Anecdotal and random thoughts
One thing that may be getting lost in this whole debate over iBooks and pricing is not only Amazon's monopoly over the ebook market and its pricing but also it increasing monopolistic hold over the whole book market. Amazon, I think but I may be wrong on this, controls a very large part of the physical book market in addition to the ebook market. It is the reason with theDOJ decision, one of the things that happened is that BKS share price dropped a fair amount(from what I was reading after the DOJ decision came out). Amazon, if books are part of the local tax holiday on internet purchases, may also have a built in advantage as well. Again, I may be wrong on this but it is a far more complex case with repercussions for the whole book market rather than just a price fixing issue related to ebooks and short term ebook prices for consumers. JMO on this though. Reasonable people can disagree.
Anecdotally, stopped into an Apple store this week for an airport express as well as some other accessories just before noon time at one of the local malls. The Apple store was moderately busy with all the sales associates with customers. Interesting that the busiest table was the setup and training tables as has been the case the past several visits to the Apple store. We were there for only about 15 minutes but saw at least 3 iPads being sold/set up as well as 1 iPhone and saw what looked like at least 3 laptops being setup. I was busy that day so I didn't take the time to ask about how sales were doing but from what I observed, things are still selling well for Apple. Even though it is all anecdotal, it looks like Apple's sales are still going along well and I would expect, despite the share price action noted this past week, that Apple will have some nice numbers not just for the past quarter but for the present quarter as well, as long as things continue from what I saw at the Apple store this past week.
Good luck out there.
Neal |
