[perardi]

I’m skeptical.

Apple’s bread and butter, as far as Macs go, is the MacBook Air. And by all accounts, they sell a lot of those, and will presumably sell even more, with better margins, now that they’ve gone ARM.

Do they really want to undercut that with a cheaper laptop? I suppose it’s possible, if the volume/margins works out, but I’d bet they just keep plugging along with $999–$1500 13-inch laptops.

[klelatti]

All fair points but I think that with higher margins it tips the balance towards market share growth. Key issues are 1) can they make an acceptable margin on a good $800 laptop and 2) can they genuinely significantly grow market share rather than lowering average selling price - i.e. can they maintain distinction between $800 and $1000 products. Given what we've seen them do on iPhone and iPad I bet then answer is yes to both of these.

Bear in mind too that after a generation or two they can put the last gen M chips in cheaper products.

[singhrac]

I think there's an economic principle here (and I don't know the sign), but this is all assuming a frictionless vacuum - in practice, Apple cannot sell 25% more M1 Macs if they lower their price to $800, or whatever, since their marginal costs rise in that case (because TSMC is totally booked!).

[klelatti]

That's today but I'd expect next year's sub $1000 Macs will use previous year's M series chips in due course. (Exactly the iPhone and iPad playbook).