Rags Srinivasan:
If Apple sees no change in total number of units sold from the current quarter, this ASP bump will still result in a minimum additional profit of $200 million. If you include net new purchases and higher percentage up-sells, this number could easily become $1 billion in additional profit.
The article is flawed. It assumes higher ASP equals higher profits. While old MacBook Pros had higher profits (either due to higher margin or just same margin and higher ASP) how does this tell us anything about the margin on the MacBook Pro Retina?
In fact, given the pricing (a “regular” MacBook Pro configured with SSD, etc. is MORE expensive than the equivalent configuration Retina) I’d be willing to bet that Apple is foregoing profit on the Retina to establish a beachhead.
Agreed. And the idea that 1 in 10 people who were going to settle for an Air or a 13″ MBP will for some reason throw caution to the wind and lay an extra $1000+ for a Retina? Not really. The Airs and the 13″ MBP are price-concious/non-power-user options. If 1 in 100 take this leap I’d be surprised. He also doesn’t take into account the fact that this machine effectively replaces the 17″.
All in all, very poor top-level, Business School 101 analysis.
Might we not assume that Apple’s supply chain and manufacturing process generally get more efficient over time, and therefore lower expenses?