CSEB 3102

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

ASSIGNMENT 1
REPORT ON THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF A
MULTINATIONAL COMPANY (MNC) WITHIN A GLOBAL
INDUSTRY (POSTWAR PERIOD).
LG CORPORATION AND TELECOMMUNICATION
INDUSTRY – SMARTPHONE.

GROUP 4

PREPARED BY: EASHWAR A/L SHANMUGAM CEB 130012

PREPARED FOR: MR. MOHAMAD SAID BIN OTHMAN
 Contents

1.0 Introduction. …………………………..…………………………………………..…....3

2.0 Part 1: Overview of the Smartphone Industry
2.1 The smartphone industry history. …………………………………….…………..3
2.2 The smartphone. ……………………………………………………….…………..4
2.3 Telecommunication (Smartphones) industry size. ….…........................................5
2.4 The main players. …………………………………………………………………..5
2.5 Smartphone market structure. ……………………………………………………6
2.6 Smartphone market trend. ………………..…………………………..…………..7
2.7 Regulatory environment of smartphone industry. ………………………………9
3.0 Part 2: Global Strategy of LG Electronics Inc.
3.1 LG Electronics Inc. global supply and demand strategies for smartphone
industry. …………………………………………………………………………...9
3.2 LG Electronics Inc. global positioning and competitive strategy.
3.2.1 LG Electronics Inc. Porter’s Five Forces Model. ……………………..11
3.2.2 LG Electronics Inc. SWOT Analysis. …………………………..………14
4.0 Conclusion. .……………………………………………………………………………15
5.0 References. …………………………………………………………………………….16
6.0 Appendices.
6.1 Chart 1- The regional smartphone shipments and year on year average
smartphone sales growth. ………………………………………………………..18
6.2 Chart 2- Smartphone competitor lawsuit regarding smartphone model
patents. …………………………………………………………………………… 19

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 1.0 Introduction
Smartphones are becoming necessities currently. This phenomenon have spread
globally; engulfing mankind from all walks of life. This trend initiated from 1980s and
intensified in this millennia leading to the establishment of smartphone industry. Since then,
smartphone industry become a lucrative market yet challenging and intimidating due to its
innovation, large investment and rapid innovation.
Among the industry players is LG Corp. based in South Korea. Travelling the journey
of technology since 1940s; telecommunication is not alien to it. Became the pioneer for
everything in South Korea in addition for being the saviour for the nation’s devastation in
Korean War witnessing the split of Korean Peninsula into Republic of North Korea and the
Government of Republic of Korea by manufacturing affordable technology pieces for
domestic use made LG Corp. matured as endured to compete in smartphone industry.
In this assignment, we will examine two related parts; the smartphone industry and
how LG Corp. places itself into the industry itself. For this purpose, studying a number of
issues is a must. The smartphone industry will be viewed from two perspectives; global
demand and global supply. Meanwhile, LG Corp. methodology in being an effective
smartphone industry player resolved by analysing its strategy via methods like Porter Five
Forces Model and et cetera.
Hopefully, this assignment will enlighten the miracle of East Asia’s revival from
tragedies and secured itself as one of the global economy triads; competing fiercely and
proudly with Western Europe and Northern America.
2.0 OVERVIEW OF SMARTPHONE INDUSTRY
2.1 The history.
The ancestor of current smartphones was the one in 1993 by IBM; ‘The Simon’.
It was a marvel; given birth from integration of two technology pieces considered as
human history revolutionists which were the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) and a
phone. Besides been costly and heavy, The Simon was meant for the usage of business
personnel and enterprises.
The Simon has embarked the smartphone industry and divided the smartphone
industry era into three phases. The first one was primarily on the emergence of
smartphones. It was the Golden Era for IBM and Blackberry. Offering features like e-
mail, the Internet and faxing, Blackberry was considered the advent of current
smartphone models’ birth. The fame was ended in 2007 by Steve Jobs using iPhone. The

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Apple Inc. smartphone stole the market share of IBM and Blackberry not only for its
smooth operating system but also due to its offering to general consumer market. The
domination of enterprises as main consumers was history from that moment; marking
the start of second phase.
However, it was not long for Apple Inc. to have a niche competitor; Google.
Google Inc. attempted to penetrate the smartphone market by offering operating system
called Android and competes with Apple Inc.’s iOS to this day. This second phase was
on fulfilling general consumers’ needs besides keeping the manufacturing cost low to
offer competitive market price to them. The third phase started in 2008 eliminated the
gap between general consumer and enterprise centric smartphone adding to features
improvement such as display, battery life and et cetera.
2.2 The Smartphone.
A smartphone is an electronic device that runs operating system (O.S.) which
allows installing applications, always connected to the Internet and offers diverse
functionalities to consumers. Lately, smartphones product cycle is approximately
sixteen months only due to high smartphone replacement rate which correspond to high
consumer demand evolution especially in its specs like battery life and data processing
speed. Take note that the smartphones product cycle was cut down at least thirty six
percent compared in 2007 which took approximately 25 months for each cycle.
Nevertheless, technology advancement would able to cater global smartphone demand
varieties. Google played a crucial role here by introducing Android operating system to the
world which enabling smartphone manufacturers to install the ready-made operating system
into smartphones and saved cost by precluding hiring an engineering team to develop
distinctive and particular operating system for their smartphones.
The Android operating system has evolved into Qualcomm-Android standard;
Quadroid. The Qualcomm standard eases smartphones manufacturers to focus on
smartphones’ hardware and marketing strategies. The operating system outsourcing strategy
catalysts smartphones’ lifecycle demise.
This rapid product lifecycle is known as “Android’s Law.” The law observes that
Android’s reputation rapidly increases manufacturers’ speed in building and selling new
smartphones. Analysts suggested the market cycle will stop shortening at some point because
consumers could not absorb new smartphones as fast as they’re produced. At this time, the
trend is predicted to rise.

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 2.3 The smartphone industry size.
An industry size could be described by either number of units manufactured or
the sales made. The units mentioned could be in annual revenue or in smartphone units
sold in a particular year. In 2014, the smartphone industry recorded sales of 1.245
billion units globally; a leap in of 29.9% compared to the previous year. LG Electronics
recorded market share of 4.6% in terms of smartphone sales in units with 57.7 million
units sold worldwide. In total, smartphone industry yielded USD 276.39 billion in
revenue in 2014 increasing 4.2 % relative to 2013.
Those increments displays the positive growth of the industry and the market itself
which signifies that the industry has possibility to yield a number of significant benefits like
increasing annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP); a nation’s yearly income depending on its
smartphone companies’ market share and positive social impact via high employment rate.
2.4 The main players.
Smartphone industry has a number of major players like Apple Inc., Samsung
Electronics, LG Electronics Inc. and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. However, their
dominance is not permanent as Android operating system is such an open source that any
minor players own opportunity to compete with the major players due to the scenario in ‘2.2
The smartphone’ topic.
Apple Inc. procured the lion’s share in smartphone market
primarily to innovation instead of creativity; they improve
existing products instead of creating new ones. Focusing on these
five keys in product design; simplicity, reinvention, usability,
creating ‘usage’ experience and ahead of its competitors. Begin
with iPod in 2001 which enabled general consumers to carry
entire music library with them added to iTunes Music Store
in which consumers could organise their music library and
purchase songs, gave birth to iPhone in 2007; becoming the ‘next big thing’ of
smartphone industry. In 2014, Apple Inc. recorded revenue of USD 182. 8 billion with 98,
000 employees globally.

Turning to an Asian Tiger champ;

Samsung Electronics paved its path to success

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since 1993 exercising new strategy; focusing on distinctive product design rather than
cost minimising. The strategy exercise was conducted by employing a design firm;
IDEO besides other designers to aware of current global trend in fields like fashion,
cosmetics and et cetera to digest general consumers’ taste. Furthermore, Samsung
Electronics adds value to its creations like Samsung Galaxy S5 which integrates its health
application to heart rate sensor; creating a fitness tracker besides incorporating green
technology. To date, Samsung Electronics hires 275, 000 with revenue of USD 195.86
billion.

Besides that, one of the ‘Sleeping Giants’;

China came out with Huawei Technology Co. Ltd.
in 1987 becoming the largest telecom equipment
manufacturer in the world in 2012. This company
established their aggression by becoming the
largest patent application entity with staggering 3, 442 patents in 2014. Primarily
attentive on consumer centric innovation, Huawei Technology Co. Ltd specializes in
information and communication technology infrastructure like cloud computing and wireless
services to name a few. Up to 2014, ploughed USD 46.5 billion in revenue and 150, 000
employees; Huawei Technology Co. Ltd. positioned itself with global smartphone market
share of massive 9.8 %.

LG Electronics Inc. shares

the same nation as Samsung
Electronics; well known as the
leader of electronics and electric appliances in South Korea. Armed with pioneer of the first
telephones, escalators, washing machine and et cetera, LG Electronics Inc. grabbed the
title as ‘The First’ in its nation’s mobile phone market with the world’s first Code
Division Multiple Access (CDMA) mobile hand phone. With smartphone sales of USD
53.7 billion pillared by 141, 000 employees, LG Electronics Inc. became amongst important
and noticeable smartphone industry player.
2.5 Smartphone industry market structure.
Market structure is the characteristics of firms producing identical and homogenous
products in a particular market. Smartphone industry conceive differentiated oligopoly
market; in this context a market arrangement embodies a few smartphone
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manufacturers offering similar or differentiated products which are close substitutes to
each other that influences every manufacturer’s market share due to rivals’ action thus,
manifest need for the manufacturers to make moves to offset rivals action.
Illustrating the scenario above, smartphone industry have a few prominent players
referred as smartphone firms like Apple Inc., HTC, Nokia and et cetera; collectively
owning total market capital exceeding half of the smartphone industry capital itself. In
respect to market pricing, smartphone firms act as price makers by fixing their creations’
price considering other firms’ influence. Subsequently, smartphones market price difference
happens; it falls after some time of its initial launch.
In product context, smartphones are generally similar regardless of its
manufacturers yet differentiated by the manufacturers’ brands together with slight
modification in features of the smartphones. Nevertheless, the slight features are the game
changer in smartphone industry. For instance, Apple Inc. installed ‘Siri’ the personal
assistant-like feature into its iPhones yet to be launched by other industry players if any. This
differentiated Apple Inc. from other smartphone firms and labelled them as unique.
Other oligopoly facet would be high market barrier for entry. In smartphone industry,
possessing substantial capital and generic departmental function efficiency; research and
development, marketing and production. Without the mentioned advantages, the new firm
will definitely engulfed by major firms in no time. Adding to the existing difficulties are the
patents which forces smartphone market new comers to create new innovation to avoid
copyright issues from firms like Huawei Technology co. Ltd which has thousands of patents
on its own.
Moreover, oligopoly market exercises non price competition predominantly due to
fear of price war which potentially will cause severe loss to smartphone firms as the
action diminishes revenue due to price lowering exercise. Practicing price rigidity
(scenario in which price remain fixed regardless of fluctuation in supply and demand of
smartphones) as the competition gist, smartphone firms rely on other success tools like
product quality and marketing promotional tools epitomised by Apple Inc. which preserved
iPhone’s price to make it as an exclusive item.
2.6 Smartphone market trend.
As time flies, consumer taste undergoes evolution. Amongst countless specs demanded,
wireless connectivity become the most concerned. Seamless wireless connectivity allows a
smartphone to connect to other devices such as smartphones and laptops wirelessly. This
feature; done with velvet touch allow activities like photo and file sharing to be done via

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Bluetooth application or Wi-Fi and even aids communication via WhatsApp, Viber or
WeChat applications.
Moreover, the current global smartphone demand spins around emerging market
which made from middle income earners. The strata opens wide opportunity for the
smartphone firms to sell their product as they mark the transition from being lower income
earners; signalling their increasing purchasing power. Hence, the demand for reasonable
priced smartphone rise to attention. This is plausible for firms owning manufacturing base in
developing nations as the labour cost are lower relative to developed nations’.
The challenge for the smartphone firms is further intensified through the urge for
consumers to run errands via online platform using their smartphones; mobile banking, online
shopping and others and value added facets such as GPS (Global Positioning System for
navigation), camera, radio and fitness trackers took the mediocre smartphone usage to a
whole new level. Such settings forces the firms to design smartphones featuring higher
Internet reachability complete with mobile hotspot. Indirectly, this feature made Internet
service providers to step up their performance and manifested competition among
themselves.
Currently, smartphone users also concerned about its security. Lately, communication
related crimes like fraud and information stealing besides loss of smartphones happening
frequently. Smartphones innovations involving biometric securities involving finger print
scan or voice recognition has been prevalent form day to day. Aware of this, LG Electronics
focuses in equipping its latest model; LG G4 with finger print scanning which someday may
replace its previous LG Knock Code security system while preserving its Optimus User
Interface.
Battery life is given attention too. While existence of portable smartphone battery
chargers and devices like power banks does help, it is not permanent. Ideas in which
smartphones could charge themselves or generate their own power become more and more
into attention. Up to this day, there is no smartphone industry players managed to fulfil that
demand.
In terms of smartphone firms’ trend, China is booming and engulfing the smartphone
industry. The saturation of smartphone market preceded by Western smartphone firms
is diluting which attributed to rise of smartphone industry new players from China;
Huawei Technology Co. Ltd and Xiaomi. The Chinese smartphone firms operates at
‘cutthroat end of smartphone market’ yet delivered desired smartphones which suits

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the consumer demand. This is proved by steady market share and sales of the firms from
quarter to quarter of fiscal years.
2.7 Regulatory environment of smartphone industry.
Regulatory environment is the rules and laws established by federal, state or
international entities to control the behaviour and action of smartphone firms’ activities. For
smartphone industry, the regulations enforced is dependent on specific issues.
Regulations made are varied on the area of governance. For instance, smartphones
components. The Communication and Information Ministry of Indonesia enforced a
law which requires all smartphone firms domestic and global to use at least 40%
Indonesia made components inside their 4G smartphones; forcing them to set
manufacturing base in Indonesia beginning from 2017. This action is intended to aid
Indonesia’s domestic trade and production by securing demand for their domestic electronic
industry.
Differs with Indonesia, the East Asia’s Sleeping Giant; China bump onto smartphone
apps. In 2012, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposed on tightening
management of access for mobile intelligence terminal. This was exercised to encounter
infringement by smartphone vendors who preinstall apps which are malicious, illegal, virus
contained or apply subscription charges without consumers’ consent. This exercise is
basically to offset infringement via smartphone apps or to put in one word; security.
Concern on smartphones’ patent become another issue to be dealt with. Apple Inc.,
currently faced lawsuits from firms like HTC, Nokia and Samsung. In fact, Apple Inc. is
the most sued smartphone firm to date. Litigation costs solely affects Apple Inc. innovation
development and risks the firm specifically in reputation. To curb such conflict, a number of
nations have established laws like America Invents Act of 2011 in the U.S. and Patent Act
1983 in Malaysia.
3.0 Global strategy of LG Electronics Inc.
3.1 LG Electronics Inc. smartphone global supply and demand strategies for
smartphone industry.
LG Electronics seems to discard marketing elements in early 2006; offering customer
value and nurturing customer loyalty. Apart from that, LG Electronics deals contracts with
one operator at a time. Until each contract dealing is completed, LG Electronics will not
look for other potential supplier to back up the supply chain just in case the current dealing
operator rejects the contract terms.

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 However, LG website is believed to offset those issues by offering online mobile
phone exterior design customization like colours and accessories to name a few. Mustering
the data on customers’ preferences via the online customizations allow LG Electronics to
identify the market needs in both high – end and low-end. This would mark the beginning
of customers’ loyalty as LG Electronics would be able to cater the need and fulfil the
demand; consistent with smartphone market trend. This instantaneously will cut off the
dependence on suppliers and retailers from LG Electronics. Consequently, refining LG
Electronics bargaining power on them.
Realising marketing somehow important for thriving, LG Electronics Inc. conducted
marketing strategy like ‘sports marketing’ by promoting 2001/2002 CAF Champions league
and the contributing communities of Panama, Mexico, and Guatemala by providing
medical/educational services. Effective marketing efforts would lead to Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI) amplification.
Furthermore, LG Electronics has to focus on its low-end market segment (emerging
market) also. The low – end market segment highlights price sensitivity. The price
sensitivity could be well managed using cost focus strategy. For this, LG Electronics could
innovate its process design by outsourcing its manufacturing process to entities specialising
in Electronics Manufacturing Services suppliers. Such outsourcing reduces costs in their
supply chain, shorten the time of the product development process and, consequently, bring
a new product to market in less time, in that way the time-pressures of product life cycle
shortenings could be offset.
This reduces cost incurred thus, rationalises price reduction on its manufactured
mobile phones’ market price. The penetration into emerging market indicates
commercialisation hence, preparing distribution infrastructure in the emerging market is a
must.
Penetrating global smartphone market effort forced LG Electronics Inc. to integrate its
management with the locals to gain trust, understand the domestic taste on smartphones and
cuts operational costs simultaneously. LG Electronics Inc. referred this effort as LG
Electronics Culture implementation. Local managers are empowered with decision making
authority and performance evaluation which decentralized LG Electronics Inc. global
management. In China, 98% of employees are locals and procures supplies from the locals
too; providing employment and market for Chinese employees and suppliers respectively.
LG Electronics Inc. exercised FDI equity entry mode; wholly owning subsidiary as its
FDI strategy in 1993 in China. LG Electronics Inc. conducted joint venture also as FDI

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 form by owning 80% of LG Electronics Huizhou Ltd. and 70% of its 9 operational centres.
In Brazil, LG Electronics Inc. performed equity mode entrance also as in China by setting
up two fully owned subsidiaries of manufacturing plants in Amazonia and Sao Paolo in
1995 and 1996 respectively.
LG Electronics Inc. faced a number of challenges in penetrating global market. For
instance, India has high import duty. To overcome high import duties, LG manufactures
smartphones besides computer monitors and refrigerators in India itself at its manufacturing
facility at Noida, Delhi. LG Electronics Inc. had already commissioned contract
manufacturing at Mohali, Kolkata to reduce cost via “digital manufacturing system” (DMS)
as a cost-cutting innovation replacing the Six Sigma exercise.
Above all that, LG Electronics Inc. exercised exporting as non-equity entry mode by
its products as well as smartphones to regions like Middle East, South Asia and Africa. This
entry mode was emphasised intensely that it won “Highest volume of Export and third
highest import containers” by Container Corporation India Ltd.; (CCIL) in 2006.
3.2 LG Electronics Inc. global positioning and competitive strategy.
As in 3.1, those are the strategy exercised by LG Electronics Inc. up to this moment.
However, there is still room for improvements which could yield better corporate
performance in indicators like market share, sales and profit; establishing LG Electronics Inc.
at better position globally. The strategy for that goal could be made via detailed analysis
using a number of methods or models for instance, Porter Five Forces Model or SWOT
Analysis which are used here. Those analysis would realise LG Electronics Inc. vision “to be
a lasting company which contributes to human prosperity and fulfils social responsibility by
delivering sustained and differentiated customer values”. If and only if the methods are
harnessed fully to its potential and implemented by doing it right at the first time.
3.2.1 Porter’s Five Forces Model of LG Electronics Inc.

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Elements Level Reason
Smartphone market is becoming saturated and diminishes the
marginal revenue and growth; providing opportunity to new
entrants to compete on price. Samsung, the biggest Android
running smartphone manufacturer, for the last quarter of 2013;
suffered 16 to 20 percent revenue decline compared to the prior
quarter, indicating market saturation as shown by decreasing sales
Threat of
High growth stated by Gfk an industry statistics firm.
new entrants
This leads to diminish of marginal revenue thus making the
market permeable to new entrants which will exploit pricing
strategy by releasing smartphones with lower price relative to
major smartphone industry players. Thus, the market’s low-end
segments would play crucial role in demanding for commoditized
mobile phones.
Rivalry There are a number of industry players who are the competitors
among High for LG Electronics Inc. such as Lenovo and Samsung, where they
existing also providing the same products to consumers. The rivalry

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firms mostly rely on product life cycle and price. Existing firms also
keep catching larger market share from year to year. Lenovo
expanded its global share from 4.8 percent to 6.6 percent in 2014
and Huawei from 4.3 percent in 2013 to 6.9 percent in 2014 for
second quarter of the fiscal years.
Smartphones become more and more significant in human life
and convergence seems to preserve this trend in upcoming years.
Since, smartphones alone seems able to provide convenience for
daily human needs, they face no risk from substitution; tablet.
Voice call and old-style text message functions would be out of
Threats of
use by the customers. However, removing voice call and outdated
substitute
Low text message functions from a smartphone actually would need
products or
the entire user or at least the majority of the users to have a 3G
services.
Internet access which allow them to communicate without the two
traditional functions which is impossible since even when a
customer has a smart phone, it does not necessarily means that he
or she will be connected to the Internet all the time.
Therefore the substitute effect of the tablet seems to be minimal.
For LG Electronics, the bargaining power of customers is high
Bargaining because customers can easily switch to another competitor if they
power of are dissatisfied with the smartphone. This could be attributed by
High
buyers or the smartphone replacement rate which get higher as time flies
customers. which proves that customers bargaining power is increasing even
though they act individually as consumers.
LG Electronics Inc. suppliers did not bypass the manufacturers
currently due to the decline in market growth, increasing their
dependency towards their buyers. Furthermore, large number of
Bargaining mobile phone parts are manufactured adhering to industrial
power of Low standard which means that switching cost from one supplier to
supplies another would be low relative to total operational cost.
Hence, low switching cost together with the large number of
suppliers enable the mobile phone manufacturers to have more
bargaining power while suppressing that of the suppliers. The

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 fundamental issue here is that level of power depends on
suppliers’ preferences, purchase volume and also market
situation.

In a nutshell, smartphones’ overall environment should be considered as with a

medium competition level considering rapid growing market and the strong demand, it would
be a good news for market expansion in smartphone industry especially when there is
increasing profit margin though at gradual increasing rate; a typical feature of a market which
is in the maturity stage of smartphone industry cycle.

3.2.2 SWOT Analysis.

SWOT ELEMENTS ELEMENT

Strength Technical design
Weakness Innovation
Opportunity High replacement rate
Threat Market saturation

LG Electronics Inc. possess strength in technical design which perceived as refined,

cutting-edge mobile phones that have avant-garde based innovative designs. Illustrated by
various design awards such as the ‘red dot’ design award for the KE850 Prada or the 2007
CES ‘innovations’ award which the company received for the design for the ‘Black’ series.

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Those awards enabled LG Electronics Inc. to sell up to 1 million units in first 18 months of
sale. Hence, those recognitions for the technical designs boosted the model’s sales. LG
Electronics Inc. emphasises technology progress. For instance, LG KE850, with touch
sensitive display and the company’s sound grounding 3G technology.
Major weakness in LG Electronics Inc. is the company’s decision to cut model
development by focusing on a platform strategy focusing on product width rather than its
depth. Here, product differentiation is focused rather than product innovation. Though
permits economies of scope; the average total cost of production decreases as a result of
increasing the number of different goods produced it will ultimately come at the expense of
customer choice. To date LG Electronics Inc. has introduced more than 60 phone series with
significant difference with depth up to 25 models under Optimus series and only 1 under ME
series.
Opportunity in smartphones industry with most prominent advantage is high replacement
rate. An average smartphones product cycle is sixteen months; making consumers constantly
lurking for new smartphone models in market due to the shorter cycle compared to years ago;
which was around 25 months. Assuming if LG Electronics Inc. has high innovation rate, it
will be able to boost its sales for each quarter in fiscal year since consumers are always
looking for latest smartphones.
LG Electronics Inc. could also foresee a trend seen in most markets shows that the 5 to
5.6 inch segment grew by nearly 150 percent in 2014. In 2015, Gfk, a Germany marketing
firm forecast this segment to become the dominant screen size band, surpassing 4 to 4.5 inch.
Hence, LG Electronics Inc. could manufacture smartphones based on the specifications on its
prospective models.
Threat for LG Electronics Inc. would be the saturation of smartphone market in coming
future as suffered by Samsung as the biggest Android running smartphone manufacturer for
the last quarter of 2013; 16 to 20 percent revenue decline compared to the prior quarter. Such
scenario leads to diminish of marginal revenue thus making the market permeable to new
entrants which will exploit pricing strategy by releasing smartphones with lower price
relative to major smartphone industry players.
4.0 Conclusion
Smartphone industry has evolved through time becoming an industry which transformed
human history and life. From the history up to regulations the industry displayed its
significance and influence globally. Smartphone industry is expected to develop persistently

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and benefits global community via communication enhancement, job opportunity and
nations’ income increment in years to come.
LG Electronics Inc. paved its way globally by fulfilling global demand and supply using
its global stratagem as displayed by the strategies and analysis stated. By exploiting them
effectively, LG Electronics Inc. would be able to surpass its current performance and boost
East Asia’s economy performance establishing its home nation; South Korea position as an
Asian Tiger in no time.
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http://techland.time.com/2012/05/07/six-reasons-why-apple-is-successful/
CIW Team. (2015, February 24). Xiaomi Won Smartphone Market in 2014 — China Internet
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Cromar, S., & Aviram, A. (2010). Smartphones in the U.S.: Market Analysis. Retrieved from
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Report
Delios, A., Beamish, P. W., & Lu, J. W. (2010). Product Cycle Theory. In International
business: An Asia Pacific perspective (2nd ed., p. 59). Singapore: Prentice Hall.
Gartner. (2015, March 3). Gartner Says Smartphone Sales Surpassed One Billion Units in
2014. Retrieved from http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2996817
Goldman, D. (2011, February 3). Android's law: Why your new smartphone is already a
dinosaur - Jan. 31, 2011. Retrieved from
http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/31/technology/new_smartphone/index.htm
Kahn, S. (2014, March). Communications Equipment Manufacturing. Retrieved from
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Kwang, K. (2012, July 6). China smartphone rules to help industry mature – ZDNet.
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Lella, A. (2014, March 7). ComScore reports January 2014 U.S. Smartphone Subscriber

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 Market Share. Retrieved from ComScore:

https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2014/3/comScore_Reports_January_201
4_US_Smartphone_Subscriber_Market_Share
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Thierer, A. (2012, April 8). Regulatory, Anti-Trust and Disruptive Risks Threaten Apple's
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market

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 6.0 Appendices

6.1 Chart 1- The regional smartphone shipments and year on year average smartphone
sales growth.

Chart 1 IDC’s chart regarding smartphone shipments according to region and their
respective year on year average growth from first quarter in 2012 until the second quarter in
2014.

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6.2 Chart 2- Smartphone competitor lawsuit regarding smartphone model patents.

Chart 2 The patent copyright lawsuits against Apple Inc. by numerous companies from 2010
until 2011.

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