It is hard to find people who don’t know at least something about Apple or its products. The company founded in the 1970s in California changed the world with its products. Apple is a great example of a company that continues to play an important role for a long time. However, even tech giants have to cope with numerous challenges on a regular basis and Apple is not an exception. Apart from challenges, every company has its weaknesses.
Let’s have a look at Apple’s key weaknesses. Among these weaknesses are its highly-priced products, entering areas of higher competition, as well as incompatibility with other software.
Many of the company’s customers see Apple’s tightly controlled software and services as a major strength of Apple, as it allows the company to control all aspects of the devices it produces. All in all, nevertheless, this puts an additional strain on the company’s development cycle as software and many other details become an in-house responsibility.
Besides, the tech giant is in the business of running licensing agreements for its content sales, including Apple TV, etc. From a management perspective, this muddles the water on what the company should concentrate its efforts on.
Apple makes a lot of money thanks to its hardware. It is no secret that the biggest revenue generation comes from hardware. However, the closed nature of its ecosystem forces the company to be in all the other businesses as well. For example, its rival Samsung is using the Android operating system. As a result, Samsung can focus on iterating the hardware and innovating the design of its devices rather than having to police third-party apps or roll out operating system updates.
Apple and its customers
The high product expectation for each new version or model the company created may ultimately prove to be Apple’s biggest weakness. The company developed an amazing brand that is associated with products that work perfectly. However, these high expectations mean that Apple can’t throw experimental products or services at the market without hurting its reputation.
Thus, it is harder for Apple to create new products. So, the company has to depend on its leadership and employees being so far ahead of the curve that the slower release schedule still results in Apple leading the market.
Apple retains its status of a leader, but the size of its lead is staying fairly stagnant. Moreover, other tech companies have caught on and are themselves rolling out upgrades and new models on a regular basis as well. For instance, Samsung’s S line of mobile phones sees a new release every year or so now.
A number of the other issues include the company’s highly-priced products and entering areas of higher competition. Even though the higher-priced products have proven to be less of an issue in a surging economy, they could prove an issue if the economy takes a step back. Furthermore, Apple is relied on its brand image versus spending heavily on advertising, which could change in the future.
Apple’s rivals are working hard to compete with the Cupertino-based company. So, it needs to continue its high level of innovation. Its competitors will continue to close the gap between their products and Apple’s and eliminate the premium that the company charges for its products and services.
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