Is Apple Feeling The Netbook Impact?

Whether you love netbooks or love to hate them, their impact on the laptop PC market is undeniable, particularly when it comes to pricing.

Even Apple, it seems, is not entirely immune.

Research firm NPD Group released its latest sales figures, which among other things showed pricing on laptops of both the PC and Mac variety dropped in February. The average selling price of Mac laptops fell roughly 7 percent to $1,512, according to NPD.

While that pales in comparison to the gigantic dip in the average selling price of Windows-based laptops--down 22 percent to $560, where netbooks are more clearly having an impact--a drop is still a drop.

I have to believe that the combined factors of a struggling economy and the buzzworthiness of low-cost Windows-based netbooks will make it increasingly difficult for Apple to keep its laptop prices from slumping. No doubt, diehard Mac users will remain as such and will willingly plunk down the extra dough for Apple products. But for all those "independents" and all of the current PC users who might be Mac-curious, it's not so easy to justify spending $1,000 more for Apple's cool factor when netbooks are forcing laptop PC prices down, down, down.

Apple sales also are not invulnerable. NPD says unit sales of Macbook laptops dropped 7 percent in February, while Windows-based laptops, including netbooks, grew 36 percent. Even if netbooks are excluded, unit sales of Windows laptops still grew 16 percent, Reuters reported.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been widely quoted as saying the company doesn't know how to make a sub-$500 computer "that's not a piece of junk," which seemingly indicates that netbooks are not on Apple's horizon. Of course that hasn't stopped rumors that the company is looking to jump on the netbook bandwagon with a lighter, cheaper notebook (as opposed to the lighter, pricier MacBook Air, which starts at $1,799).

Whatever Jobs' plans, one thing seems certain: The emergence of the netbook has turned laptop pricing on its head, a trend that not even Apple can ignore.