{"id":24173,"date":"2019-02-04T16:29:43","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T21:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=24173"},"modified":"2019-02-26T15:34:23","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T20:34:23","slug":"margins-on-airpods-apple-tv-and-homepod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/04\/margins-on-airpods-apple-tv-and-homepod\/","title":{"rendered":"Margins on AirPods, Apple TV, and HomePod"},"content":{"rendered":"

Juli Clover<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

On the latest episode of The Talk Show<\/a>, Daring Fireball<\/em>’s John Gruber discusses Apple TV<\/a> and HomePod<\/a> pricing and whether Apple is charging too much for some of its products.<\/p>\n

According to Gruber, Apple is actually selling the 2017 Apple TV 4K at cost, suggesting the device costs Apple $180 to make. As for the HomePod, Gruber said he believes Apple sells it at a loss.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Gruber said that he also suspects the AirPods are priced close to cost as well, though he’s not sure and can’t prove it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me (especially for AirPods), but I take it seriously because Gruber usually has good sources. Maybe it was accidental because the costs ended up being higher than what Apple predicted? I do think he’s right that Apple designed “too good” of a product—“good” in the sense of using high-end components that may not be valued commensurately by customers. If Apple TV 4K actually costs $180 to sell at no profit, Apple really didn’t design the right product.<\/p>\n\n

Mark Gurman<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I’m told Apple is selling HomePods at a profit, not a loss, which wouldn’t make any sense. If it’s losing money, that’s only because it built too many speakers people don’t seem to want, and is now sitting on unsold inventory.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2019-02-05): Joe Rossignol<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Apple’s expensive HomePod speaker accounted for just six percent of the U.S. smart speaker installed base through the fourth quarter of 2018, according to research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Via Michael Love<\/a>:<\/p>\n

’Struggling’ implies effort, which I suspect they’re no longer applying to this, particularly if you assume that @gruber’s leak about Apple losing money on HomePod\/TV was tactical in advance of March and June announcements that make that retreat official.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously: Initial HomePod Sales<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Update (2019-02-26): See also: The Talk Show<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Juli Clover: On the latest episode of The Talk Show, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber discusses Apple TV and HomePod pricing and whether Apple is charging too much for some of its products. According to Gruber, Apple is actually selling the 2017 Apple TV 4K at cost, suggesting the device costs Apple $180 to make. As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2019-02-04T21:29:47Z","apple_news_api_id":"6b639fa3-5cc6-43d9-8d81-58199c797cd4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2019-02-26T20:34:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Aa2Ofo1zGQ9mNgVgZnHl81A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1422,38,615,101,1584],"class_list":["post-24173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-airpods","tag-apple","tag-apple-tv","tag-business","tag-homepod"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24173"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24411,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24173\/revisions\/24411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}