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Advance Business Research on Apple and Samsung

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Table of Contents

Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Aims.................................................................................................................................................4
Objectives........................................................................................................................................4
Summary of Literature.....................................................................................................................4
Methodology....................................................................................................................................6
Research Strategy........................................................................................................................7
Data Collection............................................................................................................................7
Data Analysis...............................................................................................................................7
Findings...........................................................................................................................................8
Samsung Changes its Strategy to Fight against Apple................................................................8
Marketing Wars: Apple vs. Samsung..........................................................................................9
Conclusion and Recommendation.................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................14
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Introduction

The opposition between Apple and Samsung is similar to the confrontation between Coca

Cola and Pepsi, or the same Apple and Microsoft (Yun et al., 2019). Samsung and Apple are

without a doubt the leading mobile phone companies on the market today. But it is clear that

each of them carries out a totally different strategy to achieve leadership and consequently a

greater number of sales and benefits. Samsung and Apple took over 90% of all profits in the

smartphone market. Samsung has almost doubled the indicator Samsung remains the leader in

the smartphone market. At the same time, sometimes its share is actively decreasing, and this

year one would expect this doubly: both because of not particularly successful flagships, and

because of the COVID-19 pandemic (Garrett et al., 2021). 

Researchers have yet to find out what will happen to Samsung’s share at the end of the

year, but now the source, referring to data from Strategy Analytics, claims that at the end of the

third quarter, the Korean giant managed to almost double the share of profits made in the

smartphone market. Samsung, the South Korean giant, uses a PUSH- type strategy, the push

strategy consists of orienting communication and promotional efforts on intermediaries, in a way

that encourages them to refer to the brand, to store the product in large quantities, to provide it

with adequate sales space and to encourage consumers to buy the product. On the other hand,

Apple uses a PULL strategy (Tien, 2020). The Pull strategy consists of orienting communication

efforts on the final buyer with promotion and advertising through the mass media, so that the

final consumer demands the manufacturer’s products at the retail points of sale, the retailer

requests it. to the wholesaler, and the latter finally to the manufacturer. That is, it consists of

carrying out strong communication campaigns, so that the consumer himself demands the

product from the distributor.

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In addition to the fact that this is simply very impressive growth, this is also the largest

figure for Samsung in the last six years - in the second quarter of 2014, the company took 37.9%

of the total profit of the smartphone market. However, it is still very far from Apple since the

Cupertino giant has received 60.5% of all market profits. True, the figure for the year has

decreased - earlier it was 66.9% (Tien, 2020).  As a result, Samsung and Apple accounted for

93.1% of all smartphone market profits. But this does not mean that all other companies have

divided the remaining seven percent amongst themselves.

Aims

Considering the contrast between Apple, Inc. and Samsung’s strategies in pre-pandemic

and during the pandemic, it aims to examine the impacts of Covid-19 in these international

companies. It further intends to investigate the future implication concerning the nature of recent

changes in the companies.

Objectives

1. The exploration and contrast between Apple and Samsung in business marketing

and lawsuit.

2. The exploration of alternate sources of funding for Apple and Samsung company

surviving status in pandemic

Summary of Literature

There is no doubt that if there are two major manufacturers in the world of mobile

telephony, these are Samsung and Apple (Storeng and de Bengy, 2021). However, beyond their

sales volumes pre- pandemic, it is important to observe what each of them invest their money in
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and how to manage their resources to win this battle of aces in the mobile sector where nothing is

written. 

Apple was the first to successfully occupy the market first niche mp3 players using the

iPod. Samsung quickly followed the Apple corporation, introducing similar devices, - For

example, the Galaxy S4 has a higher screen resolution, more RAM, and longer battery life than

the iPhone 5. For the most parts especially in pandemic, these strategies work in a plus for both

companies. Innovation maintains Apple’s reputation amongst tech geeks around the world,

which brings numerous profits to the company, whilst Samsung’s focus on the mass consumer

has made the company the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer (Sharma et al., 2020).

Without a doubt Covid-19 takes each industry in crises while it highly effect smartphone

market, these two leaders are constantly watching each other very intently. Mutual respect, and

perhaps fear of pandemic, is a kind of fuel for corporate strategy (Sim, 2017). One way or

another, both companies seem to have copied their recent announcements from a neighbour’s

notebook. With the introduction of the first Galaxy Gear smartwatch, Samsung has taken on the

role of a potential pioneer in a new category in the consumer electronics market. The watch for

29 Euro is synchronised with a smartphone and, amongst other things, allows you to take photos

and work with applications. But with all crises and lockdown much more important than the

technical characteristics is the fact that Samsung is getting rid of its reputation and goes to the

first line, positioning its smartwatches as a cult fashion accessory.

At the same time, experts are confident that something like this will be the next step for

Apple. So, there was engaged in predictions: “Smart watches” may soon become a reality, and in

the form of a device from Apple made of bendable glass (Rasheed and Abbas, 2021). According

to data released by Bloomberg a little later after pendamic, Apple has already assembled a team
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of more than a hundred industrial designers to develop a device, which could be a smartwatch,

and has filed more than 79 patent applications containing the word wrist. 

But before the Korean manufacturer celebrates the victory, Apple will show that it has

learned the lesson it was taught in Seoul. And as homework the long-awaited iPhone 5C

smartphone. Putting aside its “super-premium” strategy and introducing a product aimed at the

mass consumer, Apple now plans to gain market share by offering a line of products in the mid-

range.  This be considered a response to the deteriorating position in the mobile device market

and the rapid growth in turnover in markets with more loyal pricing policy. In China, due to

Covid-19 large numbers of users are out of sight of Apple, which has a 4.6% share of the

smartphone market, according to consulting firm (Mirzaee et al., 2021).

Methodology

This study made use of mixed research method to evaluate the impact of Covid-19 on

Apple and Samsung. There are three different types of research methods including qualitative

method, quantitative method, and mixed research method. Quantitative research is helps in

numerical representation of data. Qualitative research method is non-numerical and descriptive

method (Mirzaee et al., 2021). Researcher utilised qualitative research method because it is time

and cost saving. This study followed the mixed research method though the Research Onion. The

brief overview of Research Onion is shown below.

Research Strategy

This study used a secondary research strategy. In this research strategy, researcher can

use secondary sources for the collection of data. The main secondary sources of data collection

are books, articles, journal, and company report.

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Data Collection

Due to the Covid-19, researcher avoided to conduct a field work for the data collection.

This was necessary to avoid any risk of being affected, therefore this study adopted a secondary

research strategy. Researcher conducts a data collection though secondary sources such as

articles, journal, books and reports etc. The research methodology consisted mainly of a review

of secondary sources. This study is to compare and contrast the world biggest and well-known

organisation Apple and in terms of profitability and respond to the need to examine the impact of

pandemic in the context of its regulation. In essence, qualitative research is useful for studying

and adopting individual behaviours of Apple and Samsung before and during the pandemic. In

order to verify the theoretical propositions developed first bot organisation has been compared

and secondly their status in pandemic.

Data Analysis

The quantitative methods help to get the descriptive analysis of individual behaviour

towards Apple and Samsung and the case study to get an earlier research report that considers the

prospects of innovative. This study will choose the secondary qualitative research method

because it is time and cost saving, whilst the primary research will require a sufficient time and

cost. The content analysis technique is utilised for the analysis and interpretation of previous

data. The data will be collected form the Google Scholar, EBSCO, and University Library (Liu,

2021).
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Findings

No one has been affected as much by the pandemic as Samsung. The new report proves

it, as the Korean company experienced an annual decrease of 27.1% in its sales . The drop is

meteoric and means that the company sold during the second quarter of 2020 only 54.7 million

units worldwide (Ishida, 2020). That’s very little above the 54.1 million that Huawei reported in

the same time period.

Samsung Changes its Strategy to Fight against Apple

Samsung is in an uncomfortable place in the sale of mobile phones: the first place. This

means that the rest of the manufacturers have a clear objective which is to end their domination

that has already lasted for almost a decade. The Koreans landed in the smartphone market almost

by chance with their smartphones and quickly came to dominate it from the hand of Google and

the operators. They soon surpassed established rivals at the time such as HTC, Motorola,

BlackBerry or Nokia - currently missing in action - and went on to develop a long battle with

Apple in the market and in court (Keserwani and Rastogi, 2021). These legal struggles, spanning

more than 7 years and multiple countries, took their toll on Samsung Mobile and its executives,

designers, and engineers. Samsung has dominated the market with small and fast innovations in

its devices that allowed each year to be a little faster and have a huge variety in sises, prices and

power on the shelves of the stores.

But something strange has happened in the last two years (Ishida, 2020). Their latest

phone, the Galaxy Note 9, is surely the best smartphone on the market: great camera, great

design, excellent build quality, very good performance, long battery life, etc. Despite its high

price, it is a device that has it all. Everything that consumers asked for and yet has been quickly
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buried amongst those who expect “the best in software” who threaten to see Google’s Pixel 3,

those who are looking for something “crazy new” eager to see the latest design follies from

Xiaomi , Oppo or Vivo, or those who directly go for the Apple iPhone without much thought. It

is precisely the iPhone X the phone that has managed to get Apple out of its design quagmire.

For years their mobiles were practically identical until last year’s twist where they introduced the

notch in the screen and eliminated its home button. The rest of the brands came quickly to copy

this approach but Samsung has remained firm with its own designs.

This adds solidity to Samsung as a company, which shows itself above the micro-trends,

but also keeps it from being “in the zone”: its Galaxy Note 9 and S9 from 2018 are very similar

to the models of 2017, of 2016 and 2015. Buyers of expensive phones want something exciting

to scratch their pockets for, and Samsung offers them something good - very good - but an old

recipe. Samsung executives have indirectly stated their solution by talking openly about mobile

phones that they are just preparing with flexible displays and a totally renewed design. A

challenging position from someone who knows an ace up their sleeve (Hwang and Colyvas,

2021).

Marketing Wars: Apple vs. Samsung

There was a presentation of an updated product, albeit number one, but still just an

updated one (Garrett et al., 2021). With the degree of competition in the smartphone market,

updating was a very risky move. In the first three days of sales of the previous version iPhone

4S, about 4 million devices were sold worldwide. Over the entire history of the model, a little

over five years, sales reached 250 million devices. Competitors from Samsung have sold more

than 20 million
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Apple has not only created a smartphone with a touchscreen, it has created a huge content

market, which includes the largest online music store iTunes and the App Store. And if iTunes

reshaped the music market, selling hits for $ 0.99, then the genius of the App Store idea is that

more than 70 thousand third-party developers began to create content for Apple devices of their

own free will and pay the same Apple for the opportunity to sell these applications (Chae,

2020). Today there are more than 700 thousand applications in the store, and the App Store’s

turnover exceeds $ 250 million per month. A third of this money goes to Apple.

By developing the content market, the company stimulates the sale of its smartphones

and tablets. The virtual economy created by Apple feeds itself, and this, of course, gives a

significant head start at the start of sales of the new iPhone. But Apple’s trump card is the

brand’s fans, similar to the religious community (Almeida et al., 2021). Having once changed

their minds with a revolutionary device, the company offers new gadgets and services,

introducing users deeper into its value system. And users appreciate it, buying new versions of

the iPad and iPhone after each (usually annual) lineup update. Therefore, a photo of a crying girl

with the caption “Now we don’t have the last iPhone” is not just a joke, but an illustration of the

company’s verified marketing strategy.

Anyone wondered where all these people are putting their old iPhones? That’s right, they

give it to relatives, friends, or just sell it. Well, what happens to the phones afterwards? Most of

the iPhones released remain online, they have new owners - second-tier users (Krishna,

2017). They join the ranks of Apple’s multimillion-dollar army, they are connected to the

system, they download content from iTunes and the App Store. And they ultimately generate

secondary profits for Apple. Thus, adherents of the first echelon annually bring millions of
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iPhones of the previous generation to the secondary market. And this also works for the success

of the novelty.

Someone does not like the new adapter in the iPhone 5, someone thinks that it is difficult

to find covers, a stereo system for the new iPhone. And the manufacturers of accessories are

already at a low start, they will be happy to update their lines, because this is also a noticeable

incentive for their sales (Almeida et al., 2021). Where Apple is inferior to Samsung in local

markets is the sales pattern. Unlike the United States, sales linked to a contract do not work in

Ukraine, whilst authorised iPhones are generally sold in this way. Communications store

managers are filling their hand by cutting out mini-SIM cards. Now that the SIM card in the

iPhone has become thinner, will they take the files? In Samsung, users do not need to cut

anything.

Apple claims that Samsung violated patents; in the US, the Korean manufacturer was

even fined a billion dollars. But the fact remains: Samsung has a larger display, it costs less, and

the range of services is quite comparable (Yun et al., 2019). Of course, the Android Market today

is still far from the App Store, but the largest Internet company in the world, Google, is behind it,

and it has enough strength and resources to compete with Apple.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Samsung allocates more human and innovative resources to sell more

volume. The giant manages to sell more but for less profit margin, which helps it to have a

higher income and investment. Whilst Apple focuses its efforts on making the most of the

sales of its smartphones with more moderate expenses both in human resources and in marketing

and innovation. Not for this reason, it ceases to be innovative - remember that the great mobile
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revolution came from its hand - but rather prefers to earn more in the sales margin with a smaller

catalog and resources. Thus, it can summarise that Samsung bets on volume by selling more for

less and Apple on the profitability of each product by giving less for more. Two different

strategies for two mobile phone giants that have managed to be crowned in the mobile market.

Governments and health services around the world are working to find ways to counter

the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus to protect people and help communities return to their

normal lives. Software developers are also doing their part by creating technical tools to contain

the virus and save lives. In a spirit of worldwide collaboration, Samsung and Apple should

collaborating to develop technology that will help government and health authorities use

Bluetooth to combat the spread of the virus. The main principles of the new technology are user

security and privacy.

Since the COVID-19 coronavirus can spread from infected people to those around them,

health authorities have named contact tracing as one of the most effective ways to contain the

pandemic. Leading global health services, universities and non-profit organisations around the

world are already developing voluntary contact tracing technologies. To support these efforts,

Apple and Samsung released an end-to-end solution. First, the two companies should jointly

release APIs to provide interoperability between Android and iOS devices when using apps built

by healthcare providers. Users will be able to download these official tools from their respective

app stores.
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Recommendation

Then, in the coming months, Apple and Samsung should jointly release a broader contact

tracing platform, integrating the functionality into their operating systems. It is more robust than

an API, giving users the ability to enable contact tracing and interacting with the broader

ecosystem of healthcare applications and services. Confidentiality, transparency, and

voluntariness are top priorities in the development process, during which we hope to receive

feedback and consultation from all interested parties. All the necessary information about the

development of new platforms will be published openly.

Apple and Samsung should convince that it is important to team up today to tackle one of

the world’s greatest challenges. Working closely with developers, governments, and health

services, it is hoped to create effective technologies that will help limit the spread of the COVID-

19 coronavirus and accelerate the return to normalcy.

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References

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Mitchell, L., Tomko, M. and Dennis, S., 2021. The acceptability and uptake of

smartphone tracking for COVID-19 in Australia. PloS one, 16(1), p.e0244827.

Hwang, H. and Colyvas, J.A., 2021. Constructed Actors and Constitutive Institutions for a

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Ishida, S., 2020. Perspectives on supply chain management in a pandemic and the post-COVID-

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