Apple and Disney Failure in Asian Markets

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Apple's iPhone is a hit everywhere in the world — except for Japan. Apple’s iPhone has generally been a strong seller worldwide with more than 5 million units sold in the United States alone. The biggest mistake that Apple made when trying to sell its iPhone to the Japanese market was its failure to localize it. Apple completely ignored the needs and the wants of the Japanese public. In 2013, Apple has hit the #1 spot on the top global brand list beating out Coca-Cola. Apple’s had profits of 93 Billion dollars last year and is not going anywhere soon. Unfortunately everyone makes mistakes and Apple made a big one in Japan.

The Apple iPhone has been standardized all over the worked with the same types of hardware no matter where it’s sold. What Apple failed to realize is that the market for smart phones in Japan is much more competitive than the United States. Apple made the mistake of not trying to localize the product with its Japanese customers. The IPhone was rejected by the Japanese public in its original form and as a result ended up becoming a large failure for the company.

First and foremost Apple failed to do its research of the Japanese market. The market in Japan and China have never been very accepting of American smart phone brands like Motorola, and Nokia. Both of those company’s efforts were failures for their companies. Apple did not take this into consideration when it decided to launch its IPhone unaltered in Japan. One of the big draws of the new Apple IPhone was its 3G technology. This is a new type of new technology was a way for networks support services to provide information at a faster transfer rate. This was new and innovative to the Unites States consumers, but not the Japanese. 3G technologies offer...

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... sustainable way”(Bradsher, 2005). After much criticism from environmentalists all over the world Disney quickly decided to remove the plans of having Shark Fin’s soup on the menu.

In the cases that were reviewed both Apple and The Walt Disney Company failed to research the needs and preferences of each of its consumers. They both have large customer bases that were affected by the situations. When going into a foreign market its important to research the culture, religion, values and beliefs of the intended market. Both of these companies took the appropriate competitive and strategic steps to build their brands back up and are happily both back on top of their games.

Reference:

BRADSHER, K. (2005, June 25). Shark Soup Is Off the Menu at Hong Kong Disneyland . New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/25/business/media/25disney.html

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