With the recent news that Apple has been named the world’s most valuable brand, we take a look back at how this company started in 1976 has become, 35 years later arguably one of the most successful companies around with a brand value of a staggering $153,285,000.

Founded in 1976 by college dropouts Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs, Apple Inc began life in Jobs’ garage with a just $1300 to start up a company with. Their first venture was the Apple I computer which was purely created for a computer hobbyist club that the both attended. A local retailer ordered 50 of the computers and they went on to sell an additional 200 to computer hobbyists in San Francisco for $666 each. After the success of the Apple I, they began to start work on Apple II which would be designed to appeal to more than just computer hobbyists and to appeal to a greater market. Early versions of microcomputers had generally been housed in metal boxes, Jobs & Wozniak however decided to house the Apple II in a modular beige plastic container. In 1977 they joined forces with Mike Markkula & Mike Scott in order to create a larger company. They recruited Regis McKenna, the esteemed owner of one of the most successful advertising & PR firms to devise a professional marketing strategy for the company and sales soon reached $1 million with apple becoming one of the fast-growing companies in the United States. Throughout the next 3 years apple continued to grow and expand beyond the hobbyist market to make its computers consumer items. In December 1980, Apple went public; Selling 7.2 million shares at $22 each by May 1981.

Meanwhile Apple was busy developing Apple III which was intended to feature an expanded memory and greater graphics capabilities. Fearful that Apple II would soon become outdated, the company time pressured designers to get the Apple III released as quickly as possible. The product was at first well received, however adequate testing had not been subjected to the time constraints and the many units were proved to be defective. Although the problem was soon fixed, the Apple III never sold as well as its predecessor and was discontinued in 1984. This was also the year the Macintosh was unveiled, with a price tag of $2,495 and a new 3-inch disk drive that was faster than the 5-inch drives used in other machines, including the Apple II. Approximately 70,000 Macintosh computers were sold in the first 100 days after release and sales had reached over one million by 1988. Apple entered the 1990s well aware that the conditions that made the company an industry giant in the previous decade had changed dramatically. Management recognized that for Apple to succeed in the future, corporate strategies would have to be re-examined. Apple had soared through the 1980s on the backs of its large, expensive computers, which earned the company a committed, yet relatively small following. After recognizing this problem, Apple began manufacturing smaller, cheaper models such as the classic and the LC, both of which would become instant hits. The numbers at Apple were skyrocketing. By 1992, Desktop Macs accounted for 19% of the PCs sold through American computer dealers and the notebook PowerBook series garnered a 21% market share in less than six months. But profit margins were considerably smaller due to the models being moderately priced and Apple grossly overestimated the demand for the Power Macintosh laptops and by 1995 they had $1 billion worth of unfilled orders causing Apple stock value to plummet by 15%.

Steve Jobs is responsible for the recovery of the company in the following months. He ended the license agreement that spawned clones of Apple products. He withdrew the company’s involvement in making printers, scanners & other peripherals announcing that Apple, from 1997 forward, would focus exclusively on computers for professional and consumer customers. He then sold stock to Microsoft in exchange for $150 million. Jobs recognised that Apple had a lack of popular computers that had a retail price of under $2000 and ten months late the iMAC was unveiled. Due to Jobs efforts, Apple exited the 1990s as a profitable company once again and their stock climbed 140% to $99 per share.

In 2001, Apple unveiled the iPod. Developed due to existing digital music players being “big and clunky or small and useless with user interfaces that were “unbelievably awful”, Jobs announced that the iPod would be Mac-compatible with a 5GB hard drive. Apple continued to refine the look and feel of the iPod software. In 2007, the iPod interface was modified with the introduction of the sixth generation iPod classic and third generation iPod Nano. This was also the year Apple sold its one hundred millionth iPod, making it the biggest selling digital music player of all time. Apple then entered the mobile-computing market in 2008 with the release of the iPhone 3G. However many would be users objected to the iPhone’s cost and Apple in an attempt to gain a wider market released iPhone 3G with 8GB of memory at a lower price. The iPhone 3G soon became obsolete with the release of iPhone 4 which incorporated a stainless steel fame that acts as the device’s antenna. 600,000 pre-orders were taken in the first 24 hours and 1.7 million iPhone 4 were sold in its first three days of release. Meanwhile Jobs had been busy developing the iPad, a tablet computer to be used primarily for audio-visual media such as books, games and web content. The name supposedly paid homage to the Star Trek PADD, a device similar in appearance to the iPad. By May 2010, 1 million iPads had been sold and 15 million had been sold in total by the launch of the iPad 2. Described as lighter and thinner than its predecessor, the iPad 2 came equipped with a better processor (a dual core apple A5) which was announced to be twice as fast.

Apple has 160 million accounts active, all of which include credit card details. 6.5 billion apps have been downloaded with 200 apps per second being downloaded as we speak. 275 million iPods have been sold since its release in 2001. It is predicted that by 2012, 108 million iPads will be have been sold. In the second quarter of 2011, Apple announced that 18.65 million iPhones, 4.69 million iPads, 9.02 million iPods, 3.76 million Macs, and has made around $24.67 billion in revenue. Although these statistics are slightly below Q1 2011 earnings, it is still proof of how successful Apple have become.

Apple has clearly become the leader in the technology market, its main competitors being Amazon, Google, Sony and Microsoft. Part of what makes Apple so successful is its direct role in providing users with content such as music, movies and apps dedicated to the iPhone, iPad and iPod. With that being said, Amazon is clearly a worthy competitor in its ability to provide customers with digital music, movies and books. However Amazon had a long way to go before it can offer the broad range of products that way Apple does. Google chrome is in fact a web-based OS which allows users to manage cloud-based assets in a single environment. Android, Google’s OS and apps for Smartphone’s are quickly evolving in a way that could start to challenge the iPhone. Sony is the only brand which could challenge Apple directly. If the company can create a Sony-drive environment that could manage its content for all Sony products the way that iTunes does for Apple products, they could emerge as a serious competitor. Most PC manufacturers are considered rivals to Apple, however Microsoft is clearly its biggest rival in this field due to their operating system regardless of the fact Apple surpassed Microsoft in market capitalisation in 2010. Although Apple have branched out considerably in recent years, Microsoft in clearly keen to secure a future in the online jungle. Whilst Microsoft may have dominated the IT sector in recent decades, Apple has taken the mobile phone market by storm with the iPhone and practically ended the PC era with its iPad. The windows phone is battling with the strong cult status that the iPhone has. With the recent news that Microsoft have purchased Skype, this in conjunction with its alliance with Nokia, takes Microsoft deep into enemy territory. The biggest reason for Microsoft to buy Skype is the Windows Phone 7. This will of course be in direct competition with Apple’s Facetime.

2011 looks set to be a big year for Apple with the release of the Mac App Store, designed to simplify and streamline app purchase and installation, and the iPhone 5. Summer 2011 will also see the release of the Mac OS x 10.7, otherwise known as the lion, which aims to enhance usability and utilise multitouch gestures. This has been developed with professionals in mind. However with Jobs currently on medical leave indefinitely, Apple looks set to focus more on content and less on gadgets. Jobs is clearly the driving force behind all of Apple’s tradition of inventing edgy hardware and credited as the reason products such as the iPad and iPhone became such successes. With shares dropping by 6% after Jobs announcement that he would be taking medical leave, it remains to be seen as to how this will impact Apple Inc. With the product line-up already set for the next 3 years, Apple look set to continue to dominate the technology market for years to come.