I was reading on NoBeige.com on Thursday that Apple was offering an employee price of $699 for the iMac. This price was described as "near cost".
Now if resellers are paying $1180 per iMac, that would translate to (1180-699)/1180 = 40.7% margin. That sounds like a healthy margin to me! I do not find this unreasonable, since the iMac is extremely stripped down.
Even at $999 (with let's say a reseller cost of $900), we have (900-699)/900 = 22.3%. This is too conservative however, since by Christmas the cost of the components will have dropped as well.
I don't think Apple is (or will be) competing in the commodity market. Jobs, the consummate spinmeister, has merely convinced us that margin-lowering technologies (such as SCSI, ADB, serial ports, PCI slots, floppy drives) are irrevelant in the consumer market. He has succeeded, and as a result he has a high-margin consumer machine, unlike sub-$1000 PCs.
source: www.NoBeige.com (I couldn't find the link for Thursday yet...) |
