1.

Majority of Apple’s customers are the elderly young. Three quarters of those who shop for a new Apple product are previous Apple customers. Half of customers who use Apple branded phones are thirty years and below with fifteen percent being students.

2.

Consumers would want to access information regarding the products of a company and the same to represent the true state of affairs. Companies must be willing to share real time data regarding the products they offer in the market. The customer contact point should be well managed where focus is given to giving the customers quality service. In recent years, e-marketing has become a desirable attribute among consumers. They would like to read the full details of a product before buying it. The most efficient way to do is through the internet. Customers would prefer to make online orders, have the product delivered and have the option to pay online using services such as PayPal. Customers are always price sensitive and they would want to engage with a company that offers competitive prices. Competitive prices, in customers’ point of view are those that are not exaggerated relative to market prices of similar products. Whenever they are required to pay more, then they must be satisfied that the product carries differentiated features that are valuable.

3.

Marketing mix refers to products, price, place and promotion strategies that are applied by an organization. Apple’s products represent a collection of technologies. Some of the best sellers are iphone3G, iPod classic, iPod touch, Apple TV, imac among others. Apple applies price scheming and premium pricing strategy. Apple promotes products through Apple shops, supermarkets, electronic shops and in online communities. These double up as the places where products are availed and sold out to customers (Appleyard 2008).

The product life cycle of Apple’s products are always short lived mostly twelve to eighteen months. This is due to nature of products they engage in. For the case of mobile phones for example, no one will replace a phone with the model of the phone disposed. Also no one wants to buy a phone that got to the market many years ago. At least Apple’s market niche would not allow that. Their products hit the market fast, grow rapidly in terms of sales volume up to until when the market feel that it has had enough of that product. Incidentally a new model comes up and steals the attention of consumers.

4.

Given the level of effort, time and specialization that goes into the designing function of Apple Company it is safe to argue that the company needs to outsource a number of its