BUS 332: Country Comparison - Apple and Microsoft

For this week's country comparison, we will use the Google Trends tool to analyze differences betweenApple and Microsoft's production countries, how people think and behave, as reflected in differences in internet searches, and to identify business opportunities. Google Trends is a powerful tool for analyzing internet search behavior, and users can select 'Worldwide' within Google Trends to see country-specific results and to compare the usage of a search term across countries. Many tutorials exist online for learning about Google Trends, such as this one:

• https://ahrefs.com/blog/how-to-use-google-trends-for-keyword-research/
• https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%201-d&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0k8z,%2Fm%2F0qt178q&hl=en

For this discussion, identify one or more specific search terms that you would like to analyze to compare internet search behavior across countries in order to identify and evaluate business opportunities and/or to better understand business environments. This assignment is open-ended by design so that you can focus on something related to your own interests. It can be useful to include two or more search terms, the names of two competing companies(Apple and Microsoft) to compare internet search patterns for the terms across countries. Google Trends allows many options, such as looking within countries or regions or looking at changes in search patterns over time. There are many different ways to excel at this assignment, and I hope that students take a diverse range of approaches.

Questions:

1. For the forum, post a brief summary of what you analyzed on Google Trends about Apple VS Microsoft (e.g., which search terms, which countries or regions, which time period) andexplain why you chose this approach.

2. Then share what you learned, including your conclusions about a specific international business opportunity and atleast two visuals (tables or charts, which can come directly from your Google Trends results) to provide evidence to support your conclusions.

United States Past day All categories Web Search Interest Over Time 100 75 50 Mar 22, 2023 at 3:16 PM 25 M Apple 84 Microsoft 27 Average Mar 21 at 3... Mar 22 at 2:12 AM. Apple . Microsoft United States, Past day Compared breakdown by subregion Subregion . Apple . Microsoft Sort: Interest for Apple 1 Mississippi 2 California 3 Hawaii 4 New Jersey 5 Nevada Color intensity represents percentage of searches LEARN MORE . Apple . Microsoft United States, Past day Compared breakdown by subregion Subregion . Apple . Microsoft Sort: Interest for Microsoft 1 Washington 2 North Dakota 3 District of Columbia 4 Oklahoma 5 Kansas Color intensity represents percentage of searches LEARN MORE