Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning pdf ebook

Maturity
The mature phase is reached when growth slows and the bulk of the market (late majority) 
have entered. This phase can be characterised by particularly fierce competition, as those 
who entered the market during the growth phase fight for market share rather than market 
expansion to improve performance. Price wars are common, profit margins are squeezed 
and expenditures on marketing and research and development are scrutinised more critically.
Decline
The decline, and eventual death, phase sees profits squeezed even more as the next genera-
tion of products takes over the market. Figure 11.5 shows the sales of cameras in the USA. 
The sales of traditional, film-based cameras peaked around the year 2000, but since then 
have been in steep decline due to the growth of digital versions. Surprisingly, the market 
downturn for film-based cameras has been even more dramatic in countries such as China. 
This switch in market has been fuelled by technological advances (see Figure 11.6), where 

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the cost of sharper definition in digital pictures (as measured by the number of megapixels) 
has plummeted, allowing the quality of digital pictures to rapidly challenge that of film.
Turning points
The phases of the product life cycle are notoriously difficult to predict, and especially dif-
ficult to identify are transitions between stages (see Figure 11.7). First, the transition from 
introductory phase to growth. Here the danger is being left behind as the market takes off. 
Second, the transition from growth to maturity. The clear danger here is being left with 
over-capacity, or high stock levels, of difficult-to-move products (as happened with the over-
supply of mobile phones when the market became mature in the early 2000s). This is another 
reason why the mature phase is so competitive – firms often have excess capacity and stock 
available that they need to move. Finally, transition from steady state maturity to decline can 
leave some firms wedded to old technology and unable to embrace the new.