Module: Marketing Course: MA International Business Company: Samsung Mobile Phones in UK
Student Name : Jimit Sonigra
Student ID: C7154780
Contents
Introduction 3
Marketing Environment 3
Micro Environment 4
Macro Environment 5
Conclusion 7
Bibliography 7
Introduction
This report has been analysed on the marketing segment and environment of Samsung Galaxy Alpha (S.G.A) smartphone in U.K. The Samsung Galaxy Alpha was the sleekest smartphone ever with high quality metal finish and luxury feel. The company launched the product in the streets of all across Britain on 12th January 2014. Some key features of the phones which are regarded as the innovative nature such as:
• Finger Print Scanner
• Ultra Power Saving Mode
• Private Mode
•
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The low switching costs and strong growth of the industry has made it looks progressively and attractive for new entrants. Although, 75% of the market share is being dominated by the Top 4 brands (Mintel, 2011). Therefore, there is high barrier entry for the new entrants and huge amount of capital investment is needed to build up a possible competitor in the industry (Marketline, 2014).
Threats of Substitute Products Earlier Fixed lines were the biggest competitors for the mobile phones industry. The threat of substitute in the modern world of technology advancements in the mobile industry is considered to be very high. Samsung needs to be very strong in innovations with its products on regular basis as the propensity of consumers for switching to other products in regard to price is very high. But Samsung enjoys the advantage over its competitors as the quality conscious customers stays loyal to the organisation and reduce the threat.
Macro
The current market is divided between a few powerful competitors that can relatively easily attract customers from one another as the switching costs are low and practical absence of product differentiation contributes to the easy loss of market share.
In 1990s, ground-based wireless phone service grew rapidly around the world. A key factor in the growth of wireless phones was the adoption of a single standard, known as GSM, in Europe and parts of Asia. There were 480 million cellular subscribers worldwide by January 2000 and it reached more than billions before 2005. The economy of scale that introduced will provide the extent of competitive pressure in the business environment. It helps to stimulate Iridium to consider price-performance tradeoff that offered by the substitutes and the need of product differentiation alternatives in advance.
Mobile is the first order priority device for access because people are connecting with others, finding entertainment, and doing business—all with smart phones. The prices of mobile phones are never over $1,000 in today’s world. They are affordable and accessible. As the result of the changes the worldwide and national business environment has undergone, people own 1-2 cell phones on average. However, the mobile markets in US seems to have been saturated.
The features of their mobile phone are the crucial part of their parity, for e.g. – introduction of galaxy phone. Talking about the point of differentiation, recently we have seen Samsung is going to launch Galaxy S6 with a curved screen; which is a very new concept in this mobile sector and none of the other companies have so far been able to introduce such a new concept. Samsung seems to be the pioneer in this criterion and have done something off the hook. Overall the performance of this brand seems to be very impressive in terms of popularity, revenue and the contribution they are making to the mass public by offering their products. Nevertheless, I would still like to recommend an improvement regarding one of their major drawbacks, which Samsung still doesn’t seem to have overcome. Even though Samsung claimed they don’t actually make their customers a wall hugger, in reality actually they do. Hence, they should focus more on these specifications so that consumers don’t get the chance to switch brands in the blink of an
Verizon Communications Inc. is one of the leaders in providing communication services around the world. Its primary offerings are wireless, wireline, and broadband communication resources to meet residential, business, and government needs. As a leader in its industry, how can Verizon continue to grow its business? What strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats impact the success of Verizon now and in the future?
There are a large number of competitors present in Smartphone industry serving to lower income group to niche segment consumers. Life of a product in this industry has reduced to a large extent relying largely on R&D to match with the emerging trends. The price of a Smartphone is decreasing whereas the purchasing power of buyer is increasing. There is also huge competition between Ios, Windows, and Android at the OS
Internal resource is the first consideration that can lead to sustainable competitive advantage and Resource –Based View (RBV) is a theory that usefully helps a firm focus on internal resources (Kraaijenbrink, Spender & Aard, 2010). According to RBV (Valuable, Rare, hard to imitate and non-substitutable), companies have different tangible and intangible resources, these resources can be transformed into unique ability, this special ability cannot flow between firms and rival firms and difficult to reproduce. These unique resources and abilities are the source of enterprise sustainable competitive advantage. In this part, Starbucks and Apple are worth to be analyzed by RBV.
The company should make sure that they invest heavily on products that are unique and that pose greater opportunities to double in terms of sales, including the tablets. In addition, it should make sure that it maximizing the areas such as China that have proven to be beneficial in terms of sales (Luo, 2001). In neutralizing the threats, the company should work on producing unique products, that are highly effective and affordable.
Telecommunications gained mainstream attention in the early 90’s; however the initial key market was business men and women, who used their phones whilst being on the move and so allowing them to communicate with their companies with ease. Though in the modern era, telecommunication went through segmentation in the market trends, and now in this day and age it would be difficult to find someone who does not own some form of mobile technology. Many phone providers battle to provide the best service for their customers (Figure 1).
While profits from semiconductor sales are keeping stakeholders happy, Samsung is pursuing a differentiation strategy in the smartphone market. The managers are committing more resources to researching something they think will revolutionize phones. author name writes, “All smartphone makers face the issue of stagnancy in hardware innovation. Samsung is currently working on developing a smartphone with foldable displays…” (Tanner). There has not been a ground-breaking development in smart phones in the last few years, so the managers believe
Cell phone manufacturers and service providers are at the core of the cell phone industry. These corporations are integral from their research and development endeavors to interactions with the consumer and the marketing of new products. The companies that control such factors of cellular phones are very numerous, so it is difficult to address all the cell phone manufacturers and service providers. However, we have focused largely on only the most significant cellular companies namely in the U.S. marketplace, although many have global ties. Collectively, companies around the world have the same goals in mind – to create desirable cutting-edge technology and to increase consumer satisfaction with hopes of generating sales, and thus profits.
There is a slowdown in sales of mobile handsets, in some markets like the UK, as the mature part of the product lifecycle is reached. Customers are exposed to a barrage of different images and messages by mobile phone companies, as the competition gets tougher. Vodafone appeals to new customers and aims to keep its existing ones by emphasising the uniqueness of the brand.
Samsung will also include consumers, as key external stakeholders, in the research and development focus groups to best incorporate consumer opinion and demand into areas of the project including development, marketing, and distribution. This will help Samsung create and deliver a product that the customers want. It will also help identify consumer needs for the new smartphone’s use as consumer inputs will help shape and drive the technological innovations that Samsung is aiming to deliver with its new smartphone.
The year is 2014, the markets are changing constantly, and they always have to meet the needs of new consumers as well as old consumers. Mobile telephones have been in the retail and wholesale business for quite some time, and are only evolving from here on out. There are things that these cell phones can bring us that are major benefits in our everyday lives. Cell phones bring us maps, radios, address books, and even flashlights now. Cell phones have taken shape from a huge portable device to a more convenient thin device that can fit in your pocket. With time in any consumer market, the consumer adapts to the technology that makes their life easier. The constant innovation of cell phones has led us to smart phones, and these smart phones are capable of putting certain businesses out of the market. Businesses that engineered PDAs in the past were met with challenges because smart phones are able to match their productivity. Land lines have become useless since everyone can afford a mobile device now. Listening to music has also switched from a traditional CD Player/MP3 Player to an everyday smart phone.
Marketing is a fundamental aspect of all businesses, whether they are set out to make a profit, or charitable organisations - they will have to carry out marketing research of some description. It has been described as being, “the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.” (Chartered Institute of Marketing) This essay will explore the role of marketing in a marketing oriented business and different aspects of the external environment that a smartphone company should be aware of. The points raised throughout will be supported using relevant journals, textbooks and newspaper articles.