What more important-profitability or market share?

satchmosatchmo
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
As much as I admire Jobs' charisma (or RDF) and his ability to hype new things...he doesn't seem to get marketshare. Although he claimed about a year ago that Apple wanted to the other 95%, he's going about it in an extremely strange way.



Sure there's the Switch campaign, and the Apple Stores have definitely generated interest from PC users.

But unless Apple lowers it's prices, it'll remain at 3-5%. Surely, a future Apple CEO would do something more. Or is profitability more important? But doesn't increased marketshare usually translate to profitability as well?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    thuh freakthuh freak Posts: 2,664member
    i think that, from the outside, we're not seeing something there that Steve does. maybe something gets tossed up in those meeting prohibiting lower prices. i mean, we do know about Apple's R&D, but I have a feeling there is something more.



    and its not like Steve runs Apple from inside a vacuum. they have economists and analysts telling them what is most likely to happen if they make certain moves. i think that the reason that apple's prices are so fvcking high is because its the only way it'll work for now.



    and if it ever comes down to cutting out profitability to increase marketshare, then i'm gettin a shit pc box and running linux. cuz a company cant remain if it doesn't make a profit. gateway is death-rattling ($400 computers is ridiculous).
  • Reply 2 of 4
    mrmistermrmister Posts: 1,095member
    Agreed with most of the Freak's points...Steve made it *work*...transitioning and growing the brand is a challenge that won't be solved by suddenly dropping all the prices by 25%. It's a lot more delicate and difficult than it looks.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    stagflation stevestagflation steve Posts: 294member
    I disagree, I sell Macs day in day out,



    A 25% price cut in Macintosh configerations would do wonders for Mac sales,



    A deeper cut would be nicer, but I would sell alot more if Apple cut 25% off the top, and sell even more if Apple addressed the stagflation issue
  • Reply 4 of 4
    stunnedstunned Posts: 1,096member
    In the long term, profitability and market share are dependent on each other. cos in the long run, higher prices will only lead to lower and lower market share while increased market share can only be achieved by lower profit margins.



    Apple though is concentrating on profitability right now, charging price premiums on its brand, hardware and all its various .mac tools.



    in my opinion, there is only so much he can suck out from the existing Mac users. Apple needs to reevaluate its strategy soon.



    Granted, Apple prices will never be as low as PCs ( I dun wan this to happen either), but prices need to be at least competitive relative to other PC makers. Most Mac users know the wonders of OS X, but unfortunately, most PC users don't and high prices ain't gonna attract them to switch.
Sign In or Register to comment.