1. Media Company Case
Study
Task 1 Understand the structure
and ownership of the media sector
Beth Melia

2. Apple
The company I am writing a case study for is Apple. Apple first
belonged in the IT industry.
The company was first set up as a IT company and released its
first computer in 1976.
As the company grew they released more products. Portable
computers became available, then PDA’s. 1998, Apple introduced
a new all-in-one computer the iMac. The iMac design team was
led by Jonathan Ive, who later designed the iPod and the iPhone.
Ipad’s, a computer tablet is now available and their latest creation
are the Apple TVs

3. Ownership
 Apple was founded by Steve
Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald
Wayne in 1976.
 Steve jobs owned Apple Inc until
August 2011, as he then resigned
as CEO of the company and later
passed away.
 As a corporation today, the
company is now owned by its
shareholders, or people who
invested money in it. For example,
Bill Gates owns 51% of the
company.

4.  Apple Inc is Vertically integrated. This is when one organisation
designs and manufactures everything for the company, therefore
all of the profits go straight to Apple. As a result, they increase
their income.
 There are also disadvantages to vertical integration. One
example of this is can be if the company fails to maintain their
finances, they are the only people affected and will consequently
lose more money.
Apple Inc owns software and hardware for the company.
iTunes is used to connect the products and purchase various
songs and apps via the iTunes store. Safari is owned by apple
which is just as popular as Microsoft Windows Explorer. The
products are also owned by the company. Apple is a great
example of vertical integration because it is one of the most
popular forms.

5. Competitors
 Apple Inc’s biggest competitor is Microsoft. This is because they
own similar products within the media. Some examples of these
are Internet Explorer and the iPad as Microsoft has recently
released a similar product to this.
 Another group of competitors are mobile phone companies. This
is because Apple have various iPhones available therefore they
are in competition with companies such as Blackberry, Samsung
and Nokia.
 There are also competitors for Apple’s computer products.
Computer manufacturers such as Toshiba, Samsung, Acer,
Asus, and HP are competitors in computer hardware
 These competitors impact on the production and distribution
because the company will make sure the products are at the
highest standards therefore the customers will be satisfied and
no need to complain or build a bad reputation of the company.

6. Customers
 Apple’s customers vary from demographics of any gender aged 12+ of the
upper/middle class. This is because the products are quite expensive and more
advanced than other products within the media therefore the customers have to
be willing to pay more then the average price for a product of similar character.
 Other characteristics of the target market for the company can be music
enthusiasts, and also professionals in media and design.
 In terms of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Apple’s customers might result in social
needs. This is because someone might want to belong to certain social group
and in order for this to happen, they might feel the need to own a product within
the company.
Quotes:
“Apple has stated very recently that they have 200 million credit cards registered on
iTunes”
“59.6 million iPhones sold through June (from SEC filings) and 3.2 million iPads were
sold”
“About 8 million iPhones and 4 million iPads were sold during August and July, the
total number of iPod touch sold is 45.2 million.”
http://www.quora.com/How-many-customers-does-Apple-have

7. Organizational Structure &
Implications
 There has been changes to the organizational structure of Apple
Inc. Steve Jobs was the CEO of the company up until August
2011 when he resigned. Later that year he passed away, and
Timothy Cook then took over as CEO of Apple Inc.
This is what the Hierarchical Organization
Structure looks like today

8. Controversies Within Apple
Inc has been very few controversies within the successful company.
 There
 One example of this is in 2006. The Mail on Sunday alleged that
sweatshop conditions existed in factories in China, where the contract
manufacturers operate the factories that produce the iPod. The article
stated that one iPod factory had over 200,000 workers that lived and
worked in the factory, with workers regularly doing more than 60 hours
of labor per week.
 Immediately after the allegation, Apple launched an investigation and
worked with their manufacturers to ensure that conditions were
acceptable to Apple. Yearly progress reports have been published since
2008.
 Although this issue was finally resolved, there are still some concerns
such as; in 2011 Apple admitted that they were finding more and more
child laborers in their factories.

9. Bibliography
Duell, Mark, Daily Mail, http://tinyurl.com/7dnn4we,
UPDATED: 08:10 27 January 2012, The Mail on
Sunday.
Siegler, MG, TechCrunch, http://tinyurl.com/9vz8vpj,
Wednesday March 2nd 2011, TechCrunch .com.
Dumke, Mitch, lucidchart, http://tinyurl.com/97tn3hl,
24th February 2012, lucidchart .com.
Dediu, Horace, Asymco, http://tinyurl.com/2vtlyyy,
SEP 3, ’10 9:39 AM, asymco . com.