Product life cycles: definition, stages, and more

A product life cycle (PLC) is a product’s progression through key stages of its existence, from its initial ideation, til it’s taken off the shelves (or your website) for good. 

In this article, we’ll define the product life cycle more deeply, explore each of the different stages of the cycle, and present specific real-life product examples. 

What is a product life cycle?

A product life cycle (PLC) is the series of stages that make up a product’s existence. Every product goes through the product life cycle at its own pace: some products go through the entire cycle in a week, while others can sit in one stage for decades or more.

The five stages of the product life cycle are:

1. Development

2. Introduction

3. Growth

4. Maturity

5. Decline

This framework is widely used by product teams for good reason—a deep understanding of these stages can make or break the success of your product. Just as monitoring the customer journey helps companies support and adapt to customer needs at any given point in time, anchoring your team’s work within a product life cycle leads to better strategies for product launch, product development, product roadmap planning, marketing, and sales at different points of your product’s life

Applying the product life cycle model to your product management process helps you:

• Be more strategic in product planning, designing and decision-making

• Optimize your marketing mix based on the life cycle stage it’s in

• Bring more context and direction to your sales efforts

• Become more efficient with your resources, team, and processes

• Build a sustainable, long-lasting business

What are the 5 stages of the product life cycle?

As we’ve laid out, the 5 stages of the PLC (or product life cycle) are development, introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. 

Some consider the beginning of the cycle when a product has been introduced to consumers, while others use the development process as the start of the product life cycle. Either way, the last stage is always the same—the product is driven out of the market due to a loss of demand, an increase of competitors, and/or a definitive decline in sales. Here are the 5 product life cycle stages:

Stage 1: Development

The development stage, which can take days or decades, moves your product from idea to reality. In this stage, teams are entirely focused on creating a viable product through market research, prototyping, testing, and sourcing materials. For some industries, this is also when you’ll research applicable intellectual property rights. Throughout this stage, you’ll need your company’s investment and buy-in to investigate, create, and test your product ideas.

This stage typically includes:

• Gathering input from team members, experts, and ideal customers

• Defining core product features, design, and packaging

• Validating your hypothesis with research and testing

• Collecting and documenting beta user feedback to iterate on prototypes

• Preparing a pre-launch plan and go-to-market strategy 

Developing your product may be more straightforward if there’s already an existing product on the market to iterate from—using customer feedback on an existing product, your goal might be simply to improve the current version.

For brand new products, the development stage may be more complex, as you’re focused on understanding product-market fit, defining your new customer base, and testing entirely new design and production.

Stage 2: Introduction

The second stage of the product life cycle is the introduction stage. The product you’ve painstakingly developed and tested can now be put into the hands of customers. 

In this phase of the product life cycle, teams execute a go-to-market strategy, put a product launch calendar and plan into motion, and continuously execute against a marketing plan to generate demand for—and ultimately sell—the product. 

Some challenges you should expect during introduction:

• Finding the right distribution channels—where are your potential customers, and how will you reach them?

• Generating demand for your new product—how can you communicate the value of your product, in a way that resonates with your target audience?

• Turning interest into actual sales—how will you convert interested prospects into paying customers?

• Controlling the cost of customer acquisition—what is the cost (in both time and money) of acquiring a new customer, and how can you decrease that cost over time?

Stage 3: Growth

Many products don’t get beyond the introduction phase. But for those that do, the growth stage is next. When your product has gained popularity and acceptance in the market, this is typically followed by a high rate of product sales, revenue, and profit. 

Growth is an exciting stage—often, this is when all of your efforts in earlier stages start paying off, leading to:

• Reduced costs due to economies of scale

• Sales volume trending upward

• Increased profits due to the above

• New competition starting to emerge

Stage 4: Maturity

The word maturity suggests something that’s gained experience and is fully grown; that’s exactly the state of a product in this stage. While no stage of your life cycle is entirely smooth-sailing, this will feel the smoothest—you’ll have established predictable sales, and gotten a handle on customer acquisition. 

But as your product matures, so will your competition. To sustain a successful product, it’s critical to establish yourself as a leader and differentiate your brand.

In this stage, you’ll recognize: 

• New competitors increasing market share

• Prices dropping due to alternatives to your product

• The market nearing saturation

• Sales reaching a peak or plateau 

Stage 5: Decline

The last stage of the product life cycle—the decline stage—can generally be postponed, but not entirely avoided. If your product doesn't reach and sustain a market leader status or, alternatively, if an entire market becomes obsolete (e.g. VHS players), the end is near. In general, you’ll know a product is in the decline state when there’s negative sales growth, low or no profits, or a heightened level of competition that makes growth impossible. 

Companies try to bounce out of their product's decline by: implementing new marketing strategies, dropping their price, adding new features to strengthen their value proposition or differentiate from competing products, expanding to new markets, or adjusting brand packaging. 

Some companies intentionally innovate their own products into decline. Companies like Apple regularly discontinue their products as they become obsolete; even in slower-moving industries, a product’s decline can simply be a sign that it’s time for something new.

Examples of the product life cycle

Now that we've got the product life cycle stage definitions down, let's cover some real-life product examples and the stages of the life cycle they're in. 

Hydrox cookie: Growth stage

For an unusual example of a growth-stage product, check out the Hydrox cookie. Launched by Sunshine Biscuits in 1908, it was the original chocolate cookie sandwich with a cream center, in market long before anyone had ever heard of the Oreo cookie. But in those early years, both cookie brands went head-to-head. Oreo eventually won, putting Hydrox cookies into decline by the late 90s. Hydrox cookie was re-introduced in 2015 and went on to hit a growth stage from 2016 to 2017, growing 2,406 percent in that time. Today they're still in their (second) growth stage of their product life cycle, since as recently as 2020, Google searches of Hydrox cookies soared.

iPhone: Maturity stage

The iPhone's product life cycle journey is fascinating to track, both for the fervent loyalty the product line inspires and its proliferation of product lines, SKUs, and competitors. If looked at as a single product, the iPhone is currently in its maturity stage, since its sales growth has stabilized and as many as 12 iPhone series and 29 different iPhone models have been released since 2007. If you look at each iPhone model separately, they each have a seismic growth stage, several years of maturation, and relatively quick decline as they are replaced by newer models, pulled from the market, or relegated to collector status. 

8-track tapes and players: Decline stage

The rise and fall of 8-track players and tapes was short and sweet. It kicked off in 1965 as a new option in three of Ford's car models that year. By 1967, all Fords had the option for 8-track players. It was the first product on the market to give consumers a way to play their own music in the car, and it was a huge hit. By the 70s there was already a challenger product that better suited their buyers' needs: the smaller and more user-friendly cassette tape. The 8-track began its decline in 1983 when Ford no longer installed them in their cars.

Managing your product life cycle

The stages of the product life cycle present unique challenges, which become more complex as you involve different technologies, target audiences, and market trends and conditions. 

Wherever you are in the product planning process, your team will always need to hit specific milestones and deliverables. It all starts with a flexible, single source of truth to keep projects on track. 

This template for product planning acts as your team's home base. Each contributor will always know the current status of each project, any upcoming deadlines, and exactly what they will personally drive. You can customize it to guide your whole team through research, development, designing, testing, planning, and launching your product in the market. 

Get started with product planning template, or keep reading to learn more best practices for product teams.