Oligopoly Paper

Apple has revolutionized the smart phone industry. The company produces many more products than smart phones for example, next generation watches, MP3 players, laptops, tablets, and a music streaming service. However the iPhone is their bread and butter. The company has been around for 40 years. In my opinion the marketing strategy behind the iPhone is what changed the industry. Apple entered a competitive market, but has essentially help turn the market in to an oligopoly. They are industry standard when it comes to technology firms. Their strategy of a simplistic user interface has helped them keep a firm grip on the smartphone market.

Apple is a public company that was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. The company focus was to develop and sell personal computers. Apple does not have one owner, but is publicly traded and thousands of people have stock invested in the company. The company joined the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2015.

The smartphone market was very competitive market ruled by carriers before the first iPhone was introduced. There was no revenue sharing between carriers and manufacturers and mobile devices were phones, not handheld personal computers. The success of the iPhone has transformed the market into an oligopoly. As of March 2016 Apple and Samsung accounts for 72.1% of market share of smart phones in the US with Apple accounting for 43.6% alone. (Comscore, 2016) Apple reported a record $51.1 billion in revenue and $11.1 billion in profit during its fourth fiscal quarter of 2015. The company significantly outpaced its 2014 fourth quarter numbers, which were $42.1 billion in revenue, $8.5 billion in profit. Fiscal year 2015 was the most successful in Apple's history, and those figures don't include the 2015 holiday sales for the highly anticipated iPhone 6S or iPhone 6S Plus. (Ross,