Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Are Mac prices responding to or horribly subverting the global recession?

O

omarjk

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 20, 2008
149
0
London, UK
All around us the price of so-called durable goods are in free-fall, in some industries at least.

The prices of PCs have been trending towards greater affordability for a long time now; but it stands to reason that there will be even greater price cuts in the near future.

At the risk of sounding like a wannabe talk show host:

Will Macs follow? Or will we continue to put our hard-earned towards a commodity that appears to buck industry trends?

Does anyone have any evidence of how Apple is being affected by the global downturn?

If Apple can bubble wrap itself from the effects of an awful recession what hope do the proles have of its prices ever falling and having access to the range of its luxury-yet-highly-functional products?

That's another point - do you see Apple items (be it an iPod, iPhone or a Mac) as a guilty pleasure that you will allow yourself at the expense of others while the chips are down (presuming of course that your chips are down or going down)?
 
i think apple wants to avoid dropping prices because once they do that, and when the economy turns around, it'll be hard for them to raise them again. i think apple has enough money in the bank that they can afford to stand pat for a while to see how things play out. but if the recession continues for a long time, they may be forced to make a move.

but i'm far from an expert...
 
DarthTreydor said:
i think apple wants to avoid dropping prices because once they do that, and when the economy turns around, it'll be hard for them to raise them again. i think apple has enough money in the bank that they can afford to stand pat for a while to see how things play out. but if the recession continues for a long time, they may be forced to make a move.

but i'm far from an expert...
Click to expand...

I agree... if Apple lowers prices now it would be very hard for them to higher them once this all gets back to normal.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11a Safari/525.20)

i agree with the above comments... its definetley true

but from what I see or atleast have noticed at school and on this forum
more and more people are getting ipods, iphones and other expensive mac products

their like starbucks in a sense that prices wont fall


but if they doo YAY!!
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11a Safari/525.20)

ya wasnt like their q4 2008
one of the best theyve had or atleast a really good one!?
 
Apple may not be but their resellers are.

I was just at Microcenter and they have the previous generation 2.0 GHz Mini for $399 after rebates and the CURRENT White MacBook for $799 after rebates.

Of course, you have to wait for the rebate, and you have to go through the salesperson trying to sell you all the extras...
 
Those sound like very good deals.

I never thought that some companies and banks could be so vulnerable to economic fluctuations; that's why it made me wonder just how insular Apple is and can continue to be.

This obviously stinks most of conjecture, as many of the better informed did not predict the complete demise of key global institutions, let alone Apple's prices in the coming months.
 
Could you please explain what "horribly subverting the global recession" is supposed to mean? According to my dictionary (and my usage of the word):

Subvert = "undermine the power and authority of an established system or institution".
 
What I am trying to get across is that by not decreasing in the same way as other similar goods, Mac prices are not operating as one would expect in a recession.

But if it needs to be explained then 'subvert' was not a good choice. Substitute 'immune' as last poster suggests.
 
Based on my sales numbers from the past few months the prices (especially the price RISES here in Aus) have made not a lick of difference. February and March this year were my biggest February and March in 3 years.

Christmas was bigger than last year too.
 
I do not think apple has any problems selling it's products, every time I go in to an apple store, I come out with something and they are always filled with people buying macs.
 
two things-
apple knows it has loyal customers, that, if they need a computer, will go buy an apple. period. no question. they may not get as many switchers, but apple seems to have been more than happy with their installed base for many years now. they can afford slow growth, they're used to it.

nobody mentioned the most recent set of computer updates. the imacs all essentially dropped in price (or at least represent a much larger bang for buck ratio). doubled ram and storage, plus a $1500 20" model. apple is feeling the recession.
 
Chundles said:
Based on my sales numbers from the past few months the prices (especially the price RISES here in Aus) have made not a lick of difference. February and March this year were my biggest February and March in 3 years.

Christmas was bigger than last year too.
Click to expand...

And come 06APR2009 we will see another "massage" of the fourth quarter figures because of the stimulus package. I think we'll a good month for Apple with iPod's due to the Krudd Cheque on Monday.
 
High prices does not equal high profits and high growth. AAPL is down almost 50% since its high in late 2007.
 
Just in a store 2 nights ago - in my 10 minutes I observed 2 iMacs and 3 MacBooks being sold. As another poster commented, I think Apple is still selling products to their core customer who will buy Macs regardless of price. Others may go ahead and switch to the "cheaper" Windows laptops, but the store I was in was plenty busy. In fact, it was near impossible to find someone to ring up my little $50 software purchase :rolleyes:
 
MacVixen said:
Just in a store 2 nights ago - in my 10 minutes I observed 2 iMacs and 3 MacBooks being sold. As another poster commented, I think Apple is still selling products to their core customer who will buy Macs regardless of price. Others may go ahead and switch to the "cheaper" Windows laptops, but the store I was in was plenty busy. In fact, it was near impossible to find someone to ring up my little $50 software purchase :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Any they will continue to pull from the Windows crowd I believe which will strengthen their core.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back