“The world divides into people who think of Apple (AAPL) as a company, and people who think of Apple as a brand,” Felix Salmon writes for Seeking Alpha. “The former group includes all stock analysts, of course, but it also includes most technology journalists. The latter group is, well, most of the people who buy Apple products.”
“The difference between the two can be seen quite clearly this morning, in reactions to the launch of the iPad mini. The WSJ — which naturally skews to the Apple-is-a-company view of the world — runs its story under the headline ‘Apple Drops an iPad Mini on Rivals,’ and leads by saying that by announcing this new product, Apple was ‘seeking to blunt an advance by rivals.’ They even have a ‘Tablet Wars’ interactive graphic, which is based on the implicit assumption that consumers are hyper-rational shoppers, carefully comparing the iPad to various alternatives,” Salmon writes. “But if you look at what actual consumers are asking, it turns out that only an ultra-geeky minority is out there weighing up the relative merits of the iPad mini and the Galaxy Note.”
Salmon writes, “Note [the New York Times‘] Nick Bilton, today: ‘Now that the Apple iPad mini is here, I’m fielding one particular question from friends, family and readers: Which model should I buy?’ The point here is that Apple has already done the work of persuading people to buy the iPad mini — it’s done it through many years of creating products which are a pleasure to use.”
“Apple, famously, has the same pricing philosophy as Louis Vuitton: it sells premium products at premium prices, and it never discounts,” Salmon write. “That philosophy has made it an aspirational brand worldwide: you don’t see vendors in China selling fake Google Nexus 7s.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, Apple sells premium products at premium prices to premium customers.
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Newsflash: Apple sells premium products at premium prices to premium customers – October 23, 2012