Mac sales down, but ASP holding up well
Whereas the image tasters and arbiters of brand say Microsoft has gained ground on Apple (purportedly as a result of the laptop hunter ads), estimates point to soft yet resilient sales for Apple-branded computers.
Quoting BrandIndex voodoo, AdAge reports that Microsoft’s latest, greatest advertising blitz is having the desired effect, helping the company win the “value perception” battle among 18 to 34 year-old buyers. Therein, it is believed that Apple’s rating has fallen from 70 to 12.4 (zero representing a neutral rating) and Microsoft’s has soared from zero to 46.2.
“It would be very unusual for Microsoft’s score to be increasing this much and Apple’s to be decreasing without some sort of event driving that, like a major campaign that’s particularly successful,” said Ted Marzilli, global managing director for BrandIndex.
Nevertheless, according to NPD data quoted by BusinessWeek, Mac sales fell 1.8 percent year-over-year, meaning a 8 to 16 percent quarter to quarter fall could be recorded when Apple reports its results in July. Still, it’s important to distinguish between BrandIndex’s perceptions of others’ perceptions of Apple’s brand image and NPD’s bean counters counting beans.
Further, and this is perhaps the most telling piece of data in the soup, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster has digested the numbers and believes Apple’s average selling price (ASP) for Macs at a virtually flat $1,329, which means the company’s revenues and profits have held up year-over-year, etc. Of course, this information compares very favorably with the data coming from PC makers, such as Acer, for example, which reports a double-digit increase in unit volume (ie netbooks) and a commensurate double-digit fall in profits.
Then again, we won’t know the real data (i.e. actual units shipped) until mid-July when Apple reports. Still, I would very much like to know if BrandIndex separated their 18 to 34 year-old wheat from the chafe (i.e. individuals with jobs and those without) in formulating their conclusions…
What’s your take?
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May 20th, 2009
At the end of the day, this campaign will drive the users of MS to the arms of Apple when they failed to deliver as in when you pay peanuts you get monkeys.
Apple controls the whole widget and their greatest strength is the software controls the hardware.