Apple Inc. Marketing Audit: External Environment Analysis
This paper presents a marketing audit of Apple Inc., one of the world's largest technology companies. Using the PESTE framework, the paper analyzes the macro-environmental factors influencing Apple's marketing operations across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Key areas examined include demographic trends in smartphone and tablet adoption, political and regulatory conditions affecting corporate taxation and product safety, economic growth patterns across Apple's major markets, technological innovation driving R&D investment, cultural influences on consumer preferences, and environmental sustainability challenges. The paper concludes with context for improving Apple's marketing effectiveness in an increasingly competitive global landscape against rivals such as Samsung, Dell, Microsoft, and Lenovo.
- Introduction to Apple Inc.: Apple's competitive position and market overview
- Analysis of External and Internal Environments: Methodology and audit framework selection
- Macro Environment Audit: Demographic and smartphone adoption trends
- Political and Economic Conditions: Tax policy, regulations, and market revenues
- Technological and Cultural Factors: R&D investment and consumer taste influences
- Environmental Considerations and Conclusion: Energy costs and carbon footprint reduction
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- Applies a recognized analytical framework (PESTE) systematically to each macro-environmental dimension, giving the audit a clear and repeatable structure.
- Grounds claims in specific quantitative data — revenue figures, market share percentages, R&D expenditure, and smartphone adoption statistics — lending credibility to the analysis.
- Connects external environmental factors directly to Apple's business decisions, such as product safety regulations leading to lawsuit exposure and rising energy costs affecting operational expenses.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied framework analysis: taking an established marketing audit model and systematically populating each category with real-world evidence. Rather than describing the PESTE model abstractly, the author uses it as an organizational scaffold, ensuring every environmental dimension is addressed with at least one concrete example or data point drawn from industry and government sources.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a company overview establishing competitive context, then states its audit objective. The body is organized around the PESTE framework — Demographic, Political, Economic, Technological, Cultural, and Environmental — each treated as a discrete subsection. This mirrors a professional marketing audit format, making it a useful model for students learning how to structure applied business analyses. A references section follows standard APA citation formatting.
Introduction to Apple Inc.
Apple Inc. is an American multinational company specializing in the production and marketing of innovative electronic products, including the iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, Mac, and iOS. Globally, Apple is the second-largest information technology company, with annual revenue of $227.5 billion at the end of the 2015 fiscal year. Apart from its superior financial assets, the company also enjoys high brand loyalty across all its product lines. Apple also records unparalleled market success in iTunes software and digital music players.
At present, Apple distributes and markets its products through online and retail stores, which helped the company generate annual profits of more than $53 billion at the end of the 2015 fiscal year. Despite this financial success, Apple continues to face stiff competition in global market environments, since it operates in both developed and developing countries. In the United States and in European countries, many electronics companies compete fiercely with Apple. Currently, Apple faces competition from large multinational electronics producers including Samsung, Dell, Microsoft, HP, Lenovo, LG, Google, Nokia, and IBM (O'Grady, 2009).
A highly competitive environment compels Apple to intensify its high-tech product development in order to maintain a leading position in the market. HP and Dell are ahead of Apple in portable and desktop computers in both the United States and globally. Furthermore, Apple faces fierce competition from heavyweight computer manufacturers such as Lenovo, Acer, and Asus. In 2015, Apple ranked fifth in global market share for computers (Conn, 2016). Faced with these competitive pressures, Apple needs to recapture market share in order to record profitable returns across its computer and other product lines.
The objective of this report is to apply critical thinking skills to a marketing audit of Apple Inc. Specifically, the report scans both the external and internal environments in which Apple operates and provides recommendations that can assist the marketing department in improving the effectiveness of its current marketing strategies.
Analysis of External and Internal Environments
This paper relies on secondary sources drawn from various published research papers to analyze both the external and internal environments, using the macro environment audit, task environment audit, marketing function audit, and strategy audit (Vana & Cerna, 2012).
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.