Steve Jobs on Apple Customer Base

Steve Jobs on Apple Customer Base

Apple recently updated their entire laptop product offering. However, the company did not launch a cheap laptop model as the market had expected them to.

US market is going through touch economic times and the analysts believed that the company would drive the prices down to expand their customer base.

Apple however does not think that they are going to suffer with falling sales just because their products are priced higher compared to rival companies.

Steve Jobs had several comments on Apple’s customer base.

He said:

“While they may postpone purchases in tough times, they’re unlikely to abandon the quality and seamless integration which they have personally experienced and become accustomed to with Apple’s products. So if the economic downturn does affect them, they are more likely to delay than switch”.

“I think what we want to do is deliver an increasing level of value to these customers. There are some customers which we choose not to serve. We don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk. And our DNA will not let us ship that. But we can continue to deliver greater and greater value to those customers that we choose to serve. And there’s a lot of them. And we’ve seen great success by focusing on certain segments of the market, and not trying to be everything to everybody. So I think you can expect us to stick with that winning strategy and continue to try to add more and more value to those products in those customer bases we choose to serve.”

He added his opinion about the Apple TV:

“I think the whole category’s still a hobby right now. I don’t think anybody’s succeeded at it, and actually, the experimentation has slowed down. A lot of the early companies that were trying things have faded away. So I’d have to say that, given the economic conditions, given the venture capital outlook and stuff, I continue to believe it will be a hobby in 2009.”