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on is the key to survival. However, the standardisation of components has led to lesser spending on R&D by some companies (Yoffie & Kim, 2010, p. 4). But innovation among other things has led to a lower Average Sales Price (ASP). In 2009 the ASP in the industry was $544, which is a 50% price cut compared to the level in 2007. This increases the bargaining power of the buyers, because of the lower switching costs, it will cost them to buy another product (Porter, 1980 p. 24). Apple has tried to increase the switching costs, thereby lowering the buyers' bargaining power by creating an alignment between their electronic products.

The rapid innovative growth of electronic products such as smartphones, iPads, netbooks that adopt many of the PC's features and functions has made it difficult for the PC vendors. It is crucial to be innovative to make the PC's better; else the consumers will choose one of the other products as a substitute to the PC.

As it can be seen in the table above the growth in total global shipments of PC's has declined by 12% over a two year period, from 2007 to 2009. The decrease in growth may be an effect of the surge in the sales of mobile devices. This indicates that the PC vendors have to be creative and innovative if they want a successful business in the future. One way of doing it, is as mentioned earlier; Apple does this by creating an alignment between the different devices and thereby giving the consumer an incentive to buy the laptop as well.

Consumer Electronics Industry:
Consumer Electronics (CE) Industry is a space where Apple is growing up as an emerging power and seems promising enough to reach the top sooner than later. CE include all the electronics equipment's and gadgets which are basically used for everyday purpose. They are usually used in entertainment, communications and office productivity. The market space of CE Industry is close to US$ 2 Trillion and the sales of CE have hit US$ 724 Billion in 2009 which is a 4.3% from the US$ 694 Billion of 2008. However, it was a plunge from the 13.7% growth which was posted last year and the double digit growth of the previous years and this particular slowdown due to global economic downturn was already forecasted by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). On the other side they also stated that the industry will outperform or do much better than the other sectors. The slowdown of 2009 affected almost everything across the board, from computers to mobile phones to television. (Peters)

Nevertheless, the prospect for CE Industry has completely changed. The industry is witnessing a transformational growth after a series of tough economic conditions. The industry is focusing on the importance of revolutionary technological developments. They are looking forward to create a union of product, market or technologies. The factors behind to drive such a transformation includes miniaturization, digitalization and mobility. The industry has realised the fact that they either need to innovate in order to survive or search alternatively for new avenues of growth. The digital technological revolution had assisted the industry to make good profits from the growing interaction of digital applications such as DVD player, camcorder, digital camera etc. One of the research report states that if it moves in such a planned way then the Consumer Electronics Industry can grow at a Compound Annual Grow