If you had a child, going to school in the near future, what type of computer would you buy for the upcoming school year? A netbook, or perhaps a macbook? According to a recent survey by Retrevo, consumers are looking to cheap computers for the coming year, spelling potential trouble for the Mac line in the coming months. It seems that consumers are trending towards lower power, lower cost computer solutions that suffice, and away from more expensive, higher end machines.
According to the survey, 58% responded that they were planning spending less than $750 on a computer, meaning that those people were automatically out of the running for a OSX based computer. Even more, only 18% of consumers had a budget of over $1000. Given that the lowest possible Mac price point is $950, Apple is vying for a very small piece of the pie, with big competition from the likes of Dell, HP, and others all vying for they higher end market.
All of this might spell potential trouble for the Apple computer line, unless a new lower priced line of computers was introduced. That could still happen before the end of the year, but does not seem likely given the Mac lineup has never focused on budget computers.
