Google pixel’s quest for market share

Executive summary

Technological changes in the world today have brought a lot of innovations in the world in term of the products which are sold to the world today. There is a lot of innovation in the mobile industry, and every phone is aiming towards capturing a larger market share. There is a lot of development which has come into the world today as a result of the introduction of the Android technology. Many smartphones have been developed in the world which has enabled the people to communicate effectively using the different phones introduced in the market today. There is a great deal of information which has led to the development of the industry and the competition in the market has brought a lot of innovation in the mobile phone industry. A lot of competitors have been established in the market with every company finding a way to differentiate its products. Doing different tasks has been made easy in the world today because of the development of smartphones, which can assist in making phone calls, assist in emails, and assist in listening to music and photographing. Earlier this year Google announced the introduction of Google pixels, which is a highly ranked phone. The phone is expected to compete with iPhone in the next coming years because of the product specifications. After years of development of the product, Google seems like it has achieved its objective because it has made a phone which is worth competing and using good retail strategies the sales of the phone will be high. The phone has a lot of features which are better than some of the new iPhone specifications, and this makes it be preferred by most of the customers. This paper will give a stage by stage analysis of the process of introducing the product to the market. There are few strategies which the company has to use in order to market its products. Using a direct market approach, reducing the price of the product as well as producing more versions of the phone would enable it to have more sales in the market.

Introduction

In any perfect competitive market, there is a free entry and fress exist. As such, any company entering the market seeks to win a large market share as it looks forward to maximizing its profits. In the quest for market share, the Google company has to advertise the phone well, and this will make the sales of the phone to be high. It is a newly introduced product, and therefore it needs to take advantage of all the life cycles of the product in order to find a way into the customer’s hearts in the market. There has been a lot of reviews of the phone, and so far, it is estimated to be an amazing innovation which will grow in future to become a worthy competitor of the biggest firms in the mobile industry. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the life cycle of the product in the coming few years. There are estimates of the prices of the products, which explain whatever is expected of the product in order to grow in the market. The marketing decision of the company is also considered in the introduction of the new product, and this will be determined by the targeted customers in the market. To achieve the main objective of this discussion, there has to be an analysis of the sales pattern of the product since it was introduced, the factors which helped in influencing the sales of the product, and the life cycles of the newly introduced device in the market. The life-cycle analysis of the product is in the initial stages of development since it’s a unique product in the new market.

Literature overview

Product life cycle

The product life cycle of a product is divided into four different stages. The stages of development of a product include introduction stage, the growth stage, the maturity stage and the decline stage of the product. The product life cycle can be used in defining the product and the different stages of the product. According to Armstrong and Kotler, the development stage of the product has to be included in the product life cycle. However, in this stage of development, there are no sales, and therefore it cannot be included in the main discussion of this research. The research will focus on the introduction stage and the growth stage of the product because it is a new product which is seeking for a big market share in the market (A, 2016).

The introduction stage

This is the stage, which happens when a product has just been introduced into the market. Google pixel is a product in the market, and it is using the Google brand name to make the product to be famous to the consumers in the industry. In this stage, the sales are usually low, and the growth of the product is usually very slow. This is because of the poor distribution system of the product. The profits which are associated with the company are very low at this stage of development, and this makes it hard for the product to grow. After Google pixels had been unveiled earlier this year, the phone was only available in only six countries. This shows that the distribution channel of this phone is poor and therefore there has to be a strategy in the market which is supposed to improve the distribution of the product. The countries which the phone was available included UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, the US and India. There were no official plans which were meant to expand the coverage of the product because it was new in the market. This puts the company in a state of a disadvantage because of the rising competition in the market. A product which has just been introduced in the market has few competitors(Spence, 2016). The main competitors of Google pixel are iPhone because the product has some specifications which are similar to iPhone but they are advanced. The few competitors in the market when a product is being introduced in the market is because the market is not tested and the product which is being distributed has not yet been proved to be necessary for the market. However, with the strong brand name of the product, the competition of the product is rising because it has slowly established itself in the market. The price of the new product in the introduction phase is usually high because of high costs of material and low output of the product in the market. This makes the product to be less demanded by the people and also it may cause a breakdown of the product in the market.

There might be problems in the products because of the technical difficulties in this stage of development. There are high margins which are set at the development stage of the product because of the promotional expenditure which is used in promoting the product.

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According to Kotler, the companies which decide to enter into the market have to make the decision early enough in order to make other decisions concerning the strategies to use in the entry process. At the introduction stage, Kotler suggests that there should be four processes which have to be implemented. There should be a rapid skimming strategy in the market. This is where the new product is introduced into the market with a high price and a high level of promotion of its facilities(A, 2016). The next strategy to consider in the market is the slow skimming strategy in the market. This strategy includes setting a high price of the product and a low-level promotion of the product. This strategy is used to make sure that the firm gets recovers a lot of gross profits from the operation of its services. There should be rapid penetration strategy which has to be introduced in the firm upon entry. Here, there is a heavy promotion which is carried out, and the prices of the products are set to be low. Slow penetration strategy is the last stage whereby the launching of the product is made at a low price, and the promotional level of the product is also very low. This makes the product to easily penetrate the market.

Growth stage

This is the period whereby the people who are in the market start liking the product. The price of the product remains the same in this stage of development, or the price can fall slightly. The sales of the company have to rise at a high pace, and the profits of the company increased significantly throughout this period. For Google pixels to grow it has to adopt various strategies in order to find itself in a better position than the other companies. At the end of the growth stage, there is a decrease in acceleration of the product because of factors like competition in the market(Wee, 2016). The competition in this stage is high, and the company has to find ways to differentiate its services and products in the market. This enables the company to grow, and it also makes the company to be differentiated in all ways.

The promotional expenditures at this stage of development are very high because the company has to find ways to reduce the competitors and also beat the competitors in the market. To keep the growth of the product to be strong, there are various strategies which have to be adopted in the market. These strategies include improving the quality of the production the market by adding new product features and improving the style of the product, adding new models of the product with different prices in order to target all consumers, using entry strategies in the new market segmentation, using a strong distribution channel of the product which is aimed at improving the knowledge of the product to the other people in the market, assist in shifting from the awareness programs to invest in product preference strategy in the market and putting the process of the product at lower levels in order to attract the consumers who are price sensitive.

Google pixel

After it had been unveiled earlier this year, the product was able to gain recognition because of the brand name of the company. The unveiling of the device showed that it had a highly rated camera. The battery life of the phone is high because it can stay for a whole day without depletion. The memory space of the phone is 32GB and 128GB with each of them having different prices. The price of the 32GB phone is $649, and the 128GB phone is $749. The phone has two cameras, the front, and the back camera. The front camera is 12MP, and the back camera is 8MP. It has a RAM equivalent to 4GB, and there is a fingerprint scanner in the phone which makes it effective(Mihai, 2016).

In terms of performance of the phone, the display of the phone and the design of the phone. It is better than the iPhone 7 which makes it a perfect product to be used by consumers. This makes it stand a chance in the market. There is no effective strategy which has been developed in the market recently in terms of the product development, but the entry strategy which the product has used has enabled it to capture a lot of customers and improve its market over the last few months.

Popular magazines have covered more details of the phone which has made it known to many people. Using various strategies in the market, the phone has been able to gain a lot of recognition and access from the customers, and this has made it very famous. There are various outlets in the six major countries which the phone is found, and these outlets have made it famous among many clients and customers. During the Black Friday, the sales of the phone improved because of the price reduction. Its establishment in the market shows that there is a bright future of the product in the market. However, the increasing competition from other brands may make the sales to reduce.

Analysis of the life cycle of google pixel

Introductory phase

Since the phone was launched there has been a lot of reviews were made and they signify the position of the phone in the market. The introductory phase of the phone was faced with a lot of shortcomings because of the strategy which it used in making the product famous in the market. The market share of the product has been increasing at a higher rate towards the end of the year. Since it was launched the trend of increase in the sales of the company has been in shambles but there are signs of stability in the market.

The market share of the product since it was launched was very low in the initial stages as compared to the other brands after they were launched. The other companies have a good brand name which has made the companies have higher sales in the market. The sales of the company as shown by the graph one week later was small, but this can be attributed to the fact that the company produced small units of the phones at the start which was in line with the sales levels which were predicted in the market(Florin, 2016). There has been a lot of competition in the market lately, and this has made the product to reduce in sales too.

The phone has received a lot of acceptance in the market as depicted by the high amount of sales the phone has had. The sales were high according to the number of units which were produced by the company.  The sales of the phone met the expectations of the company in terms of sales in the last quarter of 2016. This shows that the sales forecast is expected to increase next year with the rise in the demand of the phone in the market. It is a perfect competition phone because it offers an alternative to the consumers to choose from either using the iPhone or the Galaxy. After it was launched, the expected sales were estimated to be three and four million handsets. The initial survey in the market had shown that the sales would have amounted to that and that’s why they predicted it would be so. The sales which have been attained so far are almost 3 million which supports the initial research which was done in the market. With the festive seasons arriving, the sales of the company are expected to rise to a higher level.

In 2017, the sales of the company are expected to rise too to a rate of five to six million handsets. Initially, Google had introduced another device which was faced with a lot of competition in the market, and this caused a reduction in sales. However, this device is expected to improve on its sales in order to capture the entire market in 2017. The gross profit is expected to be in the range of 22% to 25%(A, 2016). This will make it more established considering that it is only being introduced in the market. The gross profit of the Apple products is 40% which is higher than the pixels profit.  The company has used the rapid skimming strategy in the market which has enabled the company to charge the products at a higher price and has used a string promotional strategy in order to convince the customers in the market on the effectiveness of the phone. This has enabled it to have more gross profits on each unit which it sold in the introductory phase of the phone in the market. The consumers in the market have also been convinced by this strategy because it has added more benefits to them as compared to the others.

Growth stage

The growth stage of the phone was faced with a lot of development. There are two brands of the phones which have been established in this market, and this has enabled the company to grow in terms of sales. In this stage, the profits of the company have risen, and the expected profits are estimated even to rise to higher rates in the coming few years. The importance of this device in the market is important to the customers as seen by the number of sales which occur daily. There was a turning point in the sales of the phones which occurred in November (Mihai, 2016). At this stage, there was a lot of promotions which occurred in order to make the phone be known by more people. Awareness of the product in the market has been made possible in this years, and it has led to more sales.

The graph shows the growth in sales of the company’s product as shown from the analysis done back in November this year. The sales rose at a higher rate than expected on Black Friday which made the rate of growth of the sales to be more than those of the other companies. This shows that the company has improved in the number of sales and it is growing a good rate. The growth of the products of the company is in accordance with the expectations of the company. This has enabled the product to be more powerful in the market.

Outcomes

According to the analysis, there is a high expectation of the products, and this is supposed to make the company superior in the market. The superiority of the product in the market has made it effective concerning sales and also to be effective in terms of the value which is attached to the products. Google pixels has sold a lot of units, and the production of the units is expected to increase in the coming few years. This will improve the position of the product in the market as well as making the product to be known by many people. Since its price is lower than that of the other good branded companies, the sales are expected to rise in 2017 which will make the company effective. There are few strategies which the company has to use in order to market its products. Using a direct market approach, reducing the price of the product as well as producing more versions of the phone would enable it to have more sales in the market. The market share of the company is expected to increase in the coming year if the company uses these strategies to market its products.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the establishment of the company in the market is not easy, but there are various strategies, which the company has used in order to market its product. In introducing a new product in the market, every company is faced with similar challenges. In order to compete effectively, it is advisable to introduce competitive strategies, especially on technological aspects with proper innovations. It is through this that chances are high to see a product succeed in the last few months with the sales levels of the company escalating to very high level which are manageable. The increase in the number of units, which are produced in the company, is expected to increase the sales of the company as well as improve the output of the company. There are few shortcomings, which are faced by the company in the market, but it has tackled all those problems by making sure it reaches out to its targeted customers more in the quest of improving its market share. This will in the long run ensure maximized profits.