Top 10 tech deals for Black Friday
November 26, 2009 · Tagged with Family and Home
Black Friday discounts bleed a little red as tough times in retailing call for sharp cuts on prices at a few big tech shops. These ten top deals show just how much pressure is riding on holiday sales.
No. 10: Apple
Apple is traditionally the stingiest of tech discounters in the gadget market, and this year will continue that grand tradition. If reports of Apple’s Black Friday specials are true, Macs and iPods will get a one-day price break of about 10%.
The numbers. Apple’s “cool” gizmos have enjoyed a remarkably resilient status among consumers. That position is reflected in the company’s tightfisted pricing stance. Apple’s implied theme here is big discounts are for big losers. But retail partner Costco seems eager to dangle some marked-down coolness to lure its members. Costco is selling the latest Apple iPod nano for $129, a 13% discount on the $149 regular price.
The stock. Like its gadgets, Apple’s stock attracts an eager crowd willing to pay top dollar to be part of the action. Costco, however, could use a few tricks to keep its bargain-hunting customers from finding deals in Wal-Mart’s aisles. In the past month, Wal-Mart shares have doubled the rise of Costco’s stock.
No. 9: Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard grabbed the top place in PCs from Dell two years ago by jumping on the notebook bandwagon as consumers went shopping for desktop power in portable devices. Hewlett-Packard hopes to cash in again in an emerging category of hybrid laptops called super netbooks.
The numbers. One of the most-watched devices in this category is the DM3, a 13-inch, thin, lightweight notebook with an eight-hour battery life, four-gigabyte memory and no DVD drive. HEWLETT-PACKARD introduced the DM3 in July priced at $599. On Friday it will sell on Amazon for $499.
The stock. Hewlett-Packard branched into IT services last year and hopes to get a chunk of Cisco’s networking market with the pending acquisition of 3Com. But computers are still its biggest business and if hybrid notebooks are a winning category, Hewlett-Packard could continue to punish Dell.
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