Introduction
The Apple Inc. was found by two mutual interests‟ friends Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. It is a high technology corporation mainly design and produce mobile for media and communication device, digital music player, and the production and sells of variety of software, networking, service and maintenance and other digital applications. However, the company also sells and delivers kinds of digital applications such as iPhone, iPad, Mac, iPod, Apple TV and a portfolio of consumer and professional software applications. The Apple Inc. is selling its products worldwide through its retail stores, direct online stores, and direct sales force, as well as through the third-party cellular network, wholesalers and retailers. Until 2012, the net sales of Apple had increased by 31.5% to $142 billion. This report is a case analysis based on Apple’s competitive advantages and the measurement of their performance in both financial and non-financial fields.
Competitive advantages 1. Industrial design: Turn the Ordinary into Something Beautiful
Apple was the first company to introduced all-in-one computer with colourful translucent cases with a distinctive eggshell design. With the remarkable design, Apple’s product became “an icon of the digital age”. Apple values the whole consumer experience more than the actual technical performance. Many of Apple's competitors take pride in creating products that feature a superior technical performance. Apple products are often described as "brilliant and sex," and its users talk more about this sexiness than they talk about pure technology features. In essence, Apple has mastered the art of keeping the relationship of consumers with technology easy and exciting, while still maintaining a firm grip on the "engine's" performance. 2. Deeply in focus, narrowest product lines
Unlike the vast majority of Apple’s rivals on different markets, Apple keeps its product lines very narrow and simple. Some say it limits the consumers’ choice, other see this as a benefit since Apple essentially get the premium capabilities across the whole product line. Operating this way allows Apple to focus. It can put more into design, more into marketing, and maintain a higher level of connection with its brand and hardware ID. In addition, its repair, stocking, returns, and sales incentives are simpler and cheaper. Finally, there is less customer confusion. Nobody is confused between buying an iPhone against an iPad. Hence, Apple is simple technology producer with the easier purchasing decision to make. 3. Engage with fashion icons
Apple can design something sleek and fashionable (colour, look & thickness), people would really jump on the board. As part of apple’s ecosystem, the accessory market is popular with wide range of fashionable brands join in, such as iPhone case and Apple-Michael Kors design bags. Moreover, apple promoted itself as a hip alternative to other brands. Apple ads were placed in popular and fashion magazines as well, venturing out from general computer publications. As well as apple’s commercial ads, rather than only introducing the product’s features and major function, Apple is more focus on product intensely. 4. Effective supply and distribution channel
Apple arranges very specific deals with suppliers to foster seamless operations. Foxconn is the largest contract manufacturing with Apple, it could provide better production cost control by Apple. The details of which include purchasing necessary equipment for suppliers as long as they guarantee to meet Apple’s schedule and share any cost savings incurred from the new equipment by lowering component prices. Apple essentially removes or greatly minimizes the risk factors from the supplier side of the equation, and as long as both parties fulfil their roles, it is a win-win relationship. Additionally, Apple was the first to introduced retail store to provided consumers their first exposure to the Macintosh product line. Apple store is contributes to branding build up with high profile locations in every major cities.

5. Highly Integrated Product Range.
It's no secret that each of Apple’s individual product offerings are top-notch. With the integration of different products into a suite, apple is able to draws users into an entire ecosystem of consumer electronics that interface seamlessly onto one platform. Once a consumer has purchased one of Apple’s product they would much more inclined to try others to complete their set. All apple products can sync with others, it helps users to save time for transferring data. Moreover, when it comes to adding new products, Apple is also a firm that believes in deeply in focus. For instance, the launch of IPad was described with more intuitive and easier to use than a PC, and more seamless way than they are on a PC. So it is the product which fulfill the gap between PC and mobile phone.

Financial situation
Profitability ratio
The gross profit margin is used to analyse how efficiently a company is using its raw materials, labour and manufacturing-related fixed assets to generate profits.
Gross profit margin= (Net sales- COGS)/ net sales= (142,360-79,791)/142,360=44%
Comparing with its direct competitor Samsung with 32% of profit margin, a strong figure of 44% indicates that Apple is able to control its production cost efficiently. Based on the Case of Apple Inc., Apple’s drive to keep its costs down was often controversial. By comparing against the margins of previous years, there is an upward trend in the percentage of gross profit margin from 10% to 44% in 1996 to 2012.This result occurred for two reasons. Firstly, Apple has falling component cost and design improvements helped to reduce the iPhone's cost structure. Secondly, Apple Inc. has lower manufacturing-related fixed costs and labour costs due to Apple outsource manufacturing to Foxconn which is the most important manufacturing partner in China.
Liquidity ratio
A liquidity ratio is a measurement that measure Apple’s ability to pay short-term obligations. The current ratio is calculated by dividing Apple’s current asset by current liabilities.
Current ratio= Asset/ liability=150,934/48,436＝3.12 times
Apple’s current ratio is 3.12 times, which is well above the Samsung of 2.89. It shows that Apple’s liquidity position is somewhat strong and safe liquidity position, it also indicate that the firm has ability to pay back its short-term liabilities with its short-term asset. Thus, apple has strong financial reserves for further research and development investment on its product.
Efficiency ratio
Inventory turnover ratio is used to measure the inventory management efficiency of Apple Inc.
Inventory turnover ratio= COGS/ inventory=79,791/1,102＝72.41 times
As a rough approximation, each item of Apple’s inventory is sold and restocked. The high inventory turnover ratio of 72.41 implies strong sales due to great performance in some emerging markets. In countries such as China, the consumers were willing to buy iPhones for price approaching $1,000, even without subsidies. Moreover, with wider use of 3G/4G networks, the demand for smartphones was expected to continue growing rapidly. In 2012, Apple continued to hold more than 70% of the U.S MP3 market.
Non-Financial Performance of Apple Inc.
Market Share

Table 1: PC Manufacturers: Worldwide Market Shares, 2000-2011 Table 1 above shows the worldwide market share of PC manufacturers from year 2000 to year 2011. This statistic shows that Hewlett-Packard (HP) held the most market share from year 2000 to year 2011. The top four PC vendors as shown above are HP, Dell, Lenovo and Acer have a total of 53.4% of the worldwide market share in year 2011. Apple Inc’s worldwide market share is lesser compare to these top PC vendors with only 4.7% worldwide shipment share in year 2011 but the total shipment of Apple Inc has increased continuously from 1.9% in year 2004 up to 4.7% in year 2011.
Market Sales

Table 2: Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End User by Operating System, 2006-2011 Table 2 above shows the worldwide smartphone sales to end user by different operating system from year 2006 to year 2011. In year 2011, Google’s Android smartphone OS has the most market share with 46.4% and Apple’s iOS X smartphone operating system is the second highest with 18.9%. Android supports a few major handset vendors such as HTC, Motorola and Samsung while iOS X only support Apple smartphone. Some Android operated smartphones had larger screen and better camera compare to iOS X operating system smartphone and these features might be the reason Google’s Android OS has more market share compare to Apple’s iOS. There is a steady increase in the iOS X operating system smartphone sales from year 2006 to 2011.

Table 3: Worldwide Tablet Shipment by Operating System, 2010-2012 (estimated)
Table 3 shows the worldwide tablet shipments by operating system, from year 2010 to year 2012. In year 2010, iOS operating system tablet sales were 14.8 million units while Android OS tablet sales were 4.6 million units. iOS operating system tablet sales has increase to 40.5 million units and Android operating system tablet’s sales have increase to 26.4 million units in year 2011.It is estimated that Apple’s tablet sales will reach 58 million units in year 2012.
Conclusion
Apple Inc. is a leading multination corporation in the technology industry. Apple Inc. is ranked number 17 in Fortune 500 in year 2012 (Fortune 500). Fortune 500 is an annual ranking of America's largest corporations. In the previous section, Apple’s competitive advantage is discussed and these competitive advantages have lead to an increase in Apple’s market share. Though Apple Inc. faced stiff competition from other companies in the technology industry, the sales of Apple product has create profit increasingly for the organization.

Reference List

Fortune 500. (n.d.). Retrieved 19 August, 2013, from CNN Money: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/full_list/
Yoffie, D. B., & Rossano, P. (14 August, 2012). Apple Inc. in 2012. Harvard Business School , 1-30.