“Apple Inc. has yet to confirm or deny the existence of the rumored iCar, but the company has not shied away from selling expensive products. Its most expensive offering is the $17,000 Apple Watch,” Louis Bedigian writes for Benzinga.
“Devin Liddell, principal brand strategist at Teague, thinks that ultra-pricey wearable could be Apple’s first step toward releasing a car,” Bedigian writes. “‘They wouldn’t have done the $17,000 watch if they weren’t trying to create a bridge to the $30,000 car,’ Liddell told Benzinga. ‘If they weren’t interested in car making, that $17,000 watch may not have existed at all.'”
Bedigian writes, “‘What the $17,000 watch does is it creates a bridge in people’s brains that goes, ‘Hey, if I could spend that on a watch, I could spend twice as much on a car,'” said Liddell. “I personally think it’s unlikely we’ll see a $100k model [from Apple]. But I think we could see a lot of the $30,000 to $50,000 models, but it’s all about bridging that gap between the high-end watch to the high-end car.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: No. Wrong. Bzzzt!
A $17,000 Apple Watch is a premium-priced product for extremely rich customers. People for whom $17,000 is an impulse buy.
It is not about making what would be Apple’s target market for cars (not just the extremely rich) accept a $30,000 price tag. People already accept $30,000 (and much more) for a new vehicle. They don’t need a bridge, from an unrelated product no less, it’s already there.