organizational Structure In the long run it will be interesting to see how
this collaborative approach works. As the org
chart above demonstrates, Apple was always a
company with one guy making all the calls. This
made product decisions easier. But it also made
them slower at times.
 We heard from a source that Apple often faced
bottlenecks because everything had to flow
through Jobs. And Jobs was the kind of person
who would get intensely focused on one thing,
leading to him ignoring other products at the
company.
 Former Apple employee David Sobotta told us,
"If we saw Steve Jobs come into a briefing, he
couldn't talk about anything else, other than the
thing he was working on ... He came into an
enterprise sales briefing, and at the time he was
working on iMovie. So, we'd be talking about
home movies in the enterprise briefing."
 In theory, the new organizational structure
should help certain divisions make decisions
more quickly.
 But, collaboration has its downside. If everyone
is trying to reach consensus on a decision it
could lead to big delays.

11. Controversy
 Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities whose private pictures were
leaked online may have had their Apple's iCloud passwords stolen by
hacking software.
 Pictures of Jen and 100 other celebrities were posted on anonymous
message board 4Chan yesterday, infuriating the stars and their
management.
 Within hours Twitter was awash with hundreds of thousands of tweets
about the photographs which are also alleged to include Brits Michelle
Keegan, Cara Delevingne, Cat Deeley and Kelly Brook.
 Now, a piece of computer code that repeatedly guesses passwords has
been found online.

12. Bibliography
Sources:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/
https://www.apple.com/uk/
http://www.theguardian.com/
http://www.investopedia.com/
http://www.businessinsider.com/
http://www.businessinsider.com/