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Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

daringfireball.net

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Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#2
I've noticed this even with normal laptops at the smaller end. If you're looking for a 15" laptop, you can find a lot cheaper PCs than the $1,799 MacBook Pro. But if you're looking for a 13" laptop with roughly equivalent processing power and weight, it's hard to find a PC laptop much cheaper than the $1,099 MacBook or $1,199 MacBook Pro. Some are considerably more, because while Apple prices the 13" at the bottom of their range, a lot of PC manufacturers price the "ultraportables" as a premium item.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#4
post #3

tl;dr version: Apple has the volume advantage because it buys a huge amount of flash memory, displays, etc. that it can make products at price points other vendors can't compete with without cutting corners.

Thank you, it's never worthwhile reading long-form Gruber.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#5
post #3

tl;dr version: Apple has the volume advantage because it buys a huge amount of flash memory, displays, etc. that it can make products at price points other vendors can't compete with without cutting corners.

Also iPod/iOS compete as devices (a la consumer electronics) as opposed to competing as specs (a la PCs), which makes build quality and design much more important.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#9
post #3

tl;dr version: Apple has the volume advantage because it buys a huge amount of flash memory, displays, etc. that it can make products at price points other vendors can't compete with without cutting corners.

This is not accurate and ignores the bottom paragraphs, which are about how companies compete on design and quality in phones whereas they don't do so in PCs, which are more frequently judged based on specs. You can see this when Gruber transitions: "But there’s another major factor at play, which I believe is more important than volume pricing."

The above comment is an example of why you frequently shouldn't trust the "tl;dr version:" those versions are frequently wrong, or they sheer away a sufficient amount of detail as to become wrong.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#10
post #8

It's a bit disappointing when "the world" and "USA" are used interchangeably. The US market is fairly small. Things are quite different in other places.

The USA is the world's largest consumer goods market, surpassing the next one, Japan, by a factor of 5.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_consumer_market...

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