Casestudypownership

Media Company Case Study

Task 1 Understand the structure

and ownership of the media sector

Media Company Case Study

Task 1 Understand the structure

and ownership of the media sector

Nicole MeliaNicole Melia

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.

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.

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;

MaciPodiPhoneiPadApple TVOS XiLifeiWorkiOSiPad Mini

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 StoreApple Store OnlineMac App StoreiOS App StoreiTunes StoreiBookiCloud

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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/