Beyond the EU: DORA and NIS 2 Directive's Global Impact
DUE IN 14HOURS FROM NOW. Base your answers just on the arti
1. DUE IN 14HOURS FROM NOW
. Base your answers just on the article’s text as well as on the
teachings in the classroom, no other sources nor your personal
opinions are of interest.
Short Definition of these terms in a blank sheet:
· The trilemma phenomenon
· The nutcracker dilemma
· First mover vs Fast follower
· Industry (or product) lifecycle
· Diffusion of innovations: early adopters, late adopters.
· Brand hallo effect
· Trickledown effect
· Free-rider effect
Prepare powerpoint of max 10 slides on this case:
1. Your work and the general discussion are based on the
following scientific article
Bo‑ Seong Yun, Sang‑ Gun Lee and Yaichi Aoshima (2019) An
analysis of the trilemma phenomenon for Apple iPhone and
Samsung Galaxy. Service Business 13: 779–812. DOI:
10.1007/s11628-019-00405-5
To make your presentation and be able to contribute to the class
discussion, you have to read the following sections: 1, 2, 3, 4.1,
6, and 7.1 only.
3. Abstract
Although fast followers have been making huge investments on
their expansion strat-
egies to surpass first movers and dominate the market, they
have encountered the tri-
lemma of being unable to simultaneously obtain high market
shares, high business
profit rates, and high brand innovativeness. This study used the
Trade-off model and
Diffusion of Innovation theory to statistically examine the
trilemma phenomenon
in the global smartphone market and revealed that during the
early stage of market
entry, a company should actively source and use bigmouth
consumers and killer app
developers, invest limited resources to expand its target market
with the aim of sales
profits, and develop specifically for innovation. Starting from
the later stage of its
market growth period, a company should establish some
alternative strategies for
responding to the possible reduction in the efficacy of
marketing expenses.
Keywords Trilemma · Smartphone · First mover · Fast
follower · Diffusion of
innovation · Innovation effect · Imitation effect
1 Introduction
The global smartphone market is characterized by the fierce
competition among
Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, Lenovo, Oppo, VIVO, etc.
These companies
tend to provide unique customer value through their own models
to obtain competi-
4. tive advantages (Woodruff 1997), and the results are
represented as business profits
* Sang-Gun Lee
[email protected]
Bo-Seong Yun
[email protected]
Yaichi Aoshima
[email protected]
1 Sogang Business School, Sogang University, 35 Baekbeom-ro,
Mapo, Seoul 04107, Korea
2 Institute of Innovation Research, Hitotsubashi University, 2-1
Naka, Kunitachi,
Tokyo 186-8601, Japan
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s11628-019-
00405-5&domain=pdf
B.-S. Yun et al.
1 3
on the profit-and-loss statement (Magretta 2012). Moreover, the
companies may
execute various strategies for the purpose of long-term survival
rather than profit
creation (Cadogan et al. 2002). In such cases, trade-off will
occur between the stra-
tegic factors (Porter 1996). Thus, companies control the
determinants of various
strategic factors’ performance to achieve their management
goals (Gruca and Rego
2005) and take these determinants into consideration when
determining their future
5. business direction (Skinner 1969). Likewise, “profit” and
“survival” are the two
themes of the ultimate objective—namely, strategy execution.
Depending on which
theme a company chooses, its strategic decisions may change
and it may encounter a
trilemma due to the trade-off between the strategic elements.
In the global smartphone market, the fast follower Samsung
Electronics was found
lacking in the trilemma phenomenon in terms of market share,
business profit rate,
and brand innovativeness while chasing the first mover Apple,
as shown in Fig. 1.
Based on its management philosophy, Samsung strategically
emphasizes surviving
by controlling the market instead of skillfully pursuing profits.
As a result, Samsung
Electronics has spent huge advertising and research and
development (R&D) expen-
ditures since starting to target both the premium-end and
middle‒low-end mar-
kets. In addition, while Apple is evaluated as a leading-edge
innovation company,
Samsung Electronics has failed to receive an evaluation worthy
of its investments,
despite having input more resources than Apple. Furthermore,
due to the entry of
third-party competitors that have advantages on price, not only
Samsung’s market
share but also its ranking as an innovative company and the
keyword search volume,
an indicator of brand innovativeness, have been decreasing
since 2014.
Fig. 1 Trends of market share, business profit rate, and brand
6. innovativeness
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An analysis of the trilemma phenomenon for Apple iPhone
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With such a phenomenon, people may ask “Why would fast
followers fail to
acquire a high business profit rate and brand innovativeness
despite having gained
an outstanding market shares?” or “How can companies escape
from such a tri-
lemma?” To answer these questions, this study used Skinner’s
(1966) trade-off
model and accounting principles to examine the relationships
among the three fac-
tors of the trilemma: market share, business profit rate, and
brand innovativeness.
We also estimated the dynamics between market share and
business profit rate, as
well as the positioning of brand innovation, by conducting a
longitudinal analysis of
the changes in innovation and imitation effects in terms of
product sales and the key-
word search volume using Bass’s (1969) Diffusion of
Innovation model. Therefore,
in this study we applied the hypothesis testing method, which is
commonly used in
theory establishment, to a case study to determine the
competitive aspects of differ-
ent players in the smartphone market and the changes in their
strategic performances
as well as the occurrence and cause of the trilemma. We also
7. investigated the strate-
gic implications for fast followers to break through the
nutcracker trilemma.
The paper is organized as follows. In Sect. 2 we present a
thorough review of
relevant literature. Section 3 establishes a hypothesis for
identifying and analyzing
the trilemma phenomenon. Section 4 describes the data and
analysis methods used
to test the hypothesis. Section 5 presents the results of
hypothesis testing. Section 6
analyzes the cause of trilemma occurrence and discusses
preventive and counter-
measure. Section 7 describes the significance and management
implications of the
study and discusses the limitations and future research of the
study.
2 Literature review
2.1 The nutcracker phenomenon and the trilemma
The nutcracker phenomenon refers to the critical situation in
which a walnut gets in
between the up and down sides of the nutcracker. Similarly,
Samsung has got itself
in between Apple, which created the smartphone market and
continues to hold a
dominant position in the high-end market, and budget product-
oriented third parties
that joined the market late. Samsung entered the smartphone
market rapidly, cour-
tesy of its insights into the preexisting mobile phone market and
predictions about
the future, and it has maintained the highest market share since
8. 2011 due to its fast
response and risk management. That is to say, although
Samsung is a fast follower,
it performs various strategies, including huge investments in
marketing, new market
penetration, and new product releases, at a faster pace than
Apple to increase its
shares in the global market based on its intention to dominate
the stage. However,
Samsung has recently been experiencing the nutcracker
phenomenon, whereby it is
being squeezed by Apple on the upper side and the third parties
with competitive
prices on the lower side. As a result, Samsung has been facing a
bottleneck in new
demand creation since the market started entering its maturity
stage. In particular,
the threat is reinforced by Apple’s strong customer loyalty and
increment of scale.
Based on these conditions, this study classified Apple as a first
mover, Samsung as a
fast follower, and the other players as third parties.
B.-S. Yun et al.
1 3
Skinner’s (1966) Trade-off model suggests that because a
company can
gain a competitive advantage from giving up another
competitive advantage, it
should concentrate its resources and capabilities on one vital
element (Hayes
and Wheelwright 1984; Hill 1985). Although Samsung entered
9. the market as
the second mover about one year later than Apple, it rapidly
attracted the mar-
ket’s interest and created demand through strategic large-scale
marketing invest-
ment and technological innovation. As a result, it won a market
share advantage
within only three years after entering the market. However,
from a long-term
perspective, the competitive advantage of the market share
contradicts the busi-
ness profit and brand innovativeness. That is, fast followers
may experience a
trilemma caused by the trade-off among market share, business
profit rate, and
brand innovativeness.
A dilemma is the difficulty of being ensnared between two
options, while a
trilemma involves three options that companies struggle to
pursue simultane-
ously. This study offers an examination of the trilemma among
three factors,
which, as mentioned, are market share, business profit rate, and
brand innova-
tiveness. To become a leading company in the smartphone
market, a market
player needs to manage these three factors as a priority.
2.1.1 Market share aspect
Kotler and Singh (1980) stated that frontal attack, flanking
attack, encirclement
attack, bypass attack, and guerrilla attack are the methods used
by market chal-
lengers to attack the leader for market shares. Relying on its
10. powerful resources,
Samsung used an encirclement attack to surround Apple from
both the front and
the side after entering the market. When the smartphone market
started entering
its growth period, Samsung released its premium Galaxy Series
to promote a
high margin‒large sales policy, enjoying the brand halo effect
because its prod-
uct prices were set higher than other same-level products in the
low-end mar-
ket. However, it then had to start making use of both a large-
scale marketing
investment strategy and a high quality‒low price strategy
concurrently, thanks
to the appearance and growth of Chinese third parties. The
proportion of budget
phone sales for Samsung Electronics at that time was around
70%, and the aver-
age smartphone sales price remained half the price of Apple’s
products until
recently, which seems to have become a low-margin structure.
The historical flows that fast followers have experienced in the
smartphone
market reveal the dilemma between market share and business
profit rate. Mean-
while, the impact on the business profit rate reduces the
capacity and possibility
of investment in technological innovation. Consequently, not
only said rate but
also brand innovativeness are more likely to be negatively
affected if fast follow-
ers in the smartphone market concentrate only on raising market
shares. Further-
more, if the business profit rate suffers due to such a dilemma,
11. it will decrease
the investment capability and possibility of technological
innovation and eventu-
ally negatively affect brand innovativeness.
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2.1.2 Business profit rate aspect
In regard to the relationship between market share and profit
rate, some research-
ers argued that companies with a high market share will also
have a high profit rate
because of economies of scale (Buzzell et al. 1975), whereas
others mooted that
there is no definite relationship between the two (Hamermesh
et al. 1978). In this
study, the latter phenomenon was found in the smartphone
market. A majority of
companies spend on marketing to increase their market shares,
one of the main
objectives of marketing activities. In particular, as seen in the
case of Samsung, fast
followers can increase their market shares in the short term by
inputting huge mar-
keting costs to keep pace with the first mover’s initial
innovative acceptance level
and to maximize the imitation effect. However, moving up an
increment in market
share would not guarantee a high profit rate. Furthermore,
because advertising mes-
12. sages are designed to have emotional appeal based on social
necessity or personal
needs rather than focusing on products’ innovative functions
(Hong and Tam 2006),
the degree to which consumers recognize the association
between marketing cost
and brand innovativeness will be low.
In the accounting field, most existing studies on the expansion
of a company’s
profits or market value have been focusing mainly on R&D and
advertising costs
(Chambers et al. 2003; Lev and Sougiannis 1996; Minasian
1969; Shevlin 1991).
Most researchers argued that R&D and advertising costs both
have a positive effect
on a company’s profits or market value. In particular, Bublitz
and Ettredge (1989)
demonstrated that R&D cost has a long-term effect on profit
rate, while advertis-
ing cost has a short-term effect on the same. Additionally,
Chung (2016) conducted
an empirical study to show that the R&D expense of a company
in the high-tech
industry will lead to a marginal increase in the company’s
persistent earnings and
profit growth. According to Kudyba and Diwan (2002), IT
investments by compa-
nies improve productivity and lead to an increase in profit rate
as time goes on.
To increase brand innovativeness in the smartphone market, one
of the high-tech
sectors, it is obvious that companies should spend as much on
R&D as possible.
However, existing studies showed that the payback on R&D
13. expenses will require a
relatively long period, and the increase in profit will be
marginal, meaning that the
business profit rate will experience a negative effect in the short
term followed by a
positive effect in the long term, with an uncertain payback. To
conclude, although
a trilemma exists between business profit rate, market share,
and brand innovative-
ness in the short term, it will be weakened in the long term.
Ultimately, there is a
dilemma between business profit rate and brand innovativeness
in the short term,
and R&D expenses will last for a long and indefinite period
until socially recognized
brand innovativeness appears.
2.1.3 Brand innovativeness aspect
Ouellet (2006) defined brand innovativeness as the consumer
recognition of a brand
that tends to participate in and support new ideas, creativity,
and experiments.
Consumers also believe that companies with high brand
innovativeness are expert,
attractive, and trustworthy (Aaker 2007). Because
innovativeness is the prerequisite
B.-S. Yun et al.
1 3
of a firm’s competitive advantage, survival, and performance
(Rhee et al. 2010),
14. businesses need to apply high-level innovation, which can
dominate or change the
market, to obtain high brand innovativeness. Therefore,
Samsung must break a rela-
tively higher first mover barrier than other companies to exceed
Apple’s brand inno-
vativeness, which is the existing dominator of the application
network effect and
technological dependency as a market creator.
Fast followers enter a potential market more quickly than first
movers to gain
positive consumer recognition of brand innovativeness, and they
can attack first
movers by investing in R&D to continuously develop innovative
products. However,
although Samsung has instigated high marketing and R&D costs
for longer than
Apple, its ranking as a global innovative company falls behind
that of said rival.
Moreover, Apple dealt a fatal blow to Samsung’s innovative
brand with the patent
litigation at 2011, leading to a long-lasting effort on the part of
Samsung to catch
up. As a result, Samsung failed to gain a brand innovativeness
that matches up to its
scale and efforts, indicating that it has fallen into a trilemma
wherein market share,
business profit rate, and brand innovativeness contradicting one
another.
2.2 Diffusion of innovation theory
The concept of innovative diffusion has been mostly applied to
research on adminis-
trative innovation (Haunschild and Miner 1997; King and
15. Anderson 1995; Mahajan
et al. 1988; Rogers 1983) and technological innovation (Al -
Gahtani 2003; Jarvanpaa
and Leidner 1998; Lee et al. 2013; Straub 1994). Rogers’s
(1983) Innovation Dif-
fusion model divides innovative consumers into several
categories and defines the
process of how innovative diffusion is conveyed to the members
of a social system
over time and through certain channels. Further more, depending
on the consump-
tion time of new products, consumers can be divided into
several sections based on
normal distribution. The categories include innovators (the first
group that adopts
new products), opinion leaders or early adapters (a group that
adopts new products
relatively quickly), early majority (a group that has doubts
about new products and
thus adopts them after the majority has done so to avoid risk),
late majority (same
as early majority), and laggards or late adapters (groups that are
last to adopt new
products after adoption has diffused); the diffusion appears as
an S-curve according
to accumulated demand.
Bass (1969) suggested a diffusion model that uses the
innovation and imitation
coefficients to describe the diffusion process of innovative
products. As presented
in Table 1, this model explains the process of social innovation
of certain specific
factors based on innovation adoption and the two sides of
imitation, and it is widely
used in a variety of fields as a demand prediction methodology.
16. Bass (1969) classi-
fied innovators and imitators based on the independence of
product consumption,
defining early consumers of new products as innovators and
those who follow the
innovators in making purchases as imitators. He integrated the
innovation and imi-
tation effects into a single model by suggesting a mixed-effect
model that consists
of both Coleman’s et al. (1966) external effect model to deal
with innovators and
Mansfield’s (1961) internal effect model to deal with imitators.
This study applied
1 3
An analysis of the trilemma phenomenon for Apple iPhone
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1 3
An analysis of the trilemma phenomenon for Apple iPhone
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Bass’s (1969) Diffusion of Innovation theory because it focuses
on the competition
between first movers and fast followers instead of product
lifecycle.
In existing studies, researchers have subdivided Bass’s (1969)
Diffusion‒Inno-
vation model into three models: external-influence, internal-
influence, and mixed-
influence (Venkatraman et al. 1994), as shown in Table 2.
External-influence shows
the innovation effect, internal-influence interprets the imitation
100. effect, and mixed-
influence covers both effects.
On the basis of the external-influence model, the diffusion
process is only derived
from information coming through the external channel of the
social system (Cole-
man et al. 1966). Thus, it assumes that the diffusion speed at
time t depends only on
the number of potential adopters in the social system at the
same time. Mansfield’s
(1961) internal-influence model is appropriate for verifying the
hypotheses on imi-
tation that diffusion happens in certain local societies due to the
interaction effect
through communication channels between previous and
potential adopters. The
mixed-influence model consists of both the internal- and
external-influence models
(Bass 1969), and its cumulative distribution depends on
coefficients p and q. The
mixed-influence model is widely used to reflect both external
and internal effects
concurrently in the most general form (Venkatraman et al.
1994).
3 Hypothesis
The purpose of this study is to determine the occurrence and
cause of the trilemma
in the global smartphone market and to suggest its strategic
implications. So, we
conducted a case study on two companies, Apple and Samsung,
in global smart-
phone market. Although there is a limit to theorization when
using this methodol-
101. ogy, we chose the hypothesis testing method, which is
commonly used in theory
establishment, for the purpose of taking an objective approach
rather than achieving
the research goal. Therefore, the hypotheses in this study are
not for theorization
but instead to examine the facts of a particular case study.
Based on the trade-off
and innovation diffusion models, this study proposed three
hypotheses (H1–H3) to
compare the factors of the trilemma in the global smartphone
market between first
movers and fast followers.
Based on Porter’s (1980) Industry Lifecycle theory, we
segmented the time period
into the embryonic stage, the earlier growth stage, and the later
growth stage to sug-
gest six sub-hypotheses under H1 and H2 (H1.1–H1.3, H2.1–
H2.3). Meanwhile, to
Table 2 Innovation‒Diffusion model
Model Formula Elements
External-influence dN(t)/dt = p[m − N(t)] N(t): accumulated
number of users at time t
p: coefficient of the external innovation effect
Internal-influence dN(t)/dt = qN(t) [m − N(t)] q: coefficient of
the internal imitation effect
Mixed-influence dN(t)/dt = [p + qN(t)] [m − N(t)] m: total
number of consumers in the social system
102. B.-S. Yun et al.
1 3
examine the strategic competitions between the two companies
that are related to the
factors of the trilemma, we added six more hypotheses (H3.1–
H3.6) to compare the
changes in innovation and imitation effects arising from the
changes in product sales
and the keyword search volume, together with the difference in
the Boston Con-
sulting Group (BCG)’s 50 Most Innovative Companies Ranking.
This was because
product sales is a reflection of market share and revenue scale,
while the keyword
search volume reflects investment in marketing and innovation.
Brand innovativeness is a relatively appropriate concept for
investigating the stra-
tegic competition between the two companies that are exposed
to the trilemma due
to the following characteristics. Because brand innovativeness
is a kind of customer
awareness (Ouellet 2006), it is considered as the degree of
belief or attitude, and
it can become a subjective factor that underpins behaviors
(Engel et al. 1995). As
such, it can be used to explain customers’ purchasing behaviors.
Moreover, although
brand innovativeness itself can be considered as a nonfinancial
performance of a
company, it can be applied to the process that affects financial
performance, includ-
ing market shares and sales profits. The keyword search volume
is the quantitative
103. result of customers’ brand awareness with an action of
searching before the actual
purchase. Because product sales can be discerned from the
product purchase volume
after searching, it is a comparatively objective tool with which
to integrate the three
factors of the trilemma to examine the competition with a focus
on brand innovative-
ness. Therefore, we made the following hypotheses in the
following sections.
3.1 Market share
Market share refers to the percentage that counts toward a
company’s sales out of
total sales of a product in the competitive market. Companies
usually increase their
market share by spending on marketing. This is supported by
many previous stud-
ies on the impact of advertising cost on sales (Bass and Clarke
1972; Little 1979;
Zufryden 1987). Furthermore, many researchers commonly
assume that improving
brand attractiveness, such as through quality improvement and
cost reduction, will
increase market share (Bell et al. 1975).
Urban et al. (1986) argued that later entrants can potentially
increase their mar-
ket shares by developing low-price excellent products and
forcefully spending on
advertisements. Schnaars (1994) also stated that later entrants
will succeed by using
the low-price, high-quality, and high-market power strategy to
take on their early
counterparts. Although Samsung is a later entrant, it entered the
104. market only one
year later than Apple. Because Samsung successfully developed
the more cost-effec-
tive Galaxy Series in comparison with Apple’s iPhone in a short
time frame, while
spending three times more on advertising costs than its rival for
a long time after
releasing said series, it secured a high and sustainable market
share.
Kerr and Bruun (1983)’s free-rider effects and Apple’s price
umbrella policy can
possibly be used to interpret Samsung’s attainment of its market
share. Later entrants
may avoid the risks and costs of early entrance, enjoy a free-
rider effect in the mar-
ket by having the opportunity to intensively invest in marketing
(Schnaars 1994),
and thereby gain the advantage of increasing their market
shares. Moreover, Apple’s
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previous CEO Steve Jobs decided on the price umbrella policy,
stating that the com-
pany should pursue a heavy increase in profits even though this
would reduce its
market share. Apple therefore subscribed to the management
style of emphasizing
the business profit rate over market share, giving Samsung a
chance to expand in the
105. latter area.
However, in contrast to this argument, if market shares are
estimated for each time
segment, first movers are expected to have higher market shares
than fast followers
during the embryonic stage. Although industry growth is slow
during the embry-
onic stage, the entry barrier is very high (Porter 1980). Thus,
unless first movers are
shunned by the market at the time, fast followers will find it
practically difficult to
acquire higher market shares than first movers within the same
period. Furthermore,
if Rogers’s (1983) Innovation Adoption Curve is applied to
Porter’s (1983) Industry
Lifecycle theory, 25% of the consumers in the market during the
embryonic stage
are innovators, who tend to compare products before making
purchases if the prod-
ucts of fast followers are not more innovative than those of first
movers. Based on
these arguments, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H1 Fast followers have higher market shares than first movers.
H1.1 During the embryonic stage, first movers have higher
market shares than fast
followers.
H1.2 During the early growth stage, fast followers have higher
market shares than
first movers.
H1.3 During the later growth stage, fast followers have higher
market shares than
106. first movers.
3.2 Business profit rate
The business profit rate is the ratio of business profits to sales,
which is calculated
by subtracting business expense from business revenue. Thus,
assuming that sales
figures and business revenue are fixed, the business profit rate
will be influenced by
business expense and will change according to the company’s
cost structure.
Although Apple’s market share is lower than Samsung’s, the
former has an over-
all better business profit rate than the latter, as shown in Fig. 1.
This is because
Apple has a better cost structure, while both companies have
similar sales. From
2011 to the third quarter of 2017, the average quarterly sales of
Apple was 47$B,
while that of Samsung was 45$B. Because Apple chose mass
production with less
variety to key into the premium-end market, whereas Samsung
prepared a variety of
product lineups and chose a low-quantity production of diverse
items to target the
emerging market, the former possesses a more efficient cost
structure despite the
two companies’ average quarterly sales being at a similar level.
Moreover, Samsung
has to manage a range of factors, such as low employment
flexibility and depre-
ciation of idle equipment, due to direct production, marketing to
the broad market,
107. B.-S. Yun et al.
1 3
administering customer services through its own network, and
so on. Conversely,
Apple bears a relatively lower burden of expenses because it
uses OEM production
and outsources its customer services to retain optimal cost
management conditions.
As stated, the argument that first movers have a higher business
profit rate than
fast followers would still hold during each segmented period.
During the embry-
onic stage, fast followers can develop their products and enter
the market at a lower
cost than first movers thanks to technology imitation. However,
because Samsung
entered the market only one year later than Apple, we could
hardly expect that imi-
tation could have brought it a high cost efficiency within such a
considerably short
time. Because smartphones have different architectures than
traditional phones, even
fast followers have to invest hugely in innovation. Furthermore,
even though fast fol-
lowers entered the market during the growth period, they could
hardly break away
from the low-price strategy to continuously respond to the
innovative brand of the
successful first movers. Because the effort to create a business
ecosystem and secure
command of the external platform is a highly important part of
108. competition and
innovation management due to the nature of smartphone s
(Gawer and Cusumano
2014), fast followers, which have to pay a high cost compared
to first movers, have
a disadvantage in terms of continuously improving their
business profit rate. There-
fore, the following hypotheses were formed:
H2 First movers have a higher business profit rate than fast
followers.
H2.1 During the embryonic stage, first movers have a higher
business profit rate
than fast followers.
H2.2 During the early growth stage, first movers have a higher
business profit rate
than fast followers.
H2.3 During the later growth stage, first movers have a higher
business profit rate
than fast followers.
3.3 Brand innovativeness
Brand innovativeness is defined as a brand’s level of innovation
in terms of con-
sumer awareness (Barone and Jewell 2013, 2014) and the extent
to which consum-
ers recognize that the brand can provide new and useful
solutions to satisfy their
requirements (Eisingerich and Rubera 2010). Brand
innovativeness rests on how
successfully a company can convince customers of its brand
(Pappu and Quester
109. 2016).
Fast followers are able to acquire positive consumer recognition
of brand innova-
tiveness by entering not only the existing market but also the
potential market more
rapidly than first movers to enforce large-scale marketing. They
can also challenge
first movers’ brand innovativeness through R&D and constant
product development,
and Samsung is one example of this. In contrast, Apple
continues to seek advantages
of first such as R&D and patent advantages, innovation image
and evaluation, brand
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loyalty, and product recognition. Moreover, Apple filed a patent
lawsuit against Sam-
sung on April 15, 2011, damaging the innovative image of fast
followers. Likewise,
companies who execute different activities do improve their
brand innovativeness
according to their position in the market, but as a result Apple
is holding a dominant
position in brand innovativeness, as shown in Fig. 1. This is
because Apple has not
only successfully earned worldwide attention and stamped its
innovative image on a
large number of potential consumers’ brains, but also focused
on the premium-end
110. market and consistently promoted its brand loyalty enhancement
policy to ensure
that consumers recognize it as an innovative business. Based on
these factors, the
following hypothesis is advanced:
H3 First movers have higher brand innovativeness than fast
followers.
3.3.1 Innovation effect of first mover
Shih and Venkatesh (2004) used both “diversity of usage”
(product’s multipurpose)
and “amount of usage” (product’s use time) to address the
usage-diffusion pattern.
The importance of diversity of usage, which is the discovery
process of a new prod-
uct’s value, is rated more highly than amount of usage. Apple’s
market case supports
this perspective. It added the platform ecosystem concept to its
existing personal
digital assistant (PDA) and positioned itself well in the market
through the release
of the iPhone, which broadly expanded its diversity of usage.
The firm innovated the
architecture of the PDA, which had limited diversity of usage,
and created a plat-
form-based business ecosystem to launch the iPhone, which has
the advantage of a
broad expanse in diversity of usage.
Coleman et al. (1966) argued that diffusion is derived only
from information
coming through the external channels of the social system,
assuming that diffusion
speed depends on the number of potential consumers in said
111. system at the time.
Apple formed its innovative consumer group along with the
coalescence of the early
smartphone market, which occurred about one year earlier than
Samsung’s entry
into the arena. These initial adopters increased the innovation
effect on Apple’s
product sales because most of them used information from
external channels. That
said, the innovation effect on Samsung’s product sales is
expected to be lower than
that on Apple’s product sales because Samsung spread its
demand by interacting
with potential consumers while existing adopters had already
been gathered in the
market. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H3.1 First movers have a higher innovation effect on product
sales than fast
followers.
Strong (1925) described the advertising effect using the AIDA
model,
which stands for Attention → Interest → Desire → Action.
Thereafter, Mem-
ory was added before Action, and the model was upgraded to
AIDMA
(Attention → Interest → Desire → Memory → Action). Rogers
(1983)
argued that the adoption process of new products undergoes five
stages,
B.-S. Yun et al.
112. 1 3
awareness → interest → evaluation → trial → adoption.
Moreover, Engel et al. (1995)
stated that belief and attitude are the subjective possibilities of
action and that the
decision-making process of common consumers can be divided
into need recogni-
tion → information search → alternative evaluation → purchase
→ post-purchase
evaluation. Many researchers proved in their models that
attention, interest, and the
cognitive process are included in the stages occurring before
purchase behavior.
Therefore, a keyword search, which is able to estimate the
cognition degree of inno-
vative brand, can be a precondition of a production sales
increment.
Similarly to how the market creator Apple was recognized by
innovative adopters
at an earlier stage than Samsung, first movers are expected to
have a greater innova-
tion effect on the keyword search volume than fast followers,
which is identical to
Hypothesis 3.1. Thus, the following hypothesis is advanced:
H3.2 First movers have a higher innovation effect on the
keyword search volume
than fast followers.
Coleman et al. (1966) assumed that interaction is not active
between innovative
adopters and potential adopters in the early market, meaning
that only the latter
exist in said market. As such, the innovation effect will occur if
113. potential adopters
pay attention to and create demand for new products. According
to Strong’s (1925)
advertising effect model and Rogers’s (1983) adoption pr ocess
of new product,
new and innovative products attract attention from the first
movers who created the
market; as such, the innovation effect on the keyword search
volume is expected to
be stronger and to occur more rapidly than that on product
sales. In other words,
although the innovative product is recognized and receives
attention from most
potential adopters through mass media around the release date,
only a tiny minority
will actually make the purchase and be transferred to the
adoption group. Consider-
ing these factors, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H3.3 Innovation effect of first movers on the keyword search
volume is stronger
than that on product sales.
3.3.2 Imitation effect of fast followers
Mansfield (1961) suggested that the driving force of diffusion is
mimetic activities
within the social system because diffusion occurs as the
interaction effect through
the communication channels between existing and potential
adopters in a particular
region. The reason is that an individual tends to rely on
someone else’s decision if
he or she believes that the other person is an expert with a
higher level of knowledge
(Cialdini and Trost 1998).
114. The existing consumers in the market can be classified into
buyers of Apple and
buyers of Samsung. Both types can be considered as the seed
group of imitation in
Mansfield’s (1961) social system or the professional group with
a high knowledge
level as suggested by Cialdini and Trost (1998). Along with the
release of new prod-
ucts, the targets of Samsung’s large-scale marketing investment
input are not only
1 3
An analysis of the trilemma phenomenon for Apple iPhone
and…
its own buyers but also the existing innovative consumers of
Apple. This can be a
strong accelerator of purchase imitation through the word-of-
mouth effect or social
regulations. As such, the following hypothesis is propounded:
H3.4 Fast followers have a stronger imitation effect on product
sales than first
movers.
Fast followers can overcome the innovation effect of the initial
attention captured
by first movers by maximizing the imitation effect to increase
market share. Sam-
sung is one such case. Table 3 (ASYMCO 2012) presents said
firm’s overshooting
on the keyword search volume through a large-scale marketing
115. expense for several
years after entering the market to triple or quadruple the share
held by Apple. Sam-
sung spent more than $4 billion on advertisements in 2012,
about 1.3 times more
than Coca-Cola, one of the top companies in the consumer
goods industry in which
brand management through advertisement is highly important.
On this wise, for the
purpose of survival rather than profit, Samsung encourages
imitative activities by
strategically using the word-of-mouth effect and social
standards. Thus, similarly to
Hypothesis 3.4, fast followers are expected to have a stronger
imitation effect on the
keyword search volume than first movers, leading to the
following hypothesis:
H3.5 Fast followers have a stronger imitation effect on the
keyword search volume
than do first movers.
That is, diffusion lies in imitation, which mainly occurs among
innovative and
early adopters (Rogers 1983) and will manifest in earnest when
the market enters
a group period after the initial stage due to word of mouth and
social standards.
Because Samsung targeted both the premium-end and
middle‒low-end markets, it
must participate in fierce cost-oriented marketing competition
throughout the entire
arena at a time when hardware competition in the industry is
reaching the end of
the growth stage and the difference in quality is reducing
significantly, as shown in
116. Table 2. There has been an exponential increase in the keyword
search volume of
Samsung Galaxy, which is significantly more influenced by the
imitation effect than
the innovation effect due to the nature of the growth stage.
Similarly to the logic
of Hypothesis 3, the keyword search appears before the product
purchase stage.
Because Samsung’s customer loyalty and repurchase rate are
comparatively weaker
than those of Apple, the imitation effect on product sales is
expected to be weaker
compared to the exponential increase in the keyword search
volume. As such, the
following hypothesis is presented:
Table 3 Comparison of
advertising expenses
Unit: $million
Company 2010 2011 2012
Samsung 2750 3023 Over 4000
Apple 691 933 1000
B.-S. Yun et al.
1 3
H3.6 The imitation effect of fast followers on the keyword
search volume is stronger
than that on product sales.
117. 4 Methodology
4.1 Data collection
In this study, accessible data was collected and used to explain
each factor of
the trilemma. We integrated and used data on market share,
business profit rate,
and product sales from the Internet Data Center (IDC), Gartner,
Strategy Ana-
lytics, Bloomberg, and Trend Spectrum. However, to ensure that
data accuracy
in case intersections or gaps exists between data, we applied the
triangulation
technique, which involves cross-validation with secondary data
such as the com-
panies’ presentation information and other online particulars to
ensure usage of
the most appropriate data.
It is most appropriate to use primary sources relating to
consumers’ recogni-
tion degree for analysis because brand innovativeness indicates
how innovative
consumers consider a brand to be. However, because of the
impossibility of
obtaining time series data for the past ten years, we used highly
reliable second-
ary sources that contain the most appropriate data. The BCG
magazine’s “50
Most Innovative Companies” (SyncForce 2018) ranking has
evaluated the evalu-
ation scores, total shareholder return (TSR), sales growth, and
profit growth of
leading companies to select fifty global innovative companies
each year since
118. 2005. It puts the emphasis on a more innovative evaluation than
MIT Technol-
ogy Review’s “50 Smartest Companies,” and evaluates
innovation from more
diverse perspectives than Forbes’s quantitative evaluation
“World’s Most Innova-
tive Companies,” running since 2014. As such, its data was
considered the most
appropriate for this study. However, to more thoroughly
examine the competi-
tion process between companies, we also evaluated product
sales and the keyword
search volume.
We acquired data from Google Trend Service and calculated the
keyword
search volume using Google keyword search, which captures
about 80% of the
global search market. “Apple iPhone” was used as Apple’s
keyword and “Sam-
sung Galaxy” as Samsung’s keyword. For the period prior to the
release of Gal-
axy, the keyword “Samsung Omnia” was used instead. A higher
keyword search
volume was generally assumed to be the result of a company’s
high marketing
expenses. If a company’s target market grows in size, it needs
to spend more on
marketing to cover the increasing number of potential customers
for the purpose
of increasing market share, and thus the number of instances of
the keyword
found will increase due to the rise in interest. In this study, we
used the cumula-
tive sums of each period of the two companies as the total
number of consumers
119. in the social system (see the m in the “Elements” column in
Table 2) to compute
the coefficients of the innovative diffusion model. Table 4
shows the datasets used
in this study.
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Ta
bl
e
4
D
at
as
et
Pe
ri
od
B
us
in
es
s
175. e
st
ud
y
pe
ri
od
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4.2 Data analysis
In this study, we used R to conduct a t test to test the quarterly
data of Samsung
and Apple, which verified Hypotheses 1–3. The starting time of
the test was the
quarter when each company launched its first smartphone. The
ending time of
the test for Apple was the fourth quarter of 2016, while that for
Samsung was
the fourth quarter of 2017. Although we used data from 2007 to
2016 for Apple
and from 2008 to 2017 for Samsung to conduct t tests, we
omitted 2011 because
BCG’s innovative companies ranking was not published that
year.
176. For H1.1–H1.3 and H2.1–H2.3, the embryonic stage was defined
as the period
from the first to the eleventh quarter after the release of a
smartphone. During
such a stage, the industry’s growth speed is low and entry
barriers are high, while
there are few kinds of products and the market is less
competitive. The strong-
est third party, Huawei, entered the market at around the
eleventh quarter after
Samsung released its first smartphone. The growth stage refers
to the time from
the twelfth to thirty-third quarter when the demand for products
begins to grow
rapidly. Most competitors enter the market during this period,
leading to lower
market entry barriers and strong price competition. Because the
growth period
is long, we divided it into the early and later stages to ensure a
diverse analy-
sis. However, the shakeout, maturity, and declining stages were
excluded because
they deviate from the topic of this study.
To verify Hypotheses 3.1–3.6, we first calculated the two
companies’ innova-
tion and imitation coefficients of product sales and the keyword
search volume
using the mixed-influence model of the Diffusion‒Innovation
effect, and then
determined the appropriate analysis period to conduct an
independent sample
t test. Innovation and imitation coefficients were computed
using SAS, while
the t test for hypothesis verification was computed using R.
Venkatraman et al.
177. (1994)’s nonlinear analysis was used to analyze the
Diffusion‒Innovation model.
In addition, we did not use a cross-sectional methodology,
which has been the
main methodology in previous research to have featured the
Innovation‒Diffusion
model. Instead, to increase the validity of the vertical research
methodology, we
followed the following standards and processes to investigate
the process of and
reason for changes in the innovation and imitation effect on
product sales and the
keyword search volume. ①A t test was conducted for the period
starting from the
eleventh quarter after each company released its product, which
is the minimum
time required by the Innovation‒Diffusion model, while a
relatively free period
was set for white noise. However, because this model can be
explained based on
errors, while white noise can be supported over a certain period
due to the lack
of specific patterns, the coefficients were still included in the
analysis results as
long as they did not significantly deviate from the pattern. ②
Prior to the t test, the
Shapiro–Wilk normality test was conducted to test normality,
and an F test was
conducted to compare two variances for homoscedasticity. ③
Hypotheses were
verified by two sample t tests in the case of normality being
satisfied or by Wil-
coxon rank sum test with continuity correction and vice versa.
178. B.-S. Yun et al.
1 3
5 Results
Table 5 presents the results of testing the hypothesis.
Throughout the entire study
period (11Q–recent), Diffusion of Innovation theory was
applied in case the null/
alternative hypothesis white noise model was not supported
(15Q–26Q). Because
the changing speed of coefficients tends to decrease gradually,
the results from
15Q are comparatively more conservative than those from 11Q.
Although most of the white noise tests of Apple over the early
analysis period
(15Q–18Q) were supported, the t value lay between 1.5 and 2.0.
Considering
the research purpose, understanding the diffusion‒innovation
pattern was more
important than computing the results of certain periods. We
included the same
period in the verification to ensure effectiveness due to the
gradual decrease of
coefficients. Therefore, because the coefficients have a
continual pattern, we
included some supported white noise testing results for
reference.
The results of the hypothesis tests are presented in Table 6. H1,
H2, and H3
were all supported, evidencing that trade-off exists among the
three factors of
179. the trilemma (market share, business profit rate, and brand
innovativeness) in the
smartphone market. The sub-hypotheses H1.1–H1.3 and H2.1–
H2.3, which were
segmented by time period, were all supported, indicating that a
trade-off rela-
tionship exists between market share and business profit rate
except during the
embryonic stage. H3.1–H3.6 were all supported, except for
H3.1, H3.4, and H3.6.
Because the explanations of the supported hypotheses are the
same as when the
hypotheses were proposed, the discussion will be focused on the
not supported
hypotheses.
The hypothesis that first movers have a greater innovation
effect on the key-
word search volume than fast followers (H3.1) was not
supported. This was
because the smartphone would no longer be treated as a
radically innovative
product after the fifteenth quarter since launching. That is,
market players com-
pete for market shares through gradual product innovation, such
as version up, to
prepare for the growth period of the market at the same time.
However, Fig. 2 shows that the innovation effect of Samsung
during the elev-
enth quarter was 0.0114, while that of Apple was 0.0162, about
1.4 times higher.
Despite the inclusion of white noise, the gap has reduced slowly
from the past to
the present. That said, the difference between Apple’s and
Samsung’s innovation
180. effects on product sales became larger as the time period
approached the early
stage. In conclusion, although first movers had a stronger
innovation effect on
product sales than fast followers during the early phase of the
smartphone mar-
ket cycle, most of the advantages possibly thinned out when the
market entered
its growth period. In line with their explanation of the
innovation and imitation
effects on new technologies’ diffusion. Mahajan et al. (1988)
demonstrated that
innovators adopt new products due to their usefulness and ease
of use, whereas
imitators adopt them based on word of mouth and the subjective
norm.
H3.4 was not supported, indicating that fast followers do not
impose a stronger
imitation effect on product sales than first movers. Samsung’s
Galaxy Series had
already succeeded and settled in the market in 15Q 2011, the
early period of
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Ta
bl
e
5
273. 1 3
hypothesis testing. Nevertheless, Apple’s imitation effect on
product sales was
maintained at a similar level as that of Samsung because a
group of Apple’s inno-
vative adopters, who had been formed to a greater degree than
its Samsung coun-
terpart, actively started spreading the news via word of mouth
and the subjective
norm. Thus, Apple enjoyed an upward product repurchase rate,
which also led
to its success, on the coattails of its technological dependence
and loyal custom-
ers. In other words, while Samsung engaged in huge marketing
expenditures to
expand through imitations, Apple maintained itself on a similar
level as its rival’s
imitation effect by managing its repurchase rate and loyalty. As
of July 2013,
Apple recorded a repurchase rate of 78%, 26% higher than that
of Samsung. Fur-
thermore, Apple’s record on customer switching is 33%, three
times higher than
that of Samsung, implying that Apple’s customers are more
loyal (FORTUNE
2013).
Based on Fig. 2, the imitation coefficient of Samsung’s
keyword search volume
has a far higher pattern than that of Apple. In contrast, the
innovation coefficient of
Apple’s keyword search volume has a far higher pattern than
that of Samsung. In
summary, the two companies’ innovation and imitation effects
on product sales are
274. almost identical, but Apple’s innovation effect and Samsung’s
imitation effect on the
keyword search volume are stronger. The results signify
Apple’s advantage as a mar-
ket creator that it can affect the overall innovative diffusion,
while the fast follower
Samsung has input considerable resources and efforts to catch
up with the market
share of the first mover.
H3.6 was not supported, meaning that the imitation effect of
fast followers on the
keyword search volume was not stronger than that on product
sales. This may be due
to the consumers who undertook keyword searching had moved
from early adapters
to the early majority during the study period. That is, new
innovative products in
the early market receive attention from potential consumers due
to their curiosity,
whereas the early majority using keyword searches in the
market growth period are
Fig. 2 Comparison of innovation and imitation coefficients
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more likely to actually intend to purchase rather than merely
being curious. To inves-
tigate the validity of such logic, we also examined whether the
innovation effect of
275. fast followers on the keyword search volume was stronger than
that on product sales.
However, the results again show that the difference was not
statistically significant.
In summary, Fig. 3 summarizes the analysis of the
Innovation‒Diffusion model
in the smartphone market. However, a strong innovation or
imitation effect does not
unconditionally indicate high product sales or keyword search
volume. ①First mov-
ers and fast followers impose same-level innovation and
imitation effects on product
sales. However, first movers exert a slightly higher innovation
effect on product than
fast followers in the early period, and the difference then
disappears when the mar-
ket enters its growth period. ②The difference between first
movers’ and fast follow-
ers’ innovation effects on product sales disappear earlier than
the difference between
their innovation effects on the keyword search volume. ③The
innovation effect of
first movers on the keyword search volume is high, whereas the
imitation effect of
fast followers on the keyword search volume is also high, and
the difference is huge.
④The diffusion effect on the keyword search volume is more
sensitive than that on
product sales.
6 Discussion
6.1 The swamp of the trilemma
The graphs in Fig. 4 illustrate the trends of Samsung’s and
276. Apple’s product sales
and keyword search volume. After launching its Galaxy Series,
Samsung devoted
huge marketing expenses to overshooting the market attention
and increasing prod-
uct demands. As a result, its market share increased steeply
after 2011, and its accu-
mulated product sales overtook Apple’s starting in the third
quarter of 2012. How-
ever, beginning the first quarter of 2014, while Samsung’s
product sales reached
their congestion point, Apple was closing on it slightly. This
was a signal that Apple
would reverse its product sales competition with Samsung in the
future. Besides,
Samsung’s keyword search volume was on a decreasing trend
after reaching the
Fig. 3 Innovation‒Diffusion effect pattern models of first
movers and fast followers
B.-S. Yun et al.
1 3
maximum point, whereas the trend of Apple’s keyword search
volume either
increased slightly or stabilized at a similar level , strengthening
the signal of Apple’s
reversal.
The blue solid line shows that Samsung’s accumulated keyword
search volume
remained on a higher level based on its accumulated product
277. sales during the study
period. Supposing that the accumulated keyword search volume
was equivalent to
marketing expense and that accumulated product sales equaled
sales figures, the dif-
ference between the accumulated keyword search volume and
accumulated product
sales can be considered a negative influence on profit. That
said, Apple’s accumu-
lated product sales always exceeded its accumulated keyword
search volume, indi-
cating that the difference between accumulated product sales
and the accumulated
keyword search volume can be regarded as the scale of impact
to increased profits.
Moreover, the bottom of Fig. 4 shows that Samsung’s keyword
search vol-
ume reacted more sensitively than its product sales. In contrast,
Apple’s keyword
search volume increased at a slower rate than its product sales.
Furthermore,
despite Samsung committing a consistently higher advertising
expenditure than
Apple until recently, its keyword search volume increased
exponentially only
until the third quarter of 2012 and then started a continual
declining trend. Nev-
ertheless, even though Apple’s keyword search volume was
absolutely lower than
Samsung’s, it recorded steady growth until fairly recently.
Thus, the impact to
increase the keyword search volume and product sales, which
relies on marketing
expense, would only be maintained until a specific point in
time. Additionally,
278. Fig. 4 Trends of smartphones’ product sales and the keyword
search volume
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first movers’ increase rate of product sales is higher than the
increase rate of the
keyword search volume, disproving that first movers have more
friendly and loyal
customers and a higher repurchase rate than fast followers.
Figure 5 displays graphs of accumulated product sales and the
keyword search
volume, which are shown as the percentage to each company’s
maximum level.
Both the accumulated product sales and the keyword search
volume of Samsung
increased steeply, while the increase speed of the same factors
were relatively
slow for Apple. However, the gap between Apple’s accumulated
keyword search
volume and its accumulated product sales was larger. That is,
although Apple
spent less on marketing than Samsung, its product sales
recorded higher amounts
in comparison with its keyword search volume. Notwithstanding
this, even
though Samsung contrived to invest huge marketing
expenditures, its influence
on the keyword search volume was weaker than on product
279. sales. As a result, it
gained the No. 1 market share through the steep increase in
product sales, but it
has paid a high price for it due to Apple’s advantages as a first
mover and high
customer loyalty. Ultimately, Samsung’s business profit rate
was influenced nega-
tively, causing the firm to fall into a trilemma.
Not only marketing expenses, but also R&D costs and business
profit, were
affected. Samsung’s accumulated business profit was $B 176
from the first quar-
ter of 2011 to the third quarter of 2017, which was less than
Apple’s correspond-
ing figure of $B 379. According to the global company R&D
investment ranking
presented by Strategy& (the global strategy consulting team at
PwC) in 2016,
Samsung advanced from eighth place in 2011 to second in 2015.
In contrast,
Apple was ranked eighteenth in 2015, its only appearance in the
top 20. Neverthe-
less, it has been ranked the most innovative global company by
BCG from 2005
until the present. Meanwhile, Samsung was never able to exceed
Apple on this
score, despite attaining third place in 2012 and second in 2013.
Consequently,
the fast follower Samsung has gained the highest market share
by spending wildly
to overcome the first mover Apple’s advantages, but it fell into
the trilemma and
failed to guarantee itself a brighter future due to being plagued
by the problems
of business profit rate and brand innovativeness.
280. Fig. 5 Accumulated trends of product sales and the keyword
search volume compared to the companies’
highest level
B.-S. Yun et al.
1 3
6.2 Escape from nutcracker trilemma
Trade-off relationships exist between the three factors that
constitute the trilemma,
meaning that all three cannot be satisfied at the same time.
Thus, from a middle‒
long-term perspective, it is more practical to establish and
achieve only one highly
effective goal for each period. Signs of a deepened nutcracker
trilemma include
product sales reaching their limit, reduction in the keyword
search volume, and
a lack of space in improving the business profit rate. Because
such indicators are
occurring at present, fast followers must seek changes to
survive in the market.
Although the hypothesis verification and analysis results do not
suggest a solution
by which fast followers can escape the trilemma, said followers
can seek prevention
and response plans according to arguments in existing studies.
Among the various concepts of strategy, the solution for the
smartphone market
can be found in Porter’s (1996) concept that “Strategy is the
281. creation of a unique and
valuable position, involving a different set of activities.” Porter
(1996) stated that
when most market players have reached the frontier of
productivity through imita-
tions of best practice, improvements in quality and productivity
may lead to short-
term superiority but are ineffective for occupying the unique
and valuable position
due to imitation by competitors. Thus instead of driving the
strategy forward, market
players should determine what not to do to establish a unique
and valuable posi-
tion through a trade-off. Apple intends to penetrate the
middle‒low-end market and
reverse the current market situation by using new strategies
such as the halo and
trickledown effects. Based on the aforementioned arguments
and market conditions,
Samsung should not strongly insist on market shares in the
future. Instead, it should
concentrate only on certain segments and reduce expenditures
on advertisements.
The other solution is to focus on customer satisfaction in the
selected segment.
This is because, in comparison with the aggressive strategy that
emphasizes market
share expansion and new customer acquisition, the defensive
strategy that concen-
trates on maintaining existing customers and improving loyalty
requires a smaller
amount of marketing expense (Fornell and Wernerfelt 1987).
Moreover, a firm’s
long-term profitability depends on whether customers keep
using its products (Bhat-
282. tacherjee 2001a, b; Gefen 2002) because sales will be induced
by repurchases, and
the cost of maintaining existing customers is cheaper than that
of acquiring new cus-
tomers (Reichheld and Schefter 2000). In particular, efforts to
improve customer sat-
isfaction, in specific regional markets or when the market
passes its growth period,
would eventually lead to a positive influence in terms of
improving market share.
Consequently, given that the gaining of customer satisfaction or
loyalty will lead
to a better outcome during a period with a higher imitation
effect than innovation
effect, fast followers must focus on managing customer
satisfaction and loyalty when
releasing new products to avoid the hardship of a lower profit
rate than first movers
in the future.
Customer satisfaction and loyalty cannot be obtained simply
through practi-
cal efforts. According to Steve Jobs, Apple combined
technology, design, and an
innovative business model to create the smartphone market
based on the philosophy
of thinking only of customers. If you are a consumer and
suppose all other con-
ditions are identical, would you choose the product of a
company that only thinks
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283. and…
about its customers, or would you choose the product of one
that intends to become
a leading company in the world? Assuming that completely
identical products were
launched by each company, the choice would depend on the
consumer’s feeling
about the companies. The feeling about one company would be
“this company cer-
tainty knows what I want,” while the feeling about the other
would be “this globally
leading company can definitely make a good product.” Although
both feelings are
positive, empathic and evaluative reactions based on users’
experiences are expected
to influence their purchasing decisions, along with changes in
their attitudes. There-
fore, Samsung must change its current management philosophy
to a new one that
is appropriate for gaining customer satisfaction to continue
surviving in the smart-
phone market.
Another practical alternative for fast followers could be to
actively discover, man-
age, maintain, and use the influential mouths of innovative
adopters. Early adopters
are relatively young and well-educated, are more familiar with
mass media, partici-
pate more in interpersonal communications, and have greater
potential to become
opinion leaders (Brancheau and Wetherbe 1990). Furthermore,
according to the
prior discussion, in the case of fast followers having to
strategically input huge mar-
284. keting expenditures to overtake the market shares of fast
followers, they are able to
obtain the highest profit until the middle of the market growth
period. Thus, fast fol-
lowers must take this into consideration when establishing their
management strate-
gies so as to eliminate the hardship over the profit rate.
In addition, not only customers who have purchased
smartphones but also app
developers who work in the app market should be managed as
“bigmouths.” This
is because the activation of the app market has a significant
impact on improving
the smartphone market share because smartphones and apps
have the characteris-
tics of two-sided markets, which form a virtuous cycle of
market expansion through
a mutually complementary arrangement. Because the global
economy is mov-
ing toward the age of the service industry due to megatrends
such as demographic
changes, industrial mix change, convergence, and
commercialization of processes
(Lee et al. 2007), the activation of the app market is becoming
an ever more pressing
issue. Said activation began with the participation of
developers. To retain such par-
ticipation, motivations to participate in app development
platforms must be strength-
ened, accessibility should be enhanced, and various platform
support policies should
be implemented to allow developers to feel a sense of
achievement (Lee et al. 2016).
7 Conclusions
285. 7.1 Summary
Bower and Christensen (1995) addressed the fact that
outstanding companies fail
because, after performing the necessary work to achieve
success, they overlook the
competitors touting “disruptive innovation” and eventually fall
into a dilemma. Nev-
ertheless, Apple, the first mover in the smartphone market,
never allows any disrup-
tive innovation from fast followers. It continuously leaves the
market share leader
Samsung behind in terms of business profit rate and innovative
brand, holding the
B.-S. Yun et al.
1 3
top rank in the global market for over a decade. Besides,
because Samsung is cur-
rently entrapped in a nutcracker trilemma, its distance from
Apple will possibly be
deepened according to the trends of multiple indices and market
signals. Figure 6
rounds up the reasons why such phenomena would occur.
Samsung had no alternative other than to continuously increase
its market share,
even though it made great sacrifices until the time when market
growth slowed.
Although Samsung has laid out huge marketing expenditure s
since entering the mar-
286. ket, it has failed to reach the level of Apple’s innovation effect
on the keyword search
volume, leading to a steady increase in its imitation effect and
market demand in
later stages. In addition, together with customer satisfaction and
loyalty, this enabled
Apple to gain a high business profit rate and the image of a
global top innovative
brand. Essentially, fast followers face significant barriers to
attenuating the advan-
tages of first movers in a short period. Fortunately, Samsung is
sufficiently large to
attempt a full range of material superiority. However, its
targeting of not only the
premium-end but also the middle‒low-end global markets has
caused inefficiency
and overshoot in business expense compared to first movers.
Therefore, Samsung
eventually failed to overcome the business profit rate and brand
innovativeness bar-
riers while having to surrender part of its customer satisfaction.
This is the trilemma
that has dragged down the company that holds the No. 1 market
share and rendered
its future uncertain.
To conclude, although it is important for fast followers to raise
their market share
together with the indivisible factors such as quality,
productivity, and technology,
Porter (1996) suggested that they first determine what to give
up and clarify what
to concentrate on, before making their unique fits within the
targeted scope. Only
by doing so will fast followers be able to create their own
DNAs of customer satis-
287. faction, which others would struggle to imitate, to avoid falling
into the nutcracker
trilemma. This is the big picture of avoiding and escaping from
the trilemma. More-
over, to decrease the high cost burden that may occur in the
future, fast followers
should actively discover and use the bigmouths among their
innovative adopters in
the early stage after entering the market. Meanwhile, in the case
of fast followers
intending to acquire their market share through high marketing
expenditure, they
should establish strategic plans after due consideration because
the outcomes may
Fig. 6 Trilemma of fast followers
1 3
An analysis of the trilemma phenomenon for Apple iPhone
and…
not be worth the input after entering the latter market growth
period due to the more
sensitive market interests in said phase.
7.2 Research contributions
In this study, we examined the nutcracker trilemma that a
company with the high-
est market share in the smartphone market struggles to increase
its business profit
rate and become an innovative brand. Furthermore, we
statistically examined the
288. phenomena of this trilemma to suggest an objective
methodology and analyzed data
on product sales and the keyword search volume by using the
Innovation‒Diffusion
model to suggest strategies for escaping the trilemma. While
previous studies have
been focusing on exploring whether to use quantitative or
qualitative analysis to
examine the competition aspects and causes of first movers and
fast followers, here
we investigated the related phenomenon by using corporate data
and the Innovation‒
Diffusion model, settling for the quantitative method to
discover the causes despite
this being overall a case study. Moreover, unlike previous
studies which mainly used
cross-sectional analysis, we suggested a new methodology—
longitudinal analysis—
to examine the Innovation‒Diffusion model. Finally, we
provided suggestions to fast
followers in the smartphone market with which they can evade
the nutcracker tri-
lemma and derived strategical implications for the same fields
therefrom, which can
teach companies finding themselves in a similar situation, or
fast followers in future
industries, how to respond to the trilemma.
7.3 Limitations and future research needs
This study has the following limitations due to the data used to
study the research
subject and the longitudinal analysis process of the
Innovation‒Diffusion model.
The first is the limitation of data acquisition and measurement
289. because these
data could not perfectly describe the subjects and concepts. In
addition to the fac-
tor of product sales used in this study, market share can be
estimated by a range of
variables such as the scale of sales figures. In this study, we
described marketing
expenses, R&D costs, the production method, and other
management methods as
the related influence factors of the business profit rate.
However, various accounts
exist in accounting, and the cost structure is influenced by
several factors other than
those mentioned above. Although data that directly estimates
consumer recognition
to examine brand innovativeness would be the most appropriate
to use, we deployed
the best secondary information that was accessible because
series data for this
research purpose were impossible to be acquired. Therefore, we
had to sacrifice a
portion of the concepts’ clear explanations.
Second, analysis of the Innovation‒Diffusion model requires
initial data for a cer-
tain period, although the analysis can only be performed from a
later point in time.
Thus, it is impossible to quantitatively examine the diffusion
patterns since the ini-
tial launch of each company’s smartphone (0–15Q), so some of
the estimations rely
on assumptions.
B.-S. Yun et al.
290. 1 3
Third, in addition to continuously upgrading and diversifying
their products,
Apple and Samsung pursue a variety of tactical changes in
accordance with envi-
ronmental changes. However, in this study we failed to consider
such distinctions
between the two companies as a priority. Although the purpose
was to narrow the
scope of the study, it would have been more proper to consider
those conditions
together to explain the trilemma more thoroughly.
Finally, although we settled for hypothesis testing, this was an
attempt to objec-
tively examine a particular case study of two companies within
a single industry.
This approach is weak from the theoretical viewpoint, and the
analysis results can
hardly be applied to other industries. Moreover, because the
analysis only included
the period before the market reached maturity, future
researchers should be cautious
about interpreting and utilizing the results.
Future investigators may improve the reliability and provide
more generalized
strategic implications and management guidelines by applying
the methodology to a
variety of fields and periods.
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