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I'm getting tired of the nonsense headlines such as "Lack of
Netbook, Price Hurting Apple in This Year's Back-to-School Market". And
doesn't it seem suspicious that a dozen websites would come up with
exactly the same headline?
Problem is, they're not really thinking through what Retrevo is
reporting. Mostly, they're regurgitating the survey findings, which
are:
34% of students plan to buy a netbook
49% plan to buy full-sized laptops
58% plan to spend less than $750
18% plan to spend over $1,000
"The majority of student laptop shoppers will not consider buying a
Mac."
What Retrevo's survey of 300-some concludes - that Apple is losing
customers to netbooks - is something the evidence doesn't support. As
far as I can tell, they didn't ask "Were you considering a MacBook but
are now planning to buy a netbook?" or "Were you planning to buy a
MacBook but changed your mind because of the price?"
Questions like that might have justified the headline.
We should analyze what isn't being reported: What percentage of
student laptop shoppers will consider buying a Mac? Is it 5% or 49% -
either of which would not be a majority. Retrevo is surprisingly quiet
here.
Further, if 18% plan to spend over $1,000 and Apple accounts for 80%
of all sales in that price range, it stands to reason that about 15% of
student laptop shoppers (18% time 80%) will probably go Mac. So will
some in the $750 to $1,000 range, where Apple has only one new model
and a few refurbs.
24% of this market is in the $750 to $1,000 range. Assuming Apple
sells to one out of five in this range, we end up with somewhere around
19% of the entire market.
That's pretty impressive for a company that has maybe 10% of the
North American and European markets!
If you only read the headline, you'd think there was bad new for
Apple when the opposite is true. Netbooks have been eviscerating the
low-end notebook market, but that's not a market Apple pursues, so
Apple isn't "losing" customers. In fact, students seem to be buying
MacBooks at a higher level than the general population.
Expect one laptop of five on college campuses to be from Apple this
year.
Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986,
sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and
has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.
Links for the Day
Mac of the Day: Blue & White Power Mac G3, introduced 1999.01.05. The most colorful Power Mac introduced an innovative 'drawbridge' enclosure.
