Apple's US Market Share Slips in 1Q 2009

[MacRumors]

Gartner has released a preliminary report detailing U.S. and worldwide PC shipments for the first quarter of 2009. The report pegs Apple's U.S. market share in fourth place among vendors at 7.4%, down from 8.0% in the fourth quarter of 2008. More importantly, the report shows a slight decline in market share over the year-ago quarter, when Apple held 7.5% market share.




Apple's U.S. Market Share Trend: 1Q06-1Q09 (Gartner)
Apple's U.S. computer shipments showed a 1.1% decline over the year-ago quarter, compared to an overall U.S. industry decline of 0.3%. Gartner notes that the overall PC market performed better than expected, due in significant part to strong sales of "mini notebooks" or netbooks, a market segment in which Apple does not currently compete. Gartner also suggests that the average selling price of computers sold in the first quarter of 2009 may have shrunk as much as 20% due to this explosion in netbook sales. Consequently, while Apple's market share has apparently slipped, its gross revenue and profits are likely to have held up better than the industry average.

Also of note, HP was able to pass Dell for the top spot among U.S. PC shipments, taking that position for the first time since 2001.




Gartner's Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 1Q09 (Thousands of Units)
IDC has released a similar report showing Apple with 7.6% market share and a decline in U.S. sales of 1.2% over the year-ago quarter. IDC's numbers, however, are showing a slightly steeper decline in U.S. sales for the overall PC market at 3.1%. Apple remains unable to break into the top five vendors for worldwide PC shipments in either survey, with Toshiba continuing to hold the fifth spot with approximately 5.5% market share, a significant bump over their previous numbers.

Article Link: Apple's US Market Share Slips in 1Q 2009

[Lesser Evets]

Apple is looking at Acer and wondering how they can get some growth.... TABLET.

[guzhogi]

Originally Posted by Lesser Evets

Apple is looking at Acer and wondering how they can get some growth.... TABLET.

I wonder how many of these sell:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Modbook

[Hard-Hat-Mac]

Share is all relative - Netbooks really are the cause IMHO.

How many Dell Mini's and HP Mini's flew off the shelf to increase market share.

Apple REALLY needs to get on the ball with a $399 Netbook.

They would FLY off the shelves. I would buy two immediately.

HHM

[BornAgainMac]

I wish it would be possible to see the numbers without Netbooks. Also one that focuses on home purchases.

[bigmc6000]

Do they release the $ share numbers at the same time? I'm quite certain that Acer's growth is pretty much all in netbooks (probably not tablets) and acer makes, what, $20 on those?

[WJKramer]

NetBooks are the name of the game people. With no money in the economy people are spending less buying cheaper computers only to realize the NetBook is all they really need. Apple better get with it and put out a $399 10" MacBook Air of their own!

Screw tablets.

[Lesser Evets]

Originally Posted by guzhogi

I wonder how many of these sell:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Modbook

If THAT was thinner and cheaper I would buy it in an instant. A friend has one and he loves it, but I find it too clunky in terms of portability.

A tablet for me wouldn't even need half the computing power of one of those.

However, if Apple did make a 10" iPod type netbook device for $399, I would instantly buy. $399 from Apple.... BUWAHAHA! *snort* Doubt it.

[Mykbibby]

iTablet coming Summer, 99 dollars with contract, 499 without. That should bring it back up.

[flopticalcube]

netbooks, netbooks, netbooks

[talkingfuture]

Looking at that graph this could be cyclical. Maybe we need another couple of quarters to accurately judge it.

[ivladster]

i dont think apple cares about market shares, they worry more about making great products.

[Lesser Evets]

Originally Posted by Mykbibby

iTablet coming Summer, 99 dollars with contract, 499 without. That should bring it back up.

So an iPod Touch is $399 and a tablet type thing is $499??

I gotta see this.

I can see low priced iPods if they start to limit iPods downward with memory and ability, but they move in upward 10" Tablnetbooks-Maxipods.

If they have a supersmall mem. for $499 and larger ones going up to $999 it would make sense.

Originally Posted by ivladster

i dont think apple cares about market shares, they worry more about making great products.

Yeah. Apple doesn't care about money. They're totally about charity.

[kas23]

Regardless if it is a netbook or not, it doesn't matter, it's still a computer. A netbook is still a computer that runs a bonafide OS (the same OS as a regular desktop would run). Regular consumers are starting to realize that they don't use their computers for anything more than word processing, PP presentations, email, and the internet. And these netbooks can accomplish these feats just as efficiently as a $1000-2000 laptop or desktop (making a lot of Apple computers just not needed). As netbooks become more powerful (and cheaper), their marketshare is going to continue to increase. It is not as "nascent" as Apple thought - they better hurry up and get into the game. And we still don't even know for a fact if Apple is going to indeed release one.

[slightly]

I'm a little surprised that vendors are only selling 1-4000 computers per quarter. Or should "shipment" be construed as "batch", ie, a sale of 200 computers to a business is one shipment?

[kas23]

Originally Posted by Lesser Evets

So an iPod Touch is $399 and a tablet type thing is $499??

I gotta see this.

I can see low priced iPods if they start to limit iPods downward with memory and ability, but they move in upward 10" Tablnetbooks-Maxipods.

If they have a supersmall mem. for $499 and larger ones going up to $999 it would make sense.


Yeah. Apple doesn't care about money. They're totally about charity.

+1.

These will definitely cost 100-200 dollars more than an iPhone (not less) as they are going to be larger (more materials) and likely have more processing power.

[tjcampbell]

Make an affordable, intelligent, sleek netbook NOW!

[stagi]

I agree with most of you that netbooks are the reason for this and Apple should produce a netbook or small table like device soon to be competitive, but I don't think they need a $399 product. Something different from the competition and priced at $599 still could fly off the shelves even in tight times and still be a profitable product for apple.

[kas23]

The growth of Acer is phenomenal. Wow. It's like the growth of hybrids and small cars when gas prices were super-high last year.

[lifeinhd]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11a Safari/525.20)

The only reason HP is now ahead of Dell is because of those Microsoft ads :P

In addition, the reason Apple's share is slipping is because they don't seem to understand that you can't release a glossy notebook aimed at professionals and actually expect people to buy them.

[Sound Evolution]

I told it long time ago already... Apple missed the boat with Netbooks. Apple should have bin the first one with a Netbook alike device. It could be a way to make Apple widely acknowledged by more consumers.

With best regards,
Bas

[Small White Car]

Originally Posted by Lesser Evets

Yeah. Apple doesn't care about money. They're totally about charity.

He said 'market share' not 'money.'

The two have remarkably little to do with each other, so you can't just go switching them with each other as if they're the same thing. ivladster made a good point and you "refuted" it by putting words in his mouth.

[dejo]

Originally Posted by Lesser Evets

Yeah. Apple doesn't care about money. They're totally about charity.

Increasing market share is not the same thing as making money. *cough* Xbox *cough*

Edit: Damn, Small White Car stole my thunder!

[notjustjay]

Yeah, low-profit, but high-volume, are propelling up the likes of Asus, Acer, Dell, HP. A lot of other made-in-China names are getting in on the action, too.

Even if Apple were to reposition the Mac Mini, drop the price a bit and it would compete well against the "netbook in PC form" models, like the EEE Box and the touch-screen EEE Top (which looks a bit like Apple's old Cinema Display!)

Actually, if Apple would be willing to sacrifice a little bit of their larger-than-industry-average margins, and price their existing computers a little bit more competitively, that could go a long way too. Even Microsoft's ads acknowledge that everyone likes Macs, but they are "too pricey". (Yes, I *know* the truth of that is debatable). Even $100 off across the line would make a lot of sense. If they could bring the Mini below $500 and the iMac below $1000...

[IrishSniper87]

Originally Posted by BornAgainMac

I wish it would be possible to see the numbers without Netbooks. Also one that focuses on home purchases.

Why would you want to see the numbers without Netbooks? They are going to be an huge part of the future of computers.

That's like saying a few years ago that you want to see the desktop numbers without laptops.

IMHO Apple needs a $399-$499 Netbook with the following.

9 or 10' screen
1GB RAM
16GB SSD
Intel Atom Processor (I'd love better, but that is doubtful)
Mac OS X Leopard
Integrated camera

E-Mail, internet, iLife, iChat, word processing in a (more) portable casing (then MacBook) with a much cheaper price then the MacBook

I don't know if Apple would do it, and if they did, they would add a few small features and probably ask $699 or $799 for it