Apple Smartwatch Marketing Strategy Analysis Essay.

The main industry focused project for this unit entails analysing the marketing strategy for a new product(s) or service innovation of a company/brand.

Your team needs to focus on a particular product or service of a company for this assessment and then analyse the marketing strategy for that particular product or service.

Product Innovation and Features

In 2014, the first official Apple watch was introduced in relation to the research since 2002. The main objective of the company was to make a smart wearable device, which leads, in the easier life of the consumer. The company also want that the people need to look continuously on the mobile screen for some respective short notifications.

The Apple smartwatch includes single-core s1 system on chip relying on a paired iPhone. In this watch, the company also consider various safety measures and thus add inbuilt heart rate sensor. The major average specification of their watches includes 8GB storage, Bluetooth 4.0, 512 MB ram, and slash resistance. Since its release, this watch has achieved many milestones and also satisfying the consumers which can be seen in terms of its growth as the sales rose by 60% in the year 2017.

In terms of product portfolio, these smartwatches can be divided into Apple sports segment, Apple edition and classic Apple watch. In the second generation of the product, the company has introduced various new features such as watches, and higher processors with the introduction of many new advanced apps so that the user experience can be raised.

In terms of the market positioning, currently, the company is selling only third series Apple Watches by targeting the people of age group 20-45 years. Focusing on the product line, the company market 4 types of Apple watches. Their pricing strategy is also based on premium bases like their smartphones, which makes them a competitive edge in the market. In addition, the promotional strategy of the company is based on fashion or fashion accessories.

In contrast with the competition, the company faces various challenges from the big brands such as Samsung Gear smart watches, Google wearable watches, and Fossils. However, the company main focus was on the basic needs of the consumers and thus the Apple watches not only providing them various essential features but also those basic features which are appealing and easy to use. In relation to their competitive strategy, the company is providing their customers a different set of activities with composition of unique mix of values. They are focusing both on the hardware of the product as well as for its promotion. Their smart watches chips were designed by around 1000 chips makers and with their promotion strategy, the company is impacted individual mindsets. By doing this, the company has made a significant competitive advantage in the industry.

Market Positioning and Pricing Strategy

Apple Company offers various aids in terms of its quality of product to various businesses as well as individuals. The products that it offers are highly innovative and creative that are needed by persons in today’s life. Recently, it has launched a “smartwatch” which is most powerful product of Apple in recent days (Hsiao, 2017). Therefore, it understands the user need and preferences by offering these kinds of product.

Various opportunities are available for Apple Smartwatch. It can boost the demand of its related product that can be associated with the watch for synchronization. Furthermore, it can raise the revenue by this strategy. In addition to this, various app developers and makers can also attract with this application due to its relatedness with the health and fitness. Apple can also get benefits if it will continue the enhancement of its functionality and features. By doing this, at least all the iPhone users will get attracted towards its watch. Moreover, small segment of iPhone users has currently owned the Apple watch (Porter & Heppelmann, 2014). Therefore, the company has plenty of rooms to raise the penetration of Apple smartwatch with all the users of iPhone. Besides all the opportunities, versatility is also one such characteristic of its Apple smartwatch. This product of Apple has expanded its roots in various sectors such as easy payment, fitness and health, life management and for entertainment purpose.

The opportunity to syndicate health trackers best fitted with numerous sensors, connectivity. Interface technologies in different ways will improve productivity, engagement, and personal insight. Moving further, all these things will raise the overall experience of consumers (Ha et al, 2017).

There are various issues also attached to the smartwatch of Apple that threatens the brand. It also has significant impact on the revenue of the organization that may result into loss in reputation. Various other companies are coming up with new ideas in order to beat the smartwatch of Apple. The biggest challenge it is facing from the Samsung and Sony that are coming up with their watches. The cost of their product is also low by using various new techniques for ensuring higher performance (Nagle & Müller, 2017). The developers and app makers are also high in number as compare to the IOS. These are huge in number due to the open source functionality in android. The increase of tax rates in USA will also put the direct impact on the growth and development of smart watch of Apple. In today’s business environment, there are constant changes in demographics. Therefore, due to continuous changes in demographics, fluctuation in demand of customers, there is need to release the upgraded version time-to-time (Moreno-Munoz et al, 2016). Power consumption is also important need of customers if they are purchasing costly watch. It presents a big challenge for the company that include the privacy of users, low battery issues that is power consumption as well impact on brain. The perception of every consumption is somewhat different for the electrical products and innovative products (Kang, Chang and Song, 2013).

In the report, work was divided to the different members of team so that accurate solution can be received. From all the members, one of the team members was assigned the task of doing critical analysis that included project related factors and firms. The other team members were assigned the task of doing commercial viability analysis. It includes the finding of some market-related factors and product related to the smartwatch of Apple. I have given the task of finding out the correct path of future by analysing the challenges and opportunities that directly affect the Apple smartwatch.

References

Fatehi, F., Gray, L.C. & Russell, A 2017, ‘Mobile health (Health) for diabetes care: opportunities and challenges’, Diabetes technology & therapeutics, vol, 19, no. 1, pp.1-3.

Ha, T., Beijnon, B., Kim, S., Lee, S. & Kim, J 2017, ‘Examining user perceptions of smartwatch through dynamic topic modeling’, Telematics and Informatics, vol. 34, no.7, pp.1262-1273.

Hsiao, K.L 2017, ‘What drives smartwatch adoption intention? Comparing Apple and non-Apple watches’, Library Hi Tech, vol. 35, no. 1, pp.186-206.

Kang, H., Chang, S. & Song, J 2013, ‘Competition for Platform Leadership: The Smartphone War between Samsung Electronics and Apple’, Korea Business Review, vol. 17, no. 1, pp.161-202.

Moreno-Munoz, A., Bellido-Outeirino, F.J., Siano, P. & Gomez-Nieto, M.A 2016 ‘Mobile social media for smart grids customer engagement: Emerging trends and challenges’, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, vol. 53, pp.1611-1616.

Nagle, T.T. & Müller, G 2017, The strategy and tactics of pricing: A guide to growing more profitably. United Kingdom, Routledge.

Porter, M.E. and Heppelmann, J.E 2014, ‘How smart, connected products are transforming competition’ Harvard business review, vol. 11, pp.64-88.