When it’s a portable music player, it’s an ipod. When it’s a smart phone, it’s mostly an iphone. When it’s a tablet, there’s no doubt, it’s an ipad. Worldwide, Apple has 95% of the market for tablets, over 25% for the portable music player & around 17% for the smartphones. Considering the iphone’s ios is not an open source platform & with a stint of just over 4 years in the industry, the number has many people jaw dropping. Apple’s iphone still continues to dominate the US market with over 28%, ahead of Android (25%) & BB RIM (26%). Apple’s ipod has almost 72% of the US portable music player market, while its ipad has over 97%.
The numbers clearly give a picture of the brand’s acceptance by the consumer & their love for the brand. It justifies apple being the most valuable technology company in the world surpassing Microsoft. And the same numbers have brought me to this question today, what makes apple so successful in the market?
“When you intend to win a consumer, you got to win both sides of the consumer’s mind”. The left & the right. While the left side of the mind assesses the features vs. value for money vs. competition, the right side tries to connect to the brand, tries to see if it defines his/her attitude, and tries to see if it makes a statement for him/her. A feat mastered by the apple. The app store & the designs of apple products are a great example of right side of the mind connecting to the brand. The apps a consumer has on the iphone or the ipad defines who he/she is. It defines his/her attitude. While the technology, the quality, the features, value for money of the apple products definitely has the left side of the mind zero in on the product.
Secondly, what worked best for apple was the ‘first in the category’ strategy. It states, if you got to be successful, you got to be first in the category. Which means you got to create a category. In my perspective the success of apple has been mostly because of its app store. An idea that apple was first to come up with. An idea that has every company hatch on to. An idea that has every company making app centric products. Apple currently has over 2 lakh applications on its app store. And it's about to hit 10 billion downloads.
Thirdly, and most importantly it’s this man, the face of apple; Mr. Jobs. A name synonymous to innovation. His never-say-die attitude, his eccentricity, his wittiness, his passion for technology has him drive a company which has touched a million hearts. The buzz this man creates each time he goes public is a subject of study in itself. Recently, when Steve Jobs wrote an email to his associates about him taking leave from apple for a tentative period sighting health reasons, the apple share market took a beating in the entire world. Its shares went south by 6-7% immediately. A clear indication of the stakes this man has in the success of his company. Apple’s success has a lot to do with this man & his PR skills.
Well Mr. Jobs, you sowed the seeds few years back (Started Apple), you have nurtured it all these years (Driven Apple), and now it’s reaped (Most valuable tech company). It’s time you eat it. Because we believe, an apple a day, keeps a doctor away. Get well soon!
