Internal Strengths.

1. Skull candy has gone though many ups and downs and through it all has taken on CEO Hoby Darling who was the previous general manager of Nike +sport. This new change has led to new ideas and has allowed Skull candy to jumpstart itself back to the competition.
2. The have the design and development team located in house which has helped to reduce costs.
3. Rebellion against the normal Boring headphones chooses to think outside the box when creating their product.
4. Focus on new market niches, like women and sports performance training. They have a presence mainly in one niche market. This is a weakness because they are not diversifying to different markets that could increase their market share
 Skull candy has been unable to continue its unprecedented growth rate, this has impacted its profits significantly within the last few years.

 Selling few products in stores unlike its rivals like Sony that competes in several markets.
Business level strategy
 Marketing Strategy/ Competitive strategy
Differentiating its products making the logo recognizable anywhere.

 Skull candy wants to win the stores and to do this they make sure their listening stations in stores are always working to ensure that they provide a great first impression of their products to customers

• Increasing popularity by making them affordable and stylish.

Dr. Dre's Beats Electronics entered the market in 2008 — a full five years after Skullcandy — but quickly became the dominant player. Beats are typically higher priced, in the $199-and-above area, compared to Skull's average $99 product. But Beats' compelling higher-end lines have siphoned off some of Skullcandy's lower-end consumer base, putting the prime mover on the defensive
Competition.
External Environment:

Recognized the market trend needs with digital audio and mp3 and decided to build a unique line of headphones, earbuds and docks to exploit this opportunity Corporate-level strategy:

In the past, Skullcandy decided to rely on its distribution networks and products to sell for themselves, but when Hoby took over last year he decided to dig deep and discover the core of people selling and enjoying the Skullcandy products One of these strategies was ending team meetings with “Skull Huddles”—stories about how the company was living and carrying out its core values—passion, grittiness, team-first ethic, optimism, and their attention to youth culture.To increase communication, company executives stopped working in offices and now work in cubicles with the rest of the team.Furthermore, to connect with their core customers Skullcandy promoted someone to run R&D and innovation. This definitely speaks to the renewed sense of vitality and culture at the headquarters.

Corporate-level strategy:

In the past, Skullcandy decided to rely on its distribution networks and products to sell for themselves, but when Hoby took over last year he decided to dig deep and discover the core of people selling and enjoying the Skullcandy products One of these strategies was ending team meetings with “Skull Huddles”—stories about how the company was living and carrying out its core values—passion, grittiness, team-first ethic, optimism, and their attention to youth culture.To increase communication, company executives stopped working in offices and now work in cubicles with the rest of the team.Furthermore, to connect with their core customers Skullcandy promoted someone to run R&D and innovation. This definitely speaks to the renewed sense of vitality and culture at the headquarters.Associating with and sponsoring celebrities and athletes that will wear their products to market them on a higher level. Since the Introduction of Dr. Dre Beats Skull candy has suffered an increasing loss. As a way to put a stop this Skullcandy has decided not to go down without a fight and has begun to produce high endheadphones and has had them sponsored by celebrities like Kate Upton and athletes like Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose.Skull candy’s general focus is to build brand loyalty, they want to be the first name that comes to mind when you think of headphones and are not turned off by the high price
To set themselves apart from other competitors like Sony and Bose and Beats Skullcandy’s mission has been to be an audio brand reflecting the collision of music, fashion, and action sports lifestyles. Bold color schemes, loud patterns, unique materials and creative packaging have been fused together to grab the attention of young people.
To compete they have sold their headphone not only in the traditional retail and warehouse outlets but also in fashion stores for youth like Tilly’s, Zumiez, In this vein, Skullcandy believes the best voice and consumer influences for their product are the young people.

Unfortunately, their products and the materials they use in comparison to companies like Beats who make premium headphones has put them on the back-burner in sales lately.

This has resulted because the people who buy edgy headphones want high quality and high performance headphones that while more expensive, are more worth it to these consumers because of the long lasting durability of the Sony, Beats, and Bose headphones