Decline Stage

Decline stage is defined as the product life-cycle stage in which a product’s sales decline (Kotler 250). During this stage of any product, sales are diminished and consumers’ taste shifts to a newer or better offering.

Since its introduction in 2001, Apple released the iPod, a revolutionary portable music device. At the time, consumers lugged around compact discs to listen to their music, but it was the Apple iPod that enabled everyone to carry hundreds of songs in their pockets. Throughout the decade, the iPod has been upgraded with more memory, a slimmer profile, and additional models in the iPod family. With the passage of time, more competitors become visible and technology becomes more advanced. To compete in the dynamic music device market, Apple released the iPod Touch and iPhone, which are devices that can do pretty much everything; carry music, play games, surf the web, and etc.

Although the original iPod is a classic and a break-through product, sales have declined and Apple has been debating whether to drop the iPod Classic and mainly focus on new products such as the iPhone, iPad, and etc. This example of Apple’s iPod relates to Kotler’s definition of decline stage because it shows a company introducing a product and leaving it on the changing market for quite some time. Carrying a weak product can hurt Apple’s profits by continuing making the iPod classic and it may even take up unnecessary time in their management division. With the iPod Classic in the decline stage, Apple can only look forward to what they do best, which is to innovate and produce new products that appeal to consumers.

Vincent Nguyen
Section G