Apple Sales and Marketshare Up (IDC)

[x86isslow]

But what about Linux and others a part of the UNIX family tree? I wouldn't call them idiots, that title belongs to only one type of computer user...

its not even every windows user. it is only those who go and willingly purchase windows, when better (read:virus free) alternatives exist. i think we forget that in a lot of places, the VAT makes the cost of getting an apple far beyond the budgets of most. and since there are more computers sold outside the us than within, apple gets way exposed to damaging taxes when it comes to global marketshare.

okay, okay, i'll go back to typing my essay now, bye bye macrumors!

 

[groovebuster]

... and since there are more computers sold outside the us than within, apple gets way exposed to damaging taxes when it comes to global marketshare.

Last time I checked VAT applies to all products sold, they are not Apple exclusive... If you sell something for the same price the same amount of VAT is added. Maybe it just shows that Apple is still charging a premium for their computers. In the low cost sector they are still not competitive. But that is the sector where most of the computers are sold. Even the Mac mini is still too expensive. This has nothing to do with the Mac mini being a nice piece of hardware. But you can get a relatively decent PC (simple Workplace) for half the money...

groovebuster

No no no. Apple's marketshare went up 30%. Apple's sales went up 44%.

EDIT add:
Now I read that the 3.3% was the last quarter a year ago. That still makes no sense of the new numbers with the quarter before saying 4.5%

In this case the 3.3% and the 4.5% are really meant for the US marketshare. The 44.6% mean the increase the for units that have been shipped (510k -> 737k) in the US.

Apple claims itself that it shipped 48% more units in year-to-year comparison. In the same time the market grew 16%. That means Apple was able to increase the wolrwide market share by 41,4%, from 2.2% to 3.1%.
It's all good!

groovebuster

 

[JFreak]

masic math lesson -- if industry grows 16% and apple grows 30%, then apple grows faster than industry in general and therefore increases its market share. that is about all facts we have.

nobody is able to calculate exact operating system market shares until selling OEM windows licenses is banned. the only market share that one can currently count is market share of "Apple", "Dell", "HP" and such, and even then one would have to know how many PC:s has been sold in total. even that is close to impossible, and would include uncertainity factor of other minor brand sales and pc:s built from parts.

anyway, no other facts are available. everything else (including the industry growth rate) are guesses and estimates.

 

[Evangelion]

its not even every windows user. it is only those who go and willingly purchase windows, when better (read:virus free) alternatives exist.

Being virus-free doesn't automatically make the product better. Yes, Macs are better computers than Dells or HP's are. And yes, OS X is better than Windows XP is. But there's more to the equation than that. I have tried converting my in-laws from Windows to either Linux or Mac. They understand the benefits of Linux and Mac, but they will not do it. Why? Applications. the apps they use run on Windows. All the dinky little games that come in cereal-boxes that their kid likes to play run only on Windows. All the older apps they have run on Windows only.

i think we forget that in a lot of places, the VAT makes the cost of getting an apple far beyond the budgets of most.

I think you are forgetting that VAT applies to PC's as well .

 

[groovebuster]

nobody is able to calculate exact operating system market shares until selling OEM windows licenses is banned.

I don't get it... The Apple share should be pretty accurate since no Windows runs native on a Mac so far...

the only market share that one can currently count is market share of "Apple", "Dell", "HP" and such, and even then one would have to know how many PC:s has been sold in total.

This is not basic math anymore, but in statistics you can calculate the error margin pretty close to reality, when you know how many CPUs and Mainboards were manufactured and sold and how many went into PCs. If the Gartner statistics would be only adding up a few numbers, everybody could do it. Be sure that they are taking all kinds of other information into account as well.

groovebuster

 

[BGil]

If you take out all the computers being sold as cash-registers, or process controllers, or other widgets (i.e. the ones not being used as 'general purpose personal computers') and then factor in the turnover differences (people replace their macs significantly less frequently than they replace their PCs, so 10 people buying PC will buy more PCs over time than 10 people buying Macs), the installed base of Macs is probably around 12-18%.

1. Cash registers and other non personal computers don't count towards the numbers gathered by these companies. These are personal computers, workstations, and servers nothing else.
2. 12-18% of just the number of PC's sold this year is 24-36 million machines. By Apple's own admission they don't have that many users. And that's just using the amount of PC's sold this year not the PC install base which is much bigger. In fact, MS Office has 400 million users (estimated). 12% of 400 million is 48 million or far more computers than Apple has sold in their lifetime. Most home users don't have office (although many have Word as part of the Works Suite-- which would count towards the 400 million) so the actual install base of PC's is much higher than that.
3. The estimated install base of Windows is upwards of 700 million users.
4. Even just using the number of PC's sold by HP and Dell in the last 3 years (over 150 million), it would take 18 million Macs to make 12% and 24 million to make 18%. Needless to say, HP/Compaq and Dell only have a little over 30% of the PC market so to say Apple has anything more than 5% install base is really pushing it.

PC's sold last quarter -- 48 million
Macs sold last quarter -- 1.18 million
Marketshare last quarter -- 2.458%

PC's sold this quarter -- 52 million (actually 52,809,000)
Macs -- 1.23 million
marketshare -- 2.365%

If you round the PC's up to 53 million then you get 2.320%.

Apple lost marketshare compared to last quarter.

 

[Evangelion]

Apple lost marketshare compared to last quarter.

Usually comparisons are done to the previous year, not previous quarter. If sales of PC's increased by x%, and sales of Macs increased by x+30%, then macs increased their market-share.

 

[Renegate]

As others have pointed out, these sorts of 'market share' figures are gross underestimations of the installed base.

If you take out all the computers being sold as cash-registers, or process controllers, or other widgets (i.e. the ones not being used as 'general purpose personal computers') and then factor in the turnover differences (people replace their macs significantly less frequently than they replace their PCs, so 10 people buying PC will buy more PCs over time than 10 people buying Macs), the installed base of Macs is probably around 12-18%.

Still, it's good to see some increase in the sales figures as well.

Cheers

Macs also last longer and people keep them for a longer time compared to PC's which you need to upgrade all the time to keep the newest Windos version running

PC's sold last quarter -- 48 million
Macs sold last quarter -- 1.18 million
Marketshare last quarter -- 2.458%

PC's sold this quarter -- 52 million (actually 52,809,000)
Macs -- 1.23 million
marketshare -- 2.365%

If you round the PC's up to 53 million then you get 2.320%.

Apple lost marketshare compared to last quarter.

You need to add the ipods as they are clearly as performant than some of the PC's around

 

[BGil]

Usually comparisons are done to the previous year, not previous quarter. If sales of PC's increased by x%, and sales of Macs increased by x+30%, then macs increased their market-share.

Of course, but it's really easy to increase marketshare when Apple wasn't selling iMacs during the previous year. Remember, they stopped taking orders on iMacs in July and they didn't start shipping again until the quarter was nearly over.

Last quarter had the same lineup as they had this quarter and marketshare went down.

Macs also last longer and people keep them for a longer time compared to PC's which you need to upgrade all the time to keep the newest Windos version running

What the hell are you talking about? Pure FUD.
The newest version of Windows is the same one that was released in 2001. The same one that has lower requirements than every version of OS X.

 

[JFreak]

I don't get it... The Apple share should be pretty accurate since no Windows runs native on a Mac so far...

calculating apple is easy. we just take whatever numbers apple releases and use them. it is the calculation of windows and pc's that is difficult, as there are also windows licenses sold to linux users and industrial machines (cash registers, elevator controls, phone booths, etc).

that said, you should really make fair comparisons. that is, take whatever numbers dell, hp, et.al also release -- working pc:s sold to similar use than macs.

you don't compare "x86 compatible" motherboards to "ppc compatible" motherboards, as that tells nothing about how the motherboards will be used -- some of which will be just stored somewhere and never get used, and some of which will be used in elevators for example.

This is not basic math anymore, but in statistics you can calculate the error margin pretty close to reality, when you know how many CPUs and Mainboards were manufactured and sold and how many went into PCs.

do you know that there is nothing that lies more than statistics? it's all about how you gather your data; if you do it wrong, you get wrong results. you can for example gather data of luxury cars that have infrared night vision and then declare that cadillac leads the market share in luxury cars, leaving that night vision thingy in a footnote that's printed with a 4pt font that nobody can read.

Be sure that they are taking all kinds of other information into account as well.

that's exactly the problem. they calculate so many things that the real function of their statistics gets lost. apple is a very specific company in the pc industry, and if you want to compare that to anything, you will have to adjust the comparison in such a way that fair comparison is possible.

of course, you they can compare "all manufactured x86 hardware" to "all apple hardware", but that tells nothing about computers sold into general public.

---

i'm not saying that apple has +20% market share or anything; i just hate that the discussion goes around numbers that represent nothing in real-world. as the saying goes, the numbers are comparing apples to oranges.

What the hell are you talking about? Pure FUD.
The newest version of Windows is the same one that was released in 2001. The same one that has lower requirements than every version of OS X.

he was talking about apple computers. you are talking about microsoft operating systems. but you have a history of comparing wrong, so nobody expects any better of you.

it's really easy to increase marketshare when Apple wasn't selling iMacs during the previous year.

they have been selling iMacs every year since 1997.

 

[iDM]

I'd like to see what this number is after you factor in population growth, after you factor in increasing technology in developing and 1st world countries, i'm sure that has to make up only a percentage but still. Even if these are halo effect purchases i say great, as long as apple continues to increase the quality of their products and OS through more and more spending in R&D i say let the halo surround everyone!

 

[BGil]

they have been selling iMacs every year since 1997.

During that quarter in the previous year.

 

[ksz]

he was talking about apple computers. you are talking about microsoft operating systems. but you have a history of comparing wrong, so nobody expects any better of you.

You are misrepresenting his statement. He is, in fact, correct and is *properly* comparing Windows to Macintosh because that was the basis of the original poster's comparison. Windows XP was released somewhere in 2001 and has only been upgraded to Service Pack 2 and a whole bunch of security patches. Mac OS, likewise, has had plenty of security patches, but the Windows core OS and its functional requirements have not really changed since 2001. End-user applications may require someone to upgrade their PC with more memory, faster CPU, and more disk space, but these changes are not being driven by the Windows OS itself.

I really don't think Windows users upgrade their systems more frequently than Macintosh users. But in any case, how would you even try to calculate this statistic? If you took a survey and asked for my own experience, this is what you would get:

1. Dell Inspiron 3600 (or was it 3700?) purchased 5 years ago and replaced this year by a Dell Inspiron 6000.

2. Pentium 3 mini-tower replaced with Pentium 4 minitower after 3 years. The P4 minitower has been in use for almost 3 years now.

3. Purchased Aluminum PowerBook G4 15 inch in October 2003, still going, but now in the market for PowerMac.

We don't have to like Windows, but we should be fair in our criticism.

 

[fatfish]

Know what your saying before you say anything

BGil and groovebuster

I would love for you guys to advise my competitors, what a quarry of mis-information. There are many assumptions made by those compiling the marketshare statistics, of which you have no knowledge.

The only conclusion from the stats produced is that within the restrictions of the model used the quantity of macs sold as a percentage of all PC's sold has increased.

Market share is somewhat irrelevant anyway, it is not the measure of how well a company is doing, look at GM. Let's take matters to the extreme, suppose Apple sold 23 macs next quarter, but only 21 non macs were sold, Apple would have over 50% of the marketshare, but I doubt they would be very happy. Looking at another extreme, if Apple sold 1,000,000 macs and made $ 100 on each and Dell sold 50,000,000 and lost $ 1 on each, well: say no more.

The only area of market share that has any relevence is whether it is sufficient to maintain the product. In this respect there is no doubt, the small mac user base spends proportionally more cash than the non mac user, infact many non mac users don't spend any cash to support the industry at all. I am led to believe that on a total profit basis microsoft make (or made) a similar amount of profit with office for mac as they do with office for windows.

You don't seem to have a grasp of what the stats are all about, this is not an OSX vs windows thing, microsoft have nothing to do with these statistics, they don't sell PC's. BGil even manages to contradict the stats and suggest they actually mean the macs marketshare has shrunk. C'mon guys think before you engage your keyboards.

The stats mean exactly what they say:- using the same model year on year the percentage of macs vs non macs sold has increased. That's it.

 

[BGil]

he was talking about apple computers. you are talking about microsoft operating systems. but you have a history of comparing wrong, so nobody expects any better of you.

Whatever, ad homimem. You have a history of just plain making stuff up so we know what to expect out of you.

Learn to read:
Macs also last longer and people keep them for a longer time compared to PC's which you need to upgrade all the time to keep the newest Windos version running

You are misrepresenting his statement. He is, in fact, correct and is *properly* comparing Windows to Macintosh because that was the basis of the original poster's comparison. Windows XP was released somewhere in 2001 and has only been upgraded to Service Pack 2 and a whole bunch of security patches. Mac OS, likewise, has had plenty of security patches, but the Windows core OS and its functional requirements have not really changed since 2001. End-user applications may require someone to upgrade their PC with more memory, faster CPU, and more disk space, but these changes are not being driven by the Windows OS itself.

I really don't think Windows users upgrade their systems more frequently than Macintosh users. But in any case, how would you even try to calculate this statistic? If you took a survey and asked for my own experience, this is what you would get:

1. Dell Inspiron 3600 (or was it 3700?) purchased 5 years ago and replaced this year by a Dell Inspiron 6000.

2. Pentium 3 mini-tower replaced with Pentium 4 minitower after 3 years. The P4 minitower has been in use for almost 3 years now.

3. Purchased Aluminum PowerBook G4 15 inch in October 2003, still going, but now in the market for PowerMac.

We don't have to like Windows, but we should be fair in our criticism.

Thank You.

 

[grouse]

but why does it matter any...?

If Apple is making the biggest profits it has ever made and selling more Macs (as well as iPods) why does this marketshare business matter any?

In isolation Apple is producing good figures and has strong financials. But to a certain extent its largest rival in the operating system business has not produced a new system in a long while. Despite this and the anti-trust settlements and other buy offs MS seems to be doing pretty well. People are still buying new machines with their system on it, it is operating at every level of society and business, lifts someone mentioned, cashpoints, mobiles, fridges! Apple's system only really appears to exist on their personal computers (the server business appears to have slowed after the promising signs a few years ago) oh, and of course, portable music players.

So... Apple is much much more susceptible to boom and bust. When the rest finally work out a way to properly compete with iTunes and the iPod which they will eventually, you had better hope that the digital hub strategy has inveigled it's way into the living room and the computers into the corporate office space as when the tide retreats something Apple will need to be nailed down, there is no long-term loyalty in small consumer devices; no legacy.

The market share business is really all about relevance and perception of relevance. It is remarkable that there is so much Mac software out there at all really! A lot of that is down to the passion and spend of Apple users and Jobs himself. I'm sure Microsoft was contemplating killing MS Office for Mac back before they announced their investment (I'm sure there was an awful lot of begging from Steve J), which could have done untold damage at the time. It would be a lot cheaper for Adobe and Quark not to have to keep developing two versions of what they do. So market share and perceived relevance (mind share if you like) is vital for that reason, not for catching up with anyone else, just for saying Apple users are increasing and if it was worth developing software for them before, it's only going to be more so in the future! (also with a smaller installed base there must be proportionately less software 'borrowing' surely?).

[I would be interested to read the large software companies sales figures regarding Mac OS-designed software. For companies that do design for both, their figures surely aren't 3.5% Mac, otherwise they just wouldn't do it.]

I reckon that's the long of it.

I hope that makes sense, if not apologies, it kind of made sense to me in my head.

EDIT: Apologies it looks like Fatfish was writing at the same time and we appear to be making broadly the same point (although I'd have to say I'm Scouse, scots, european and a Londoner all at once and most proud of all).

 

[ksz]

(although I'd have to say I'm Scouse, scots, european and a Londoner all at once and most proud of all).

Hmm, I'm a human being and proud of that. Where on this planet I happen to trod and where on this planet I was born are largely irrelevant.

End of political statements.

 

[oingoboingo]

3.3 to 4.3 is a 30% increase. Not bad.

Of course, if you don't count Windows machines that control elevators (steady, now!)--and other uses where no person actually USES the machine--Apple has a much larger share.

And even if half the computers in the world (installed base) were Macs, Apple would have LESS than half market share, because Macs last longer.

You also have to adjust for the staggering number of copies of Windows which are pirated. I don't know a single one of my Windows-using friends who is running a legitimately purchased or licensed copy. Same goes for things like Microsoft Office. Microsoft's sales figures will definitely underestimate the number of Windows users out there.

Anyway...congratulations to Apple for a great quarter.

 

[GroundLoop]

besides only a small increase, how does someone vote this negative??

i'm still waiting for the thread that has zero negatives....

It won't happen because you can never make everyone happy.

Hickman

 

[rdowns]

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics.

As all these numbers are estimates, at best, no one really knows Apple's true market share or installed base.

All I know is they are selling a sh$%^&@d of Macs these days. Here are their Mac unit shipments for the past few years by quarter.

1Q2002 - 659,000
2Q2002 - 813,000
3Q2002 - 808,000
4Q2002 - 734,000
Total - 3,014,000

1Q2003 - 743,000
2Q2003 - 711,000
3Q2003 - 771,000
4Q2003 - 787,000
Total - 3,012,000

1Q2004 - 743,000
2Q2004 - 749,000
3Q2004 - 771,000
4Q2004 - 787,000
Total - 3,050,000

1Q2005 - 1,046,000
2Q2005 - 1,070,000
3Q2005 - 1,182,000
4Q2005 - 1,236,000
Total - 4,534,000

 

[dazzer21]

Sorry - whizzing in and out of the forum so apologies if this has been brought up already. Is it just me or is it really that if you take all the different individual PC manufacturers' market shares and stack them up against Apple's, would the picture not look rather rosy in Apple's favour? I see an awful lot of 'just' or 'only' applied to the figure. Maybe it's just me then...

 

[JW Pepper]

Hmm, as a Mac fan and having converted my whole company over to Mac when the first LCD iMacs came out I can honestly say I wold love to see an increase in market share for Apple. However, when I look at the stats on my company web site OSX seems to have about a 1% market share of our unique visitors. This is bad news because it means that web designers are still not going to care to much about making their web site Apple compatible.

 

[kiwi-in-uk]

I agree with fatfish and grouse.

Market share is an interesting diversion, but what really matters is:
1) Apple is profitable and generates enough free cash to reinvest
2) 3rd party suppliers of software and hardware find their investments in Apple compatible products are profitable and sales generate enough free cash to reinvest in those or new products
3) channels are profitable and continue to distribute Apple and compatible products

If all those happen then I will be happy because I will be able to buy professional and personal products that meet my needs and are pleasurable and easy to use.

(I won't comment on my experiences with Windows and Windows compatible products - see sig; I have used MS DOS and Win products for 25 years and still use them).

Edit: J W Pepper makes a good point that I had not considered (it doesn't affect me) - the flow on effects of OS X sales.

 

[GulGnu]

I agree with fatfish and grouse.

Market share is an interesting diversion, but what really matters is:

Well, market share does matter for one reason: Developer decisions. Today, the Apple gaming market is abysmal, mostly relating to the size of the installed base. Contrary to popular belief, Macs play games pretty well - once the game is converted properly to Mac. My Mini plays WoW surprisingly well, for instance.

(Have done lvl 1-51 on my priest on the Mini - no probs so far. And no, I have played it on a decent gaming PC as well. There is a significant difference, of course but it degrades very gracefully...)

 

[grouse]

And this is where Kiwi-in-uk, you have stumbled on an interesting point, channels....

The iPod has worked well for third party folk, very well indeed, it has created markets and products.

The Apple online store and Apple Stores are, so I've heard, killing the reseller. They are important because they can reach the parts that apple cannot. If Apple starts contracting and those reseller channels are no longer around, then there might be trouble. Although this could be b*llocks as new media retail outlets like Amazon etc step in to replace the old shop models.

Also regarding the browser situation mentioned by JW Pepper, I know what you mean, but you're slightly the wrong way around, as long as MS has the share of the browser market that they have, people will keep designing for Explorer. As a web designer myself, I can tell you that designing for the others is easy, just stick to the rules, it's MS that allows you to write bad code and get away with it. So in that particular market it's the number of users of non-Explorer products, Opera, Camino, Mozilla, Safari etc, not really the platform.

Well, market share does matter for one reason: Developer decisions...

oh DO read the whole of people's posts! We were all talking about precisely that, software developers and how their decisions matter. Steve Jobs spent a long time when OS X was coming out going round knocking on everyone's doors saying stick with us, we're going places, etc, etc..