The stages of the product life cycle are:
- Introduction
- Growth
- Maturity
- Decline
Product Lifecycle Management Stage 3: Maturity
The maturity stage follows the growth stage in the product's life cycle (see ).
The maturity stage
This stage of the product life cycle shows that sales will eventually peak and then slow down.
During this stage, sales growth has started to slow down, and the product has already reached widespread acceptance in the market, in relative terms. Ultimately, during this stage, sales will peak. The company will want to prolong this phase so as to avoid decline, and this desire leads to new innovation and features in order to continue to compete with the competition which, by now, has become very established, advanced and fierce. Competitors' products will begin to cut deeply into the company's market position and market share. However, despite this, sales continue to grow in the early part of the maturity phase. But, these sales will peak and ultimately decline, as the graph shows.
Demand for the product ultimately decreases due to competition and market saturation, as well as new technologies and changes in consumer tastes. Actions the company takes may include:
- Improving specific features in order to resell the product (for instance, in the case of a car, the manufacturer may include alloy wheels, new colors, sport or hybrid versions, or other changes in order to keep sales going);
- Lowering prices in order to fight off competition;
- Intensifying distribution and promotional efforts;
- Differentiation efforts, in the hope that new customers will start to buy the product.
- Finding a new targeted market.
The stage that lasts the longest in the product life cycle is the Maturity stage. It is at this time that repeat business and purchases take the place of new customer buying. So, during the maturity stage, the following occurs:
- Costs are lowered as a result of production volumes increasing and experience curve effects
- Sales volume peaks and market saturation is reached
- Increase in numbers of competitors entering the market
- Prices tend to drop due to the proliferation of competing products
- Brand differentiation and feature diversification is emphasized to maintain or increase market share
- Industrial profits go down