“Apple Inc. and its iPhone are set to ride a growing wave of middle-market Americans who are defining a new market segment through their willingness to pay a premium for ‘new luxury’ goods, says a new report from Credit Suisse,” Katie Marsal reports for AppleInsider.
Marsal reports, “According to the 21-page briefing, a ‘new luxury’ product is one that demonstrates technical superiority, improved functionality, and compels an emotional attachment by its owner. It possess higher levels of quality, taste, and aspiration than other goods in its category, but is not so expensive as to be out of reach.”
“‘We believe the iPhone addresses all three of these characteristics as it enters the market harnessing the world’s best operating system (Mac OS) which will drive a step function increase in both functionality and simplicity relative to other products in the market,’ analyst Robert Semple wrote in the report. ‘And while these features can stand on their own, we believe there will be a certain ‘cachet’ associated with owning the iPhone, much like the Motorola RAZR phone when it was launched in 2005,'” Marsal reports.
Marsal reports, “Semple said middle market consumers most likely to adopt the iPhone include empty nesters, single twenty-something professionals, and dual income couples with reduced financial commitments and more disposable income. Divorced women also rank high on the list, according to the analyst, given the increase of women generating income combined with higher divorce rates. ‘In fact, we believe the greatest surprise around iPhone is that women may surpass gadget geeks as the largest customer segment to adopt the iPhone,’ he wrote.”
Marsal reports, “‘The real value and differentiation in the iPhone lies not its sleek design (this is certainly helpful though), but rather, the innovative qualities and resulting capabilities delivered by the Mac OS X, which remains the best operating system in the PC world today in our opinion, and an OS that easily exceeds the capabilities of the scaled down OS’s that dominate the mobile phone market today,’ Semple wrote.”
Marsal reports, “Semple also predicts that iPhone will become a go-to weather tracker along with a pseudo GPS device…”
Much more in the full article here.
I can’t wait for the first Software Update for iPhone that adds some significant new feature. On that day, all of the other mobile OSes should just go crawl into a hole, curl up in the fetal position, and whimper uncontrollably.
MDN,
we read it all yesterday …. all my troubles seemed so …..
My dear MDN,
without Appleinsider where would you be?
MDN sheepishly answers: ‘nowhere, but nowhere’
Toby Belch,
too true.
What you read in Appleinsider one day, you read in MDN the next.
I’ve never experienced the contrary. Not once!
…realize that MDN is just a one stop to find all the Apple related news.
Charko and Toby,
I’ll wait an extra day to read the news on MDN, if it means not having to scour multiple Mac sites for “news.”
Appleinsider doesn’t have the cachet that MDN does. Being a divorced woman hungry for some, ah, cachet, I’ll get it from MDN.
MDN offers a convenient service, and a single place we can all go to read people’s views and share our own.
Generally they do a good job.
“Mac OS X, the world’s best operating system”
You’re god damned right it is.
Soon I’ll even have it in my *pants*.
“Appleinsider doesn’t have the cachet that MDN does. Being a divorced woman hungry for some, ah, cachet, I’ll get it from MDN.”
Go ahead, scorch the page why don’t you?
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“without Appleinsider where would you be?”
Without As the Apple Turns, where would any of us be? Oh yeah. We’d be here.
Wherever did you disappear to, Jack?
@ MacMania
Word, sistah’.
“And it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard!”
Stefano:
Later, Ballmer explained that those weren’t nasty sweat stains.
It was Microsoft Innovation Fluid™.
“a product that demonstrates technical superiority, improved functionality, and compels an emotional attachment by its owner.
..higher levels of quality, taste, and aspiration than other goods in its category, but is not so expensive as to be out of reach.”
BINGO!
Not many other companies other than Apple are fueling this fantastic new ecosystem.