Apple resellers instate broad price cuts on MacBooks amid concerns of slowing growth
With whispers of slowing growth in Apple's Mac business gaining traction and overall sentiment surrounding the company at its lowest levels in roughly a decade, several of its largest resellers this week instated unusually steep price cuts on almost all sub-$2000 MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs.
The cuts, which began at the top of the week, precede Apple's fiscal first quarter earnings release (4:30 p.m. Eastern) and conference call (5:00 p.m.) scheduled for later this afternoon, both of which are viewed by industry-watchers, analysts, and pundits alike as the most critical for the Cupertino-based company in 10 years.?
In addition to widespread concerns over Apple's capacity to maintain growth and and premium profit margins in its bread-and-butter iPhone business in the face of stiff competition from the likes of Samsung, recent data from U.S.-based market research firms have also done their part to depress sentiment surrounding the company's computer business.?
One average, analysts have extrapolated those data releases to predict that Mac sales for the three-month? period ending December will fall 4 percent year over year to 5 million units ? figures that are unquestionably hampered by a roughly estimated 500,000 new iMac units that Apple was unable to push into the channel during the quarter due to well-documented production problems.
While the precise catalysts for this week's Mac price cuts is unclear, our historical Mac Price Guide data confirms the trend began at Best Buy ? Apple's largest domestic brick-and-mortar retail partner ? and was quickly mirrored by Apple's other top-tier partners including Amazon, B&H Photo and MacMall. In most cases, pricing now sits near or below wholesale costs for those Macs.
And while there is no hard evidence to suggest that Apple may have played a role in the reductions, Best Buy is known to be a preferred partner with which Apple often consults prior to material price drops on its products that present potential to dilute the company's premium brand in the face of consumers.
Source: KGI Securities
Alternatively, Best Buy may have made the move to help maintain robust sales of Macs through the first half of 2013 given increasingly convincing evidence and leaked product roadmaps that suggest Apple won't be ready to introduce any new Mac notebook models until very late in the second calendar quarter, or early in the third quarter.?
There's also been rumblings amongst insiders that the company's MacBook Pro Retina pricing is proving a bit too rich for average consumers in the face of today's global economy, and customers are therefore buying down the chain towards lower ASP (average selling price) models in a play to remain loyal to Apple's ecosystem. As such, Best Buy could be simply looking to capitalize on the trend in a bid for attach-rates and customer retention.?
Nevertheless, Apple's financial and disclosures this afternoon will go a long way towards validating lingering concerns about its fundamentals and future growth prospect, or give the company an opportunity to largely discount them, proven them to be overblown, and set the record straight by "changing the tone of the conversation."
In the meantime, consumers in the market for a new Mac are presented with the greatest value proposition since last summer, with new MacBook Airs starting at $873, MacBook Pros starting at $1,067, and 15-inch MacBook Pros with Retina display starting at $1,988.?
With MacMall's latest price drops today, the reseller dominates standalone pricing across the entire MacBook family, offering the lowest prices anywhere to AppleInsider readers who use the links in our price guides to activate the Promo Code field on MacMall's product pages and then manually applying the additional 3% Promo Code: APPINSDRMWB37994
As usual, AppleInsider will provide comprehensive and extended coverage of Apple's earnings release and conference call beginning at 4:30 p.m. Eastern this afternoon.
The cuts, which began at the top of the week, precede Apple's fiscal first quarter earnings release (4:30 p.m. Eastern) and conference call (5:00 p.m.) scheduled for later this afternoon, both of which are viewed by industry-watchers, analysts, and pundits alike as the most critical for the Cupertino-based company in 10 years.?
In addition to widespread concerns over Apple's capacity to maintain growth and and premium profit margins in its bread-and-butter iPhone business in the face of stiff competition from the likes of Samsung, recent data from U.S.-based market research firms have also done their part to depress sentiment surrounding the company's computer business.?
One average, analysts have extrapolated those data releases to predict that Mac sales for the three-month? period ending December will fall 4 percent year over year to 5 million units ? figures that are unquestionably hampered by a roughly estimated 500,000 new iMac units that Apple was unable to push into the channel during the quarter due to well-documented production problems.
While the precise catalysts for this week's Mac price cuts is unclear, our historical Mac Price Guide data confirms the trend began at Best Buy ? Apple's largest domestic brick-and-mortar retail partner ? and was quickly mirrored by Apple's other top-tier partners including Amazon, B&H Photo and MacMall. In most cases, pricing now sits near or below wholesale costs for those Macs.
And while there is no hard evidence to suggest that Apple may have played a role in the reductions, Best Buy is known to be a preferred partner with which Apple often consults prior to material price drops on its products that present potential to dilute the company's premium brand in the face of consumers.
Source: KGI Securities
Alternatively, Best Buy may have made the move to help maintain robust sales of Macs through the first half of 2013 given increasingly convincing evidence and leaked product roadmaps that suggest Apple won't be ready to introduce any new Mac notebook models until very late in the second calendar quarter, or early in the third quarter.?
There's also been rumblings amongst insiders that the company's MacBook Pro Retina pricing is proving a bit too rich for average consumers in the face of today's global economy, and customers are therefore buying down the chain towards lower ASP (average selling price) models in a play to remain loyal to Apple's ecosystem. As such, Best Buy could be simply looking to capitalize on the trend in a bid for attach-rates and customer retention.?
Nevertheless, Apple's financial and disclosures this afternoon will go a long way towards validating lingering concerns about its fundamentals and future growth prospect, or give the company an opportunity to largely discount them, proven them to be overblown, and set the record straight by "changing the tone of the conversation."
In the meantime, consumers in the market for a new Mac are presented with the greatest value proposition since last summer, with new MacBook Airs starting at $873, MacBook Pros starting at $1,067, and 15-inch MacBook Pros with Retina display starting at $1,988.?
With MacMall's latest price drops today, the reseller dominates standalone pricing across the entire MacBook family, offering the lowest prices anywhere to AppleInsider readers who use the links in our price guides to activate the Promo Code field on MacMall's product pages and then manually applying the additional 3% Promo Code: APPINSDRMWB37994
New Macs with 3-Years of AppleCare bundled
Meanwhile, consumers interested in a 3-year Apple Protection Plan in conjunction with their new Mac purchase similarly have the best prices on the Mac+AppleCare bundles we've seen yet through B&H Photo, with combined savings of up to $427. (See our step-by-step guide to making sure you get these rock bottom prices).?As usual, AppleInsider will provide comprehensive and extended coverage of Apple's earnings release and conference call beginning at 4:30 p.m. Eastern this afternoon.
Comments
This makes total sense, by the way¡
"Overall sentiment surrounding the company at its lowest levels in roughly a decade..."
What are you talking about? Making this stuff up doesn't help your reputation one bit.
Originally Posted by Landcruiser
Making this stuff up doesn't help your reputation one bit.
They're not making it up; they're just helping it along. That's equally bad, but the distinction is meaningful.
Hmm, uh... Not sure what to make of this move; timing wise.
Kinda weird, maybe.
Hey right. DO YOU KNOW what Apple's stock was valued at 10 years ago? I do.
Any number of reasons:
1. The companies realize that retail sales slow after the Holidays and want to try to get more business in the first quarter.
2. The companies suspect that updated versions will come soon and they want to clear out inventory.
3. The companies simply like to have sales going all the time to drive traffic and it just happened that a couple of them had sales on Apple products at the same time.
4. One company had a sale for any reason (perhaps their own sales figures were low) and everyone else jumped on board.
5. The owner of Best Buy has AAPL options that are expiring soon and they need to drive the price down so they don't lose their shirt.
Don't try to read too much into it since no one knows what's really going on. The earnings call today will be informative.
Al Gore knows and now he's dancing like this...
Quick, we've only a few hours before actual numbers are reported, let's stick it to them one last time.
Good for Apple, their products are all overpriced anyways. This is a wise move that should move more units.
I'd say they just didn't sell as many units in the holiday quarter as they had predicted and are now trying to get rid of excess inventory.
If that's the case then Mac sales could be slowing.
Depends on how they project future sales.
Shameless. If you want to do an infomercial, at least have the decency to leave out the anti-Apple propaganda angle.
I'm left with a very depressed view of AI from this.
" . . . whispers of slowing growth . . ." Give me a break.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flaneur
" . . . whispers of slowing growth . . ." Give me a break.
That's poetry.
I guess we'll find out really soon.
Perhaps Thomas J. Watson's 1943 prediction will ultimately be correct. Unless of course, you believe that iPads are are really computers but simply for the sake of increasing Apple's marketshare numbers. Otherwise it is a mobile device when arguing Apple's dominance in mobile web usage sector.
Ha! I didn't think of it that way. For some reason . . .
Originally Posted by Automaticftp
Retina pricing on the 13" models is ludicrous - they are a huge rip-off.
Marvin? (Was it Marvin…) Care to repost your analysis debunking this?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Automaticftp
Retina pricing on the 13" models is ludicrous - they are a huge rip-off.
Which is why I picked up a 15" rMBP yesterday to replace my 2011 13" MBA. I just couldn't pass up a deal that Best Buy was offering. They had the base model for $1811 open box, minus a 10% off coupon for open box items. Came to $1630 plus tax versus an MSRP of $2200 plus tax. Plus I had over $500 in gift cards to cash in.
It was originally purchased on December 13, 2012 (and of course returned), so I only lost about a month's worth of warranty (no big deal to me). Damn thing looks brand new, without a single scratch on it. Gave the wifey my old 2011 MBA and sold her 2008 MBA on eBay.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazda 3s
Which is why I picked up a 15" rMBP yesterday to replace my 2011 MBA. I just couldn't pass up a deal that Best Buy was offering. They had the base model for $1811 open box, minus a 10% off coupon for open box items. Came to $1630 plus tax versus an MSRP of $2200 plus tax. Plus I had over $500 in gift cards to cash in.
It was originally purchased on December 13, 2012 (and of course returned), so I only lost about a month's worth of warranty (no big deal to me). Damn thing looks brand new, without a single scratch on it. Gave the wifey my old 2011 MBA and sold her 2008 MBA on eBay.
Indeed an extremely good deal - too bad I can't get one of those here in overpriced Switzerland.