Overview
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that manufactures personal computers and computer software. The company was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne (O’Brien, 2016). It’s based in Cupertino, California. Apple has generally maintained its status quo due to its intelligent business strategies pitched upon the production of innovative products. It became the first American company to hit the 700-billion-dollar mark in terms of company value (Galloway, 2017). The company’s cutting edge technology has often raised the bar high for other companies in the industry. These product releases occur each year, thus taking advantage of its loyal customer base who are enthusiastic about getting the latest iPhone (Chan, Selden, and Pun, 2020). The company released the iPhone 11 last year in September and will release its latest flagship iPhone 12 around the same time.
This project will incorporate three models; iPhone 12, iPhone 12 pro, I phone 12 pro max. The models are equipped with 5G connectivity and run on a powerful new A14 bionic processor. The screen size measure 5.4 inches, 6.1 inches, and 6.7 inches, respectively, and all are OLED screens. The pro edition has been equipped with a LIDAR sensor and a 120 Hz refresh rate. The phone’s curves have been flattened, retracing its look form the iPhone 5 model. The design team has replaced the midnight green color of the iPhone 11 pro with a navy blue color presenting a modern, classy look.
Justification in terms of Risk
Figure 1.0: Risks Associated with the Product Launch
| Type of Risk | Level of Risk Associated | Mitigation of Risk |
| Marketing risk | Low | Online marketing |
| Distribution risk | High | Increased cargo prices |
| Selling risk | High | High-quality product |
With the launching of new products, there are potential risks that Apple Inc. must be aware of and try to mitigate them. The company is considered a global enterprise; thus, any new product launched is expected to be accessible worldwide. Globally launching a new product leads to marketing, distribution, and sales risk (Cateora, Meyer, Gilly, and Graham, 2020). Marketing a product comes before the product’s actual launch for the consumers to have an in-depth knowledge of the product (Lobel, Patel, Vulcano, and Zhang, 2016). However, for iPhone 12, traditional marketing has been disrupted as its norm has been a product review before the phone hit the market. The coronavirus navel has made it nearly impossible for such a gathering to take place.
The demand by a loyal customer base is expected to be based on the technical aspects projected to be included in the phones and online marketing (Chong, Wu and Liu, 2019). Distribution risk primary concern is the cost involved. The phone is expected to be easily accessible worldwide; thus, it has to employ logistical planning to ensure the product becomes accessible worldwide. The conflict of interest presents itself with travel bans across the world, especially China, which has been a critical overseas market (Xing, 2020). The company believes that by the release date, the restrictions will have been eased failure to which the consumer would have to incur the increased cargo prices.
Selling risk is associated with the price of the phone. The phone is expected to be expensive due to the introduction of the 5G capability and the OLED screen. The most recent iPhone operated on a 4G network and had an LCD screen; thus, the specifications have improved drastically (Zhou and Gupta, 2020). The selling risk will be absorbed by the product’s high-quality specification and the number of sales.
Competition
The company operates in the smartphone business, thus faces competition from an ever-growing industry. The company’s biggest competitor is Samsung, based in South Korea (Zhou, 2020). The company uses an android operating system, which differs from Apple’s iPhone operating system(IOS). The company has also released its newest product in the market, the Samsung Galaxy S20, earlier in March. Apple Inc. has followed suit the competition in the installation of the 5G network, thus projecting to increase its price by 20% (Barakabitze, Ahmad, Mijumbi and Hines, 2020). Apple has emulated this strategy by way of its rumored iPhone price above the estimated price. iPhone 12 is maximizing the fingerprint specification by integrating three fingerprint sensors; Qualcomm, Geographic Information System(GIS), and BOE to produce a next-generation fingerprint sensor based on the touch display.
