Tablets
The Market Lifecycle
The best way to see into the future is precisely the one that we have been allowed to experiment with for this exercise: A time machine that takes us to an assigned point, lets us look around at the things that are the most relevant to us, and then returns us safely to our chronological point of departure without having undermined the entire space-time continuum. The analysis that we have performed for this assignment has provided us a model for the ways in which a product can realistically be assessed, even when our time machine is in for repairs.
This analysis is specific to the data that we have been given for this exercise; however, the overall dynamics of the market explored here are relevant to the sale of electronics in general and to a not-insignificant degree to all markets that are keyed to novelty, which is to say all markets in a free-market system. The success of a company such as this does not require the creation of a financial analytical plan that is different from already-established and essentially simple ones. Rather, as the analysis for this exercise has shown, very basic pricing models can be use in very precise ways so long as the data is sufficiently refined.
Essential to the way in which the market is currently structured, at least in terms of electronic products, is that these products are released in waves, acknowledged in the model numbers that designate nearly every product as the next, best thing since the previous version was released. The fact that the market is so fluid requires analyses to be performed quickly and repeatedly: There is essentially no moment in the current marketplace in which the value of any product can be assumed to be static. This requires that all financial analyses...
Because of the ways in which electronic products are conceptualized, produced, released, and withdrawn, the mechanics of production cycle dynamics are particularly clear in this sector of the economy.
As we return to the initial moment of the analysis, it is now clear that product X5 is on a downward trend. X5 is thus following the standard trajectory of a product: It is introduced and receives an initial high tick in sales both because of its novelty and because it can piggyback onto the good name of the company and expectations built up through familiarity with similar products. This is one of the trickiest parts of the marketplace to negotiate: New products must be different enough to attract consumers who already have (in many cases) a perfectly good and only slightly passe model while being similar enough to previous models to reassure potential buyers that they will be pleased with what they are buying. That the successive generations of tablets from this company have been able to do so has been documented in other parts of this assignment.
From an observer's point-of-view, the electronics industry might seem to thrive on novelty and one-upsmanship, the purview of barely grown-up boys who are more interested in showing off their newest toys than in thinking about the bottom line. While this description contains more than a grain of accuracy in it, it is essential to remember what most people in the electronics industry in fact know quite well: Novelty is valuable only to the extent that it increases the number of individuals who are willing to buy a product at a price that maximizes the profit for the company not only for the current…
