Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is a company all of those not completely divested of the material world (read the buddhist and the dead) are constantly aware of. The iPod, the iPhone and the iPad along with Apple range of portable and desktop computers have been an iconic part of the lives of any in the last decade. Barclays Equity Research released a new report about Apple Inc. today pointing out a strength the company has always had that everybody missed up until now.
Apparently, according to the report, “consumers are willing to pay a premium for design and performance benefits.” That realization that will surely blow away the entire tech industry it’s possible there’ll even be a rush to imitate Apple’s products based on this new consensus.
In fairness to the writers of the report, Ben A. Reitzes and Matthew Markezin it does go on to say that the premium is paid despite the lower amount of storage available to consumers of products like Apple’s Mac Book Air. The report spends a lot of time on the state of the flash memory industry and the contrasting future of hard drives.
Apple has spent many years working under the assumption that “consumers are willing to pay a premium for design and performance benefits.” Even though they are by far the most successful electronics company on the planet it can still be assumed that the failing ones are familiar with the logic behind that statement.
This report repeats the statement twice within its confines despite its redundancy. Moving on from that little gripe the report is surprisingly light in what normally makes Apple reports hit the headlines. There’s no solid iPhone predictions or Television offerings.
The report is much more concerned with the sale of Macs, particularly portables, and does give some fairly conservative predictions regarding what they will look like when they arrive. It is asserted the new Mac Book Pro will have at least optional SSD NAND Flash memory.
That prediction is likely true. With PC makers overall following Apple into the use of SSDs, even in higher performance machines, Apple is likely to offer consumers the performance benefits of an SSD as a n option in its premium portable offering.
The report leaves the companies price target at $750 from the last report and seems optimistic though restrained overall on Apple’s future. At least Barclays will have more direction in their next report on the company now that they understand the attraction.
