Mac Sales Down Ping!
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Posted on 03/17/2009 8:44:40 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Blue skies may be shining for America's PC makers, but the high-priced Macs aren't joining the party, says NPD's Stephen Baker.
The news from the latest NPD report on PC retail unit sales in the US last month was surprisingly very upbeat, for nearly all manufacturers but one. If you were to place a flat two-by-four stretching across the PC unit sales figures for February 2009 over to February 2008, you'd find the incline tips down...toward the older year. Windows-based PC unit sales rose by a fabulous 22% annual rate, NPD estimates, although the firm is declining to provide exact numbers to the press.
If you walked across that two-by-four, though, you'd want to avoid falling into the deep chasm that was the fourth quarter of last year.
But walking the plank this last month was Apple. Without a netbook product line and selling at a premium, consumers in this otherwise bleak economy turned away from Apple last month, even though they didn't turn away from computers in general. Mac sales overall fell by 16% annually, as NPD Vice President for Industry Analysis Stephen Baker confirmed to Betanews this afternoon.
If last year's sales figures represented consumers embracing the Mac again, this last month's represents an all-out rejection. In a month where the Windows-based laptop segment alone saw a 36% rise in sales -- an indication that the holiday blues have ended for PC-buying consumers -- MacBook unit sales dropped by 7%.
This morning, some of the Mac faithful were hoping that Apple would announce a new Mac tablet, or large form-factor iPhone or Mac netbook, citing touchscreen and touch-device patents Apple has been accumulating. That didn't happen today, and perhaps it's for a reason: Could Apple's strategy be to weather this storm by continuing to sell MacBooks for a premium, maintaining a high margin, even though it will sell fewer units? Conceivably, bringing out a netbook now, even if it were successful, would mean lower margins for Apple that could undercut Mac sales.
Stephen Baker, talking with Betanews today, agreed, adding this: "While I do believe they need a cheaper all-encompassing portable computing device I don't believe it should be branded or sold as a Mac," Baker told Betanews. "There is too much danger in cannibalization in adding a very low-cost device into a high-priced line. On the other hand a high-end [iPod] Touch—with most of the features one might expect in a netbook, but purposely not marketed as a Mac—is an upsell within the Touch line and therefore offers greater protection to the high margins in the Macbook line."
Average selling prices for MacBooks did decline by about 7% annually last month, NPD reported, though this is during a month when the rest of the non-netbook market's ASPs declined by 22%.
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>Average selling prices for MacBooks did decline by about 7% annually last month, NPD reported, though this is during a month when the rest of the non-netbook market’s ASPs declined by 22%.
Sometimes that’s what matters.
Everytime I want to get a new laptop, I look at Apple. Then I look at their prices. And buy a Windows laptop, instead.
Interesting. I’ve noticed more netbooks around, but I didn’t think there was that much of a market shift.
I’m a crusty old-timer, so I have a 17”.
I love my ASUS eee PC: about $400
Also, the article fails to mention the many that are buying netbooks with Linux instead of Windows.
Selling a lot of zero-margin netbooks does not a healthy PC industry make. They are cannibalizing sales from larger, more profitable machines.
So much for closed systems.....
NPD should look at their numbers a little harder. Sales fell because an iMac refresh was in the cards.
You’d think these analysts would finally get it through their heads that Apple customers are well-informed about when product revisions hit and pull back accordingly.
Dirty secret: the larger machines aren’t exactly high-margin either.
Dell is trying to break into the high-margin market with the Adamo, but it’s already an embarrassment.
Wendy, Macs are based on open source, open standards, and work with almost every peripheral out there... usually without downloading a driver.
Well, I’ve currently got a Quicksilver G4 from when I first started my post-doc and one of the 20” white iMacs. I’ll be getting another computer sometime over the next year and it’s going to be one of the 24” iMacs. We use Dells for the Hitachi sequencing machines because we have to. But we use Macs for everything else. I’ve been in labs using one or the other or both since 1994 and the fewest troubles and the greatest ease come from Macs. I see no good reason to change.
Awesome!
Can I get parts now from Tiger Direct Or Newegg? I want to build me a sweet Mac for the Living room as an Entertainment system Computer!
Hmmmm... My 1999 Mac Powerbook "Lombard" lasted me six years before someone broke into my house and stole it. When it was stolen it was running OS X.3.9. Nothing had ever broken on it.
I have been using the Intel Mac Book Pro the insurance company bought for me to replace the Lombard, is going on four years and is running the latest and greatest OS X Leopard.
How many times during those ten years where I've had just two, did you look at Apple laptops and buy a Windows laptop instead?
Who wants a laptop that is marketed to snotty little college kids who think they are smarter than everyone else? Not I. PC’s are cheaper, they work, are much more accepted platform for business of all types across the board.
Depends on the parts... Hard drives, optical drives, RAM, peripherals, processors, motherb boards, graphic cards, etc., that can be assembled by YOU for fun (but not for profit) that will run Mac OS X...
You don't like Alienware? Fine.
But how is that relevant here?
Don't want a Hackintosh I want to build a legit Apple So I can be assured that it will work with Software upgrades.
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