Apple's 3rd Quarter 2007 U.S. Marketshare Up to 8.1%

[MacRumors]

According to the latest numbers from Gartner, worldwide computer shipments increased 14.4% over the same period last year. In the U.S., computer shipments increased 4.7% over the same period last year.

In comparison, Apple has seen a 37.2% increase in growth over the same period. As a result, Apple's individual marketshare has grown from 6.2% to 8.1% year-over-year. This places Apple in 3rd place in U.S. marketshare, trailing Dell (29.1%) and HP (25.7%).





Gartner had previously pegged Apple with a 5% U.S. marketshare (ranked 5th) during the 1st quarter of 2007, while Apple did not rank amongst the top 5 U.S. manufacturers in Q2 2007.

Raw Data: Gartner Press Release

Article Link

[Peace]

A good , steady climb. Love it!

[Grimace]

Cue AAPL boost!

[Grimace]

Meanwhile, rival market research firm IDC also released its preliminary third quarter PC share results around the same time as Gartner. It claims, however, that Apple's U.S. shipments totaled just 1,130,000 in Q3 for an overall share to 6.3 percent -- representing growth of just 15.9 percent.

[Phormic]

Originally Posted by Peace

A good , steady climb. Love it!

A steady climb? That's a jump high enough to give you nose bleed!

[Digitalclips]

Originally Posted by Phormic

A steady climb? That's a jump high enough to give you nose bleed!

I just flew from US to UK and back with long waits at various airports. It was amazing, both sides of the Atlantic I saw Mac laptops everywhere being used by waiting passengers and even several pilot types checking flight data. They far out numbered PC laptops by 10 to 1. I thought I was hallucinating! Last time I flew this trip a few years back I had the only Mac I saw. Man this is sweet

[raggedjimmi]

Looks like a big leap is needed to jump to those Dell and HP figures.
No doubt market share will increase with the halo effect on iPhone and the likes.

[Nick012]

I bet Scott Bourne just made a few million...

[yzp]

any other stats would have been surprising

[offwidafairies]

im worried people will start developing more viruses for apple products the more popular it gets

[yzp]

Originally Posted by offwidafairies

im worried people will start developing more viruses for apple products the more popular it gets

true, but OS X architechture, which is a Unix one, is way better for security than windows' is...

[plumbingandtech]

Extremely Impressive!

They are seriously firing on all cylinders now.

(at least once they get the kitty out the door in a week.)

[paddy]

Wow that's a really amazing jump!

[guzhogi]

Originally Posted by yzp

true, but OS X architechture, which is a Unix one, is way better for security than windows' is...

While Mac OS X is based on Unix, I wonder how many security holes Apple may have opened when adapting Unix to use as a Mac.

Simple question: is this 8.1% tell how much of the computers sold last quater were Macs or is it how much of all computers currently running Macs? If it's just computers sold this quater, I want what the marketshare is for the installed base.

[Zadillo]

Originally Posted by guzhogi

While Mac OS X is based on Unix, I wonder how many security holes Apple may have opened when adapting Unix to use as a Mac.

Simple question: is this 8.1% tell how much of the computers sold last quater were Macs or is it how much of all computers currently running Macs? If it's just computers sold this quater, I want what the marketshare is for the installed base.

Remember, it's not like OS X was just developed from scratch. NeXT/Apple already had years of experience with it as NeXTStep. I guess you are suggesting possible security holes added by adding in the new API's, etc. but I haven't heard of too many problems coming up like this (it seems like when you do hear about security holes in OS X, they are often more standard UNIX security issues).

The marketshare figure represents computers sold during that quarter.

I think "installed base" is much harder to figure out though. You'd have to have an accurate way to survey people and find out what systems they were actually using.

This actually used to be one of the common complaints when people talked about Apple's low marketshare numbers. Historically speaking, Mac users tended to hold on to and use their Macs for much longer, so the quarterly marketshare figures of new purchased Macs often were fairly low. But it didn't tell the whole picture, since it didn't reflect necessarily how many people were actually using Macs.

-Zadillo

[inkswamp]

Originally Posted by offwidafairies

im worried people will start developing more viruses for apple products the more popular it gets

Don't buy into the market share=more viruses argument. There's some truth there, but it's not the whole story. There are other factors beyond market share that influence a platform/software's chances of getting viruses or having security exploits.

The best example I've seen is the Apache vs. IIS. Apache has a much larger market share than IIS and yet, it's the latter that has the most security issues.

Bear in mind too that many of the viruses on Windows can be traced back directly to very, very dumb decisions by MS: automatically opening attachments in Outlook, leaving ports open, RPC exploits, sloppy programming resulting in buffer overflows, giving user account admin-like access, etc.

Here's another thing to consider. OS 9 never had the market share than OS X does and yet there were viruses for OS 9. None for OS X however.

There are hundreds of examples like this. The whole market share argument has been thoroughly debunked by now. It's a popular thing to say because it gives MS apologists a way to defend MS and simultaneously take a swipe at OS X's relatively smaller user base. There's not a lot of substance to that argument.

I have no doubt that OS X will have security issues, but I will be surprised to see it ever approach anything like what exists on Windows.

[hooch]

Originally Posted by offwidafairies

im worried people will start developing more viruses for apple products the more popular it gets

I'm sorry, but this is something window fanatics say. I am not saying it isn't possible, but wouldn't we have seen one by now?? I don't care what people say that market share is the determining factor. If there are people who do this for fun or challenge, why not be the one to write a virus on an OS whose company proclaims on TV commercials, websites, etc to be the most secure OS out there? Is it because all the virus writers use OSX/Linux? Hmmmmm...

[skinnylegs]

All 3 are excellent systems, but Apple won't gain mainstream market share past a certain point if they don't make a mainstream system.

Agreed. There is a wide margin between the iMac and the Mac Pro. Given the move to Intel based processors, I would think Apple might make a move to nab a bit of the gaming market which seems to fuel new technology. Case in point: I love my iMac but I'm getting ready to purchase a new PC for gaming because Apple simply doesn't offer anything compelling.

[offwidafairies]

Originally Posted by hooch

I'm sorry, but this is something window fanatics say. I am not saying it isn't possible, but wouldn't we have seen one by now?? I don't care what people say that market share is the determining factor. If there are people who do this for fun or challenge, why not be the one to write a virus on an OS whose company proclaims on TV commercials, websites, etc to be the most secure OS out there? Is it because all the virus writers use OSX/Linux? Hmmmmm...

im certainly not a windoze fanatic.
quite the opposite
im glad to hear so many people disagree with me

[inkswamp]

Originally Posted by hooch

I'm sorry, but this is something window fanatics say. I am not saying it isn't possible, but wouldn't we have seen one by now?? I don't care what people say that market share is the determining factor.

What's funny about the market share argument too is that it really doesn't work. The Mac doesn't run OS 9 anymore. It's OS X and OS X is Unix. There are lots and lots of Unix (or Unix-like, if that makes Linux fans happy) machines out there and they're all running same or similar software under the hood and all have similarities in how they operate and are structured. In that sense, OS X is part of a much bigger market. And yet, I don't see a whole lot to worry about from the Unix side of OS X either. We've seen a few security issues pop up (like the ssh thing a while back) but nothing that has exploded into a major virus outbreak.

[virduk]

I wonder what the picture looks like outside the U.S?

I wonder if all that growth is in laptops.

I also wonder if these figures include non-branded systems? Now it may just be vastly differently in the US, but here I almost never see 'branded' systems. Even in education its far more common to see system that are put together by local outfits rather than brand names.

[kevinwiz]

Originally Posted by offwidafairies

im worried people will start developing more viruses for apple products the more popular it gets

me too, thats why i don't care if apple is gaining popularity or whatever. that's bad news for my macbook and i. and i don't own stock so it doesn't have any financial effect on me

[Zadillo]

Originally Posted by kevinwiz

me too, thats why i don't care if apple is gaining popularity or whatever. that's bad news for my macbook and i. and i don't own stock so it doesn't have any financial effect on me

I think this is buying into the excuse MS tries to make for itself; namely, that they aren't to blame for any of their security problems, that it's solely because their platform is so popular that it is a target for hackers and virus writers.

Certainly popularity plays a role, but there's more to it. Windows became so virus-prone precisely because a lot of the security aspects of it were very sloppy, and MS was negligent. But this is why they like to push this idea that it was just popularity that made them a target, not blatant security holes.

This isn't to say that OS X or Linux are completely 100% bulletproof; clearly that's not the case. But they are generally designed more with security in mind, and that does make a difference.

Aside from that, Apple has made themselves a major target by promoting the security and virus-free nature of OS X, and you certainly do see people come out with various hacks/etc. But what we have yet to see is a really widespread virus. But you can imagine that there are plenty of people out there who would love to write one, because the notoriety would be unprecedented; as it is, people are able to garner major attention for finding any security breaches or problems whatsoever, even if they don't have much real-world impact.

-Zadillo

[mm1250]

I'm sorry to bust everyones bubble but the numbers released by Garnter and IDC shows they haven't really done any homework. I'm not even sure where they pulled those numbers out of.

Simple research will show the following:

in Q4 2005 Apple shipped 1.23million units
Source: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/oct/11results.html

in Q4 2006 Apple shipped 1.61million units
Source: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/oct/18results.html

the Last Quarter (Q3 2007), Apple shipped 1.71 million units
Source: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/07/25results.html

Q4 2007 numbers will be out Monday and I see mabye 1.9 to 2.0 million units sold, there should be NO DOUBT that they ATLEAST sell what they did in the last Q which was 1.7million units.

I'm not sure how they reported 1.3million when they almost reached that number in 2005. How can they insist Apple hasn't grown its unit sales in over 2 years.

So in theory, Apple's marketshare should be higher... YOU do the math.

[MattJessop]

Originally Posted by offwidafairies

im worried people will start developing more viruses for apple products the more popular it gets

I don't think you'll have to worry about that for a while. Linux's share of servers and 'critical' workstations that companies rely on in the background is quite high I'd assume. This would make it a prime target for hackers who want to disrupt companies. Yet Linux is secure, and very few to no viruses are reported.

OS X is based on the same architecture as Linux, so it would be safe to assume that it'll be pretty safe for a while. Especially with Apple introducing a limited form of Application signing in Leopard.

Windows meanwhile relies on WinNT. Thank the heavens its not Win9x. *Shakes head* those were the days.