To the general public, Apple’s new MacBook Pro represents the future of laptop technology, and the culmination of years of research and technological breakthroughs. But to Apple, the new MacBook Pro is not only a revolutionary product, but a huge money making behemoth as well.
That’s right, Apple could see an additional $1 billion in pure profit thanks to its newest machine.
GigaOm has done the math, and produced some pretty interesting numbers based on Apple’s sales figures. Apparently, even though sales numbers for MacBooks overall rose year over year, profits declined as more people switched to buying lower cost, 11 or 13-inch MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models. This resulted in a $52 million decline year over year for overall profits.
With the launch of the high-priced Retina display MacBook Pro, this will all change. Since the new 15-inch MacBook Pro starts at a lofty $2199, the average selling price (ASP) of the MacBook line will now rise, helped in part by customers who would have normally chosen the stock, non-retina 15-inch MacBook Pro, or perhaps one of the smaller 13-inch models.
Allegedly, even with no increase in sales this quarter, Apple would still net an additional $200 million due to customers upgrading to the Retina MacBook Pro over other models.
This simple switch will cause the current MacBook ASP which sits at $1,245 to rise to $1,363. Including net new purchases and higher percentage up-sells, this small bump could account for an additional $1 billion. This is a quite impressive feat, even for Apple.
I’d encourage you to check out the whole article over on GigaOm, there’s some fascinating charts and statistics in the article that I think many readers will enjoy.
Source: GigaOM