Comparison of Apple’s Mac Book and Lenovo’s ThinkPad

Apple and Lenovo are two leading brands in the high-end global market, each conquering a certain market share with its own characteristics. Both of these two brands release new products every year to attract more customers in the severe competition of the global market. In 2015, Apple’s Mac Book, MF855CH/A, and Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon 34442SC become the main competitors. This paper aims at comparing these two products in their product characteristics, distribution and promotion, and price. The comparison shows that Both Apple’s Mac Book, MF855CH/A, and Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon 34442SC are priced moderately in order to attract middle-income and lower-income customers. Apple tries to attract young customers by the new screen technology and the new design of apearance while Lenovo improves the professionalism for business people by improving the portability and changes the appearance back to the box shape. Apple focuses on the customer experience and provides Middle-income and lower-income customers with preferences, but Lenovo improves its after-sales network services to extend the life of usage.

To begin with, Apple continues to attract young customers to this product with its fashionable appearance and high-technology screen, while Lenovo improves the professionalism to cater for the business people and changes the shape back to the classic box shape. Apple is always the hallmark of a fashionable trend in the industry, and it spend a lot of budget on the product design and the development of high technology. The new product this year, Apple’s Mac Book, MF855CH/A, uses the new technology of Retina screen to improve the visual effect. Besides, the whole appearance design is based on the inspiration of birds, which makes the computer look more smooth with the streamline. And this design could make the laptop thinner and more portable. These new product characteristics mainly aim at attracting young customer with its fashion positioning. However, after several failures in trying to change the appearance with fashion, Lenovo changes the appearance of its ThinkPad X1 Carbon 34442SC back to the classic box shape and pays attention to the performance and quality of the laptop. This shape change earns the popularity by reminding people of the professional market positioning for business activities (Yin, 2015). To make it more portable for business travel, Lenovo tries to reduce the weight with the new carbon fiber material and maintain the high performance of the laptop at the same time.

In addition, in regard to the distribution and promotion, Apple concentrates on customers’ experience in American and European countries, while Lenovo focuses on the after-sale services in Asian-Pacific regions. Apple, as a local brand in the US, earns unparallel popularity in the US, as well as in the European markets. Apple sets up many retail locations all around the world for customers to experience the fashionable function of this new laptop. Meanwhile, for middle-income customers, Apple provides them with the alternative of payment by installments or cooperates with local telecommunication companies to offer preference for their customers (Hiner, 2015). This promotion channel appeals a lot of middle-income customers who are appealed by the high-end laptop products. Nevertheless, Lenovo focuses on the after-sales service to further satisfy their customers. By extending the warranty period and increasing the after-sales locations, customers are guaranteed with a long-term use of this new laptop. The quality and warranty period make this laptop very popular among business people, especially in Asian-Pacific countries where Lenovo is based in.

Last but not least, with the competitiveness in the global market, Apple and Lenovo keep their price locating as high-end computers but try to lower the price to attract the middle-income customers. Both Apple’s Mac Book MF855CH/A and Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Carbon 34442SC are priced around $2000 to maintain its market positioning as high-end laptops. But except for the new technology and changes in the appearance, both of these two brands have to face the competitiveness from other brands, which target for Middle-income and lower-income customers. Thus, the price $2000 is a moderate price compared with prices of other products of these two companies. Apple and Lenovo not only try to keep their domination in the high-end laptop industry but also try to attract middle-income and lower-income customers by providing them with preference and extra experience.

To sum up, both Apple and Lenovo not only try to maintain their dominance in the high-end laptop market with each specific advantages and respective market shares but also try to attract middle-income and lower-income customers by providing new preferences and extra services. Though they keep focusing on developing their own characteristics, they have to keep making breakthroughs due to the severer and severer competitiveness in the global market.