Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Gartner: Apple At 6.1% U.S. Market Share, Up 1.5% From Last Year

bryanc said:
If Vista is a dog, and gets a lot of bad media attention out of the gate (this will be exacerbated if Apple can release a Leopard that makes Vista pale in comparison), a lot of these upgraders-in-waiting are going to be pushed over the edge and will buy mac-minis or new mac laptops, knowing that they can fall back to Vista if OS X doesn't work out for them.

If Vista is brilliant, and Leopard turns out to be just a minor upgrade of Tiger, most of these upgraders-in-wating will just buy another Dell like they always have.

The most likely scenario is somewhere in the middle... Vista will get mixed reviews, but will be viewed a a very significant improvement over XP, and Leopard will be a significant improvement over Tiger, but will only have a few features that Vista lacks, and some of the upgraders-in-waiting will take the plunge, but the more conservative will stick with the devil-they-know. As a result, the number of OS X installs will continue to grow, but it won't break the crucial 10% market share that makes it a 'mainstream' OS.

Cheers
Click to expand...
First Scenario: Never. Tiger added very little. Dashboard is nice but the real upgrade was merely Spotlight. Seriously... a little stability here.... fancy features there... nothing special.

From the Leopard Preview its obvious they have nothing big up their sleeves that they've shown yet. Plus if this was likely they would have multiple huge things.. which guess what.... they don't. Cause if they had tons of great stuff... they would have at least showed us once. Time Machine barely counts as something good since itll probably be a resource hog and Virtual Desktops is nice... but still doesn't seem as nicely implemented as in Linux.

Option 2: Seems more and more likely as Spring draws nearer. THE BRAND NEW ICAL.... just has a diferent brush of aluminum. And Vista while not changing anything of how XP works, it does change how it looks for the much better. Adds many Applesque touches such as attention to detail, and really does stop a lot of Spyware. I don't see it being amazing.... but it will be good. Based on what they have shown so far... if Vista isn't a resource hog, buggy, and a security risk. It'll beat Leopard. SOrry, guys but really at this point. I could even swallow one of the three for Vista to still win. Leopard is showing a weak showing currently, Jobs better have a A or two or actually 4 up his sleeves cause he needs them.

Most likely option:

Same as your most likely option except cut down Leopard down a notch. And see Apple began to stop growth around 7.5% as they are unable to justify the price gap, as new technologies start surfacing earlier in other machines... I haven't seen any hybrid technology or Blue-ray in Apple. Other companies are showing them off. Leopard better be good very good, and Apple better have some innocation in computers up their sleeves like new cases for the first time in what 8 yrs? If they want to beat 10% of the US market. We'll get the bronze by next quarter (beat Gateway) Yet. beating gateway isn't saying much. They create such bad crap, thats just shameful.

A Toast to the New Finacial Year and many new and exciting (for once) Apple Products.... I mean stuff girls can get excited... not just Intel CPUs. :p
 
JDOG_ said:
This is great news, and that's a lot of macs! I can't help but think part of this is a big group of people waiting to buy a PC until it comes with Vista. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit, but if I could wait a couple months on the purchase to avoid an imminent ~$150+ O.S. upgrade I would. :cool:
Click to expand...

You may be right, JDOG, I just wonder how big a group that would be? I doubt if the home user crowd is effected too much. I notice that almost everyone is marketing their stuff as "Vista ready". That will probably sooth some buying anxiety from those who are even aware that there is a Vista. Is there an actual launch date for Vista yet? I remember when XP was getting close, Dell and some others were offering XP upgrade certificates. With Vista's price, I will be interested to see if they will do this again?

I had a visit from a couple Dell folks yesterday. There were some things they said which were interesting. But, there was even more to be gleaned by observation. I was going to discuss this on a new thread. If you see it, you might find it worth reading.
 
Chef Medeski said:
First Scenario: Never. Tiger added very little. Dashboard is nice but the real upgrade was merely Spotlight. Seriously... a little stability here.... fancy features there... nothing special.

From the Leopard Preview its obvious they have nothing big up their sleeves that they've shown yet. Plus if this was likely they would have multiple huge things.. which guess what.... they don't. Cause if they had tons of great stuff... they would have at least showed us once. Time Machine barely counts as something good since itll probably be a resource hog and Virtual Desktops is nice... but still doesn't seem as nicely implemented as in Linux.

Option 2: Seems more and more likely as Spring draws nearer. THE BRAND NEW ICAL.... just has a diferent brush of aluminum. And Vista while not changing anything of how XP works, it does change how it looks for the much better. Adds many Applesque touches such as attention to detail, and really does stop a lot of Spyware. I don't see it being amazing.... but it will be good. Based on what they have shown so far... if Vista isn't a resource hog, buggy, and a security risk. It'll beat Leopard. SOrry, guys but really at this point. I could even swallow one of the three for Vista to still win. Leopard is showing a weak showing currently, Jobs better have a A or two or actually 4 up his sleeves cause he needs them.

Most likely option:

Same as your most likely option except cut down Leopard down a notch. And see Apple began to stop growth around 7.5% as they are unable to justify the price gap, as new technologies start surfacing earlier in other machines... I haven't seen any hybrid technology or Blue-ray in Apple. Other companies are showing them off. Leopard better be good very good, and Apple better have some innocation in computers up their sleeves like new cases for the first time in what 8 yrs? If they want to beat 10% of the US market. We'll get the bronze by next quarter (beat Gateway) Yet. beating gateway isn't saying much. They create such bad crap, thats just shameful.

A Toast to the New Finacial Year and many new and exciting (for once) Apple Products.... I mean stuff girls can get excited... not just Intel CPUs. :p
Click to expand...

Nice analysis. Unfortunately I disagree with most of it, as do most of the analysts who write about such things. I do like the fact that you present an intelligent reason for your personal preferences (which these are).
 
Chef Medeski said:
First Scenario: Never. Tiger added very little. Dashboard is nice but the real upgrade was merely Spotlight. Seriously... a little stability here.... fancy features there... nothing special.
Click to expand...
Unless your a developer. In which case that is patently false.
Tiger->Leopard is bigger than 10.1 to 10.2 IMO, its huge.

The real winners are the developers.
 
When will we see these numbers broken out?

When will we see these numbers broken out into business/enterprise vs. consumer?

Seriously, Apple is pretty much a non-factor in the enterprise. There simply is no integration, no large-scale server application use other than web, and few enterprise-ready applications. There's no Biztalk/Websphere/SQL/Oracle running on Apple outside of a few educational institutions. Microsoft and IBM own the enterprise and considering Apple in an enterprise outside of some limited marketing/advertising/media/audio verticals is absurd. I personally deal with 130 companies that have 500-250k computers and Apple is simply not a factor at all.

However, in the consumer world it's a very different story. Apple has the potential to continue making huge inroads into the consumer/home user/SOHO segments where the lack of enterprise applications means little if anything.

I'd like to see the numbers of how Apple compares in the home segment rather than just the overall. Why can't we see this broken out?
 
lmalave said:
Showoff ;)

You're basically bragging that you have $100K in Apple stock. Nice!!!! :D Your faith is being rewarded handsomely...
Click to expand...

I do have a great deal of faith. My friends think I am nuts. Half the money is on margin and I am paying $420 a month in interest. Just a few months ago when it was down to $50 I had a margin call and I was in the hole $28K before having to dump 10K to cover the call. I did not mind since I did cash out last year with a nice 29K profit.

Apple is a strong company with over $10 billion in cash and a growth rate unmatched in the industry. If I can hang in and keep it I will double my money in a little over a year.

I did not want to show off but point out that we mac addicts are willing to put our money where our mouths are.
 
evilbert420 said:
When will we see these numbers broken out into business/enterprise vs. consumer?

Seriously, Apple is pretty much a non-factor in the enterprise. There simply is no integration, no large-scale server application use other than web, and few enterprise-ready applications. There's no Biztalk/Websphere/SQL/Oracle running on Apple outside of a few educational institutions. Microsoft and IBM own the enterprise and considering Apple in an enterprise outside of some limited marketing/advertising/media/audio verticals is absurd. I personally deal with 130 companies that have 500-250k computers and Apple is simply not a factor at all.

However, in the consumer world it's a very different story. Apple has the potential to continue making huge inroads into the consumer/home user/SOHO segments where the lack of enterprise applications means little if anything.

I'd like to see the numbers of how Apple compares in the home segment rather than just the overall. Why can't we see this broken out?
Click to expand...

Hmm...well another thread mentioned a survey that something like 18% of consumers are considering buying a Mac. I'll bet in the lasest quarter, Apple broke 10% in the consumer market. This is a good strategy for Apple. Macs have a chance to make inroads in the consumer market, whereas they have no chance in the corporate market. Even things like XServe and XRaid are marketed to industries where the Apple is still relatively strong (e.g. video production, scientific research).
 
scu said:
I do have a great deal of faith. My friends think I am nuts. Half the money is on margin and I am paying $420 a month in interest. Just a few months ago when it was down to $50 I had a margin call and I was in the hole $28K before having to dump 10K to cover the call. I did not mind since I did cash out last year with a nice 29K profit.

Apple is a strong company with over $1 billion in cash and a growth rate unmatched in the industry. If I can hang in and keep it I will double my money in a little over a year.
Click to expand...

Whoa dude. Good for you, but you are playing a *very, very* dangerous game leveraging that much. You don't know what could happen in the stock market. It might not have anything to do with Apple - it could be another terrorist attack in the U.S., or some other world-shaking event overseas (e.g. coup in Russia, revolts in China).

Don't do it, man. You're already making money on Apple stock - don't get greedy. Let me give you a cautionary tale: in 2000 my stock portfolio went from $100,000 to $30,000 in a matter of days. Not because the market went down by 70%, but rather because I was buying heavily on margin and the market went down by 20 or 30% or more in a few days (more in the tech stocks I owned). And I did *not* own any dot-bomb stocks. I invested in solid tech companies that are still doing well today, like BEA and IBM. The drop in stock price had *nothing* to do with the fundamental strength of the company or even their recent performance. It was just a market-wide overreaction. Give it some serious thought, man...

P.S. Since then, I've basically only invested in market-indexed funds (mostly S&P 500 but also some international funds since countries like India and China are growing faster than U.S.). I figure if I'm gonna get rich it's going to be based on what's happening in my career/professional life, not based on any investments. I just don't need the grief of seein my hard-earned cash flushed down the drain because of events I have no control over.
 
How many buy just one...

After living in the PC world since 1981 I got myself a Mac mini this year; just to keep my iPod 4G in line... XP was always blowing away my music... Then I got a 24" iMac and a 5 and a 5.5G iPod... All that has to help Steve's numbers... so how many Mac users really have more then just one machine?

How many of us found PCs so perfect that we ran out and got one more... I think there is a very real difference in the user experience...
 
A lot of people have more than one mac...I've found that people with macs tend to hold on to them and find a use for the older machines when new ones are bought. Either using them as servers or hook em up to a TV, older macs tend to hang around.
 
AlmostThere said:
Not just for interest though - if Apple do not take a firm presence in the rapidly developing (India, China) countries now, they may well face the same uphill battle against Windows they have been fighting for the past whatever years in the US.
Click to expand...


India has a large tariff they impose upon computers not made/assembled in India. The only way for Apple to gain large market share in India is to either build a factory there or find a reliable Indian subcontractor to build their product for that market.
 
IJ Reilly said:
I think this is a bit of an over-simplification. Apple is a computer company. A computer = hardware + an operating system + software. This was always the way it was until IBM made their terrible strategic errors with the PC. Now we think companies like Dell make computers. They really don't -- they are Microsoft remarketers.
Click to expand...


The truth hath spoken.

Ode for the days when we enthusiasts also had Atari and Commodore to pick from. Before the dark times, before the Microsoft Empire.

To think what would have happened had Atari and Commodore set aside their differences and harmonized the ST and Amiga platforms and licensed it to the PC cloners.
 
DTphonehome said:
Seriously, the more I think about it, the more upset I am that they aren't offering one. I mean, what the heck are they goint to do with $10 billion? Even the most aggressive expansion and R&D strategy doesn't justify holding onto that. And it would be a great way to offset any damage from the options fiasco. And it would boost the shares 5% (at least) on announcement. They USED to pay a dividend (1987-1995). It's time to bring it back!
Click to expand...


Oh, I dunno, perhaps acquire some more companies? You know, like TiVo - with its valuable IP - for an easy $400 million. Or pump it into R&D. Or a stake in Nintendo or Sony. Or acquire the EMI Music Group (for $1 billion) as a buffer against the other RIAA members pressuring for an increase in the iTunes Store pricing. Or finally pay off Apple Records once and for all. Those are several things Apple could do* with that $10 billion that could be more useful than artificially boosting the stock by paying out an expensive dividend to grumpy shareholders.

Heck, maybe they could go all-solar on the Apple campus like what Google is doing.



*My personal favorite idea would be for Apple to acquire Atari dirt-cheap. This would give Apple a large library of classic titles that could be ported to the iPod, not to mention giving Apple a brand that could be used to pump out OS X "compatible" computers geared towards gamers in order to boost gaming on OS X overall and a means at gunning after Dell-owned Alienware and Dell's own XPS line.
 
Lynxpro said:
Oh, I dunno, perhaps acquire some more companies? You know, like TiVo - with its valuable IP - for an easy $400 million. Or pump it into R&D. Or a stake in Nintendo or Sony. Or acquire the EMI Music Group (for $1 billion) as a buffer against the other RIAA members pressuring for an increase in the iTunes Store pricing. Or finally pay off Apple Records once and for all. Those are several things Apple could do* with that $10 billion that could be more useful than artificially boosting the stock by paying out an expensive dividend to grumpy shareholders.

Heck, maybe they could go all-solar on the Apple campus like what Google is doing.
Click to expand...

Of course the point is, they aren't doing these or any or things with the money. It's been accumulating steadily for nearly ten years, and is really building up quickly now. I don't think any of us "grumpy" stockholders would be complaining if Apple was doing something worthwhile with it. Dividends, BTW, are a message from a company to stockholders that they don't have to sell to realize a benefit from owning shares. They are good for improving the long term stability of the stock.
 
Lynxpro said:
Oh, I dunno, perhaps acquire some more companies? You know, like TiVo - with its valuable IP - for an easy $400 million. Or pump it into R&D. Or a stake in Nintendo or Sony. Or acquire the EMI Music Group (for $1 billion) as a buffer against the other RIAA members pressuring for an increase in the iTunes Store pricing. Or finally pay off Apple Records once and for all. Those are several things Apple could do* with that $10 billion that could be more useful than artificially boosting the stock by paying out an expensive dividend to grumpy shareholders.

Heck, maybe they could go all-solar on the Apple campus like what Google is doing.



*My personal favorite idea would be for Apple to acquire Atari dirt-cheap. This would give Apple a large library of classic titles that could be ported to the iPod, not to mention giving Apple a brand that could be used to pump out OS X "compatible" computers geared towards gamers in order to boost gaming on OS X overall and a means at gunning after Dell-owned Alienware and Dell's own XPS line.
Click to expand...

I whole-heartedly agree with this.

Apple should be buying up companies, but only those that can give it some actual edge in competitive markets.

I'll give you three examples:

1) Adobe, for obvious reasons. This probably wont happen, but just imagine if it did!

2) EMI Music Group. This would be HUGE, but I'm not sure Apple has the cash. It might not even be legal, given the Apple (Computer) vs. Apple (Corps...the Beatles) stuff. What's even more odd is that EMI OWNS the master recordings of the Beatles.

3) Digidesign. This is the most likely, and probably the best bet for Apple. In case people don't know, Digidesign makes ProTools software and hardware. ProTools is the Photoshop of the audio production world; EVERYONE uses it. Apple already owns Emagic, which made Logic. The purchase of Digidesign would be a massive coup for Apple, and make it the undisputed champ of the pro audio world. And if you think this is a relatively small market, you're wrong. Nearly every movie is recorded/mixed in ProTools (with some people using either Nuendo or Digital Performer). I would LOVE to see Apple buy Digidesign, kill ProTools on Windows, and make a truly top-notch audio solution.

Forget about paying dividends; people are making enough money on Apple stock. Apple needs to think about how to turn its $10 billion in cash into $50 billion in cash. And the way to do that is to grow. Buy up companies!!!
 
Games

*My personal favorite idea would be for Apple to acquire Atari dirt-cheap. This would give Apple a large library of classic titles that could be ported to the iPod, not to mention giving Apple a brand that could be used to pump out OS X "compatible" computers geared towards gamers in order to boost gaming on OS X overall


SOMEone wrote a few days ago that the itv may be a major way to get games into the apple world. The itv has been described by some as a super ipod. Well, they just intro'd ipod games. maybe use that usb on the itv box to plug in a couple of usb game controllers.... and you're off!
 
Edge100 said:
Forget about paying dividends; people are making enough money on Apple stock. Apple needs to think about how to turn its $10 billion in cash into $50 billion in cash. And the way to do that is to grow. Buy up companies!!!
Click to expand...

Success in not necessarily about accumulating cash. Far from it, in fact. A company that sits on huge piles of cash and does nothing with it, is not seen as managing their capital resources well. Many if not most financial analysts would argue that if the company is not investing their cash in future growth (and Apple decidedly is not), then they should give at least some of it back to the stockholders.

In addition to what I said above, dividends are a signal from the company that they're feeling secure about the future. Dividends, even token dividends, are a sign of maturity and stability. Hoarding cash is not.
 
lmalave said:
Whoa dude. Good for you, but you are playing a *very, very* dangerous game leveraging that much. You don't know what could happen in the stock market. It might not have anything to do with Apple - it could be another terrorist attack in the U.S., or some other world-shaking event overseas (e.g. coup in Russia, revolts in China).

Don't do it, man. You're already making money on Apple stock - don't get greedy. Let me give you a cautionary tale: in 2000 my stock portfolio went from $100,000 to $30,000 in a matter of days. Not because the market went down by 70%, but rather because I was buying heavily on margin and the market went down by 20 or 30% or more in a few days (more in the tech stocks I owned). And I did *not* own any dot-bomb stocks. I invested in solid tech companies that are still doing well today, like BEA and IBM. The drop in stock price had *nothing* to do with the fundamental strength of the company or even their recent performance. It was just a market-wide overreaction. Give it some serious thought, man...

P.S. Since then, I've basically only invested in market-indexed funds (mostly S&P 500 but also some international funds since countries like India and China are growing faster than U.S.). I figure if I'm gonna get rich it's going to be based on what's happening in my career/professional life, not based on any investments. I just don't need the grief of seein my hard-earned cash flushed down the drain because of events I have no control over.
Click to expand...

Yes I know it is risky. But my Margin Equity is 53% and I can not see it going down any time soon.
 
steelfist said:
and then there will be numerous viruses for the mac that will be unleashed into the wild.

and then norton will have numerous profits from mac viruses, along with windows viruses.


the two bad news i'm worried most from this.

aside from that, means more games , and software support along with hardware support should be increasing as well which are good.


it seems that most of the profits came from college students and travelers, as hh has noted. i thought the imac had strong sales, but it's easy to see why the notebook familly has such good sales.

oh, and i hope the laptops won't get any thinner. apple's having a big problem with cooling their laptops already. it's not worth having so much problems by cutting a few mms off the height.
Click to expand...

Yes, the common belief is that the only reason Apple, Unix, Linux is spared from viruses is because of their market share. Quite frankly, I am not buying that. There would be more notoriety in being the first to exploit the Fort Knox of virus security. There is a good reason these systems are hard to crack, and Unix people know this. Your average pimply-faced little prick does not have the wherewithal to defeat a Unix system. By the time they can figure it out, they usually have jobs and 401K's. Of course, this does not account for the professional virus/malware creators who work for Norton, McAfee, and the rest. After all, there is no reason to buy their products, if there is no need to do so. None of them have been caught, so it is just 'conspiracy theory'. Eventually, one of their 'black ops' folk will realize the incredible wealth, and fame to be gained by exposing this. It will come out.
 
wtmcgee said:
when CS3 ships, watch the marketshare explode.
Click to expand...
Definitely. Its amazing how the folks at Adobe seem to wield so much power... ? Or not, but its pretty interesting, especially now that Apple is just about almost in direct competition with them.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Dividends, yes that would be a good idea, what with $10 billion in cash on hand. Microsoft finally decided that their cash horde was becoming a bit of an embarrassment and declared one.
Click to expand...

Microsoft only paid a dividend when their share growth stagnated.

Apple on the other hand has had stellar share growth recently so there is really no need to pay dividends.
 
International?

Of course, an increased market share is good news.

But It looks like Apple considers everything outside the USA as "rest of the world".
Here in Germany there is still no Apple store and there are nearly no ads and if there are ads they are for iPod and not for mac. The only time I have seen a Mac ad on TV was when Apple switched to Intel.

You can get PCs and PC stuff everywhere, but it is hard to find a Mac (or Mac software) anyehere, even in bigger cities. No Macs in educational sector.

Today most PCs sold to indiviuals in Germany are sold in super markets and they usualy cost about 1000 Eur (~$1200 without monitor) for desktop systems or about 1300 Eur for notebooks. Apples consumer products (Mac Mini, iMac, MacBook) are not more expensive than that, but Apple fails to make anything of this potential. Macs are still an insider product here.

Everyone here talks about VISTA - a lot don't know OSX even exists.

Christian
 
mj_1903 said:
Microsoft only paid a dividend when their share growth stagnated.

Apple on the other hand has had stellar share growth recently so there is really no need to pay dividends.
Click to expand...

It isn't a question of "need." It's still a good idea, for the reasons I've stated.

Also, AAPL has not had "stellar" growth this year. It was actually down for the YTD until recently.
 
You guys with AAPL, hang on to it... I wish I still had mine, but I cashed out last year. 1525 shares paid off my Buell, cards and a house so I'm not grumbling. Only suck part was 75% of the sale price was profit(long term) and CapGains ate my lunch. IRS and State got an extra $14k last April. Ouch.

Hopefully '07 will be a good ride for y'all.

Z
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back