SWOT analysis on Asus

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

Currently, Asus has produce the largest number in motherboard in the world with 40% of the global market share. Lately, Asus’ Eee PC lightweight laptops are getting more popular in the United States. Jackie Hsu, the president of Asus America, the American division of AsusTek is in charge of all things Asus in North and South America. In 1997, Asus wanted to expand their business. They want to have a laptop business. They did a very good job on the motherboard side and also the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) business. They started their business in Taiwan and some European countries. Fortunately, they grew up the business from zero to number one. Then, they move on to another countries. In 2007, they started to build their operation in the United States. Asus also build up their winning formula that is winning=marketing (quality, speed, innovative, service)/cost. Asus is currently the world’s top 3 consumer notebook vendor. In addition, Asus has the most award winning motherboard and is a leading enterprise in the new digital era. Asus has designed and manufactured many products that meets the need of many people for their everyday needs. Furthermore, Asus’ mission is to deliver innovative solution and turn inspire to customer to reach a higher productivity and fun. Innovation is the key to success for Asus. Asus chairman, Jonney Shih makes an announcement of the TAICHI and Transformer Book dual-purpose mobile device. TAICHI is an Ultrabook that can be used as tablet when its lid is closed, while the Transformer Book can be docked into a keyboard for instant transformation into Ultrabook. So, why many people choose to buy laptop from Asus? The first reason is Asus has the highest quality because their biggest issue is quality control and selling points. Asus’ mission is to create the highest quality motherboard, and they promise on their delivery. In addition, Asus has beaten other manufacturer like Foxconn electronics and Quanta computers in order to work for Sony. Asus wants to create a very high-end notebooks. For Sony, Asustek is one of their main manufacturer of their laptops, so they have high experience at creating laptops and other notebooks at a higher quality. Asus has produce some laptop and notebook of NEC hardware. This proves that Asus laptops are not being made by amateur and we can trust the hardware they have created. If you buy a laptop from a manufacturer who never put together a laptop, then you maybe understandably apprehensive. Here, we have a company that can put hardware together. So, we can trust Asus as the highest quality processing laptop and notebook. In the year 2006, Asus was making notebook for Apple. The notebook were 14.1 inch wide. Sharp also ask Asus to make laptop for them. It was a computing device of 12.1 inch. In addition, Sony request a bulk order for a 17 inch wide screen notebook from Asus. Asus laptops are very competitive price and they are light. Many people report that they like the slim, esthetic and light feel of Asus laptop. People have been testing games and they are very happy with the optical mini mouse and the touchpad. It can run until 1400 RPM, and until 1700 and 2200 RPM when games are being played. Asus also has a strong pricing power. If a company has pricing power, customer will continue to use the company’s product. Asus has the power to charge customer for a higher price of the product. This will lead Asus to an increase in profits.

Weakness

Asus has a poor keyboard. Somehow, we need time to get used to the keyboard. However, Asus have tried to improve its netbook to gaming notebooks. Furthermore, Asus laptop has too much bling. Most of the product of Asus are glossy plastic chassis. They may look good as a decoration but not good for everyday use. Asus focus more on shiny lids that results in fingerprint-covered notebooks. It makes the laptop classier rather than looking grimy. In addition, Asus never make direct sales. In this case, customer cannot configure their notebooks into their needs. Although there are many choice in the market, but customers like to choose what they really need and want. Usually, customer like to have the perfect combination of hardware. Therefore, Asus has no configuration option and this is their weakness. Next, the latest product of Asus laptop has a higher specs but the price is much cheaper and this makes customer feels disappointed and regret of getting the laptop. In some areas, Asus is lack of service centre so when customer wants to report or get a warranty, they may have to line up and wait for several months. This somehow is Asus most dangerous weakness and this is because customer may feel that Asus is not taking their responsibility and they may not want to buy or purchase product from Asus anymore. Next, we take a look at some of the problem of Asus laptop and notebooks. Some of the customer reports that the laptop has a significant weaker Wi-Fi speed. In this case, we take a look at a complaint from a university student. “Whenever I resume my laptop from sleep, I need to disconnect and reconnect again to access to the Internet. Sometimes, the Internet connection only lasts for a few minutes and it disconnects again.” We can see that Asus laptop is having wireless connection problems. In addition, Asus also lack of online presence. This means Asus needs to display more of their selling products to their customers as the online market is essential for displaying selling products and give information to the customers. Asus should try to overcome this issue as this will decrease their profit.

Opportunities

We can say that Asus is a very luck company. This is because Asus has deliver 5 million smartphones. From some unknown sources, we can know that Asus and Intel’s partnership are going to materialize by fews Atom-based smartphones. A new ZenFone model are announced so it could contribute a successful completion on the forecast. Asus also has a Wi-Fi router (Asus RT-ACC68U AC1900 Wi-Fi Router). This has also proven that Asus is a tough competitor in the Wi-Fi router space. Asus has try to improve the productivity, reduce its cost, and introduce new products to the market. Besides, Asus wants to provide a good customer services to get a good results so everyone can look at Asus differently. Furthermore, Asus also introduce a Green Day strategy. From this strategy, we can see that Asus is trying to save the environment by designing every product of Asus into something more environmentally. They promote this idea throughout the whole company and make it their objective. So, before Asus process their products, they always think of saving the environment and this makes Asus very competitive in the market as this saves the environment and the customer nowadays also want to live in a clean environment.

Threats

When Asus introduces their new product-The Transformer Pad 300 on April 22, they have to face the release of Apple’s new iPad. Besides that, Samsung also set to ship its new generation tablet-the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 on the same date. Asus could be a pain competing with both of the strongest smartphones company in the world. In addition, with the new MacBook Air fake, it could pose a strong threat to Asus. The Chinese makers of copycat version have introduce their new version of Apple’s MacBook Air and it has amazed the market. The new MacBook Air is said that it has a high quality and its price is half of the price of the real MacBook Air, which is US$500. It becomes a strong competitors to other Ultrabook makers. Somehow, it does not have a serious damage to Apple as most of the loyal customers of Apple love to have the original version of MacBook Air. However, the low imitation of the MacBook Air could find a niche in the market. Furthermore, Asus Web site faces the strongest threats that is their branded PCs and motherboard has been rigged by hackers to exploit a critical Window flaw. The attackers added an iframe to the front page of Asus, which is Asus.com. Whenever a person visit the website, the person’s browser will automatically connect to another Web site and tries to install a malicious program. The SANS Internet Storm Center also confirm the hack.

Competitor analysis (Samsung)

Strength

Samsung has the widest range of products selling in the market from smartphones, television, tablet, camera and many more. In this case, we can see that Samsung has the most market shares in most of the products that they have. Besides, Samsung is excellent in producing new products with at a higher quality. Samsung has the design feature and technology. They first introduce the dual screen mobiles, 65k TFT/LCD color phones. This phone has polyphonic ringtones, floating lens, thinnest and lightest notepad. Samsung is more innovative in their design compared to other company like Asus that always have problems with their laptop and notebooks. In addition, Samsung also introduce some electrical appliances like refrigerator, air-conditioner etc. Samsung is also famous of their smart-TV. As far as I know, Samsung is the second best smartphone in the world as their smartphones have a wide function and it gets better when a new smartphones is introduced to the market.

Weakness

Recently, Samsung has introduce too much smartphones and tablets in the market. This will make Samsung to cannibalization. This is due to high product of Samsung in the market and new products will take over the existing products. We can say that the company is taking its own money and market. Moreover, Nokia is still the most preferable phone in India because of the lower in cost. This will strongly affect the sales of Samsung phones. Samsung wants to make break from Android dependence. The first Gear watch was Android-based and it has become the majority of other smart devices in the world. However, Samsung wants to develop its own operating system rather than relying on a software own by a rival. In fact, it is a big challenge to establish a new operating platform.

Opportunities

As we all know, Samsung is not just famous of its smartphones. Samsung is also famous of its electrical appliances like refrigerator and air-conditioner. This gives Samsung a great opportunities to not only just selling smartphones but to sell its electrical appliances to the market. Samsung also created a unique technology named as “Triple protection proposition”. This unique technology benefits Samsung with Clean Air, Uninterrupted Comfort and more powerful cooling. Besides, Samsung is India’s official “Olympic partner” for the year 2012 in London Olympic. Samsung recently launch an Olympic Ratna Program to increase brand awareness and increase the sales of Samsung.

Threats

As we all know, Samsung has a wide variety of product line. One failure of the product can cause a huge impact on the other and this will result in brand dilution. Samsung biggest competitors is Apple. As the release date of iPhone 5 gets close, it has become a huge impact to Samsung. Apple also force Samsung to withdraw a prototype tablet device. However, Samsung said that they will take all available legal options.

Competitor analysis (Apple)

Strengths

As far as we know, Apple has a lot of their loyal customer supporting the company. At first, Apple thought their closed ecosystem was a weakness point to the company. However, everything change when they introduce its iPod mp3 player. Besides that, Apple is currently a leading innovator in the mobile device technology which is known as iPhone. Furthermore, Apple has a strong financial performance. They have $10 billion cash and a gross profit margin of 43.9% without any debt. In addition, Apple has a good brand reputation. With the new product iPhone 5 in the market, Apple can now lead in the market as the highest smartphone seller. Apple is also good because of their retail stores with high customer experience. This will enable customer to know the product of Apple and can enjoy a good customer services.

Weakness

The price of the new iPhone 5 is currently set around RM2000. This is Apple weakness as most of their products are too high in the price. Some customer may want to get a smartphones at a higher price and not at a price of RM2000. Moreover, after Steve Jobs pass away, Tim Cook takes over the company. In addition, John Browett left the company too and this has leave a bad impact to the whole company.

Opportunities

As Apple is still growing in the market, the demand of their smartphones like iPhone and iPad is very high. This will increase Apple market share and strengthen the firm. Nowadays, most of the people use smartphones everyday non-stop. This makes the growth of tablet and smartphones get even stronger. In addition, Apple has developed a new advertisement for iPhone, iPad and other devices. This is an opportunity for Apple to grow even bigger in the market.

Threats

First of all, Apple is now facing rapid technological change. This means that the company is having pressure to introduce new product to the market. Apple is able to launch products to the market at the moment. With the increase of tax, this has cause Apple a negative impact.