618 Principles of Supply Chain Management
and software for the smartphone market, as Apple does. The divesture of Motorola
indicates that Google has decided hardware and software vendors can be separated
(Winkler 2014).
SWOT ANALYSIS
MarketLine did a SWOT analysis on Google in 2013. They summarized the compa-
ny’s strengths as follows: (1) having search engine dominance; (2) Android’s success
is a growth driver in the mobile market; and (3) increasing cash from operations. The
report estimated Google’s search engine had a market share of more than 88% mea-
sured against global website trafc. The company also had a 52% of mobile ad revenue
in 2012. On the weakness side, the report viewed Google as having a weaker strategy
in social media advert ...