“One of the biggest complaints I’ve seen leveled against the iPad is that it was too expensive compared to other tablets, and that the high price was acting as a barrier to sales,” Adrian Kingsley-Hughes writes for ZDNet. “Turns out that was true.”
“Earlier this year Apple attempted to resuscitate flagging sales by turning to the older-than-dirt sale trick of cutting prices. And it looks like it’s worked. But at a price. Sales are up, for sure,” Kingsley-Hughes writes. “Problem is, increased sales hasn’t done much for revenue or profits. While iPad sales are up 15 percent year-on-year, revenue only climbed by a measly 2 percent.”
“During yesterday’s earnings call… We find that people who buy iPads actually love the iPad – so the trick is getting them to buy them,” Kingsley-Hughes writes. “It seems that people love everything about the iPad – except the price.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Told ya so:
iPads are too expensive relative to the perceived competition and Apple has obviously done a piss-poor job of marketing the iPad family (read: clearly explaining to the hoi polloi why they want an iPad over an Amazon or other Android tablet).
Sticker price is the biggest reason why iPad sales struggle to return to growth (the next biggest reason is that iPads’ useful lives last so damn long, they’re not rapidly replaced).
We would have purchased iPads for family members this year if they had been updated as they should have been for the holiday season and if the prices were a bit more palatable. Yes, we know what an iPad offers. Yes, we know they’re worth the money Apple’s asking for today; even being last year’s models. But, Apple should really do the math and consider making certain hardware more affordable in exchange for the backend revenue and increased mindshare and market share that will deliver.
For the same reason – mindshare – Apple should make their own Apple displays, even to the point of taking a loss of each and every one, so that other companies’ logos on frankly ugly products that do not match Apple design sensibilities are not in users’ faces all day long. That’s not a difficult concept to grasp; even an inveterate beancounter might be able to get it. — MacDailyNews, January 6, 2017
SEE ALSO:
Apple execs: We’re working on new Apple-branded pro displays – April 4, 2017
Apple unveils new 9.7-inch iPad starting at new low price of just $329 – March 21, 2017
