UX designers usually conduct competitor analysis during the research phase of a design project. With competitor analysis, you’re looking at competing products within your niche or market space to see what they do well, where their weaknesses lie, and to get a feel for what your end-users will expect from a similar product (i.e. the one you’re going to design). Competitor analysis helps you to make informed design decisions.
Competitor analysis in strategic terms is a technique used to evaluate and identify the marketing and business strategy of competitive brands, businesses, and products. In user experience terms, it is applied to identifying and analyzing competitors’ web, mobile, or digital strategies.