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Apple Sales and Marketshare Up (IDC)

and as an aside about games...

Can someone tell me, now that the console market is so rejuvenated, do games on computers matter anymore?

Don't people just go out and buy PS2 or Xbox or whatever?

Isn't this why the only 'computer' that Microsoft are making is a games console? Where the Microsoft software element is invisible. Just a device to run other people's software (oh and the games they develop as well, of course)
 
grouse said:
...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...
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Largest PC Brand in the world? Dell, and they sell direct and only direct. No retail, no resellers. Seems to work for them :)
 
JW Pepper said:
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.
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I guess it depends on what you sell.

I see about 20% of users on Macs to sites I've done where they sell bicycles but about 5% when it's selling cars.

And amongst the same sites, theirs also more people using Firefox on Windows on the bike sites than car sites. One site even has IE6 usage down to 48.5%.

I'm sure there's some social statistic there - bicycle owners more intelligent and counter-culture perhaps than cagers.

As a designer, 'making websites Apple compatible' is an anathema. We (at least the ones that haven't had their heads up their asses for the last 3-4 years) design to web standards and then fix the site to work with IE bugs. As long as Apple keep producing excellent web standards based browsers such as Safari then you have no problem. And IE7 is looking like it's going to be less of a problem post-bodging fixes as long as all those Windows users install it.
 
Halo effect = lazy analysis

I get a bit peeved with analysts and journalists suggesting the increase in Mac sales is due to the halo effect.

Have they looked at an iMac G5 or mini? or what you get in the iBook lately?

Apple have had some great consumer products out in the last year. We all bitch about Powerbook and PowerMac updates on here but the general public don't know and generally don't care about the high end.

Coupled to that, many Windows users I know are just fed up with viruses, spyware, malware and continuously having to update their systems, run firewalls and virus checkers. Windows is also frightfully bad at some things. Wireless networking, Sleep/Resume, font technology and the whole look.

In short, I think it's very lazy to call the increase the 'halo effect'.

Now if only Apple communicated how much better OSX was than Windows, particularly in a laptop setting then they'd have more share.
 
and I reckon...

... that apple have about a year window to really push on now, before the Vista is blurred, as it were.

I think they are well aware of it, and that is the whole new iMac strategy. If your iMac users mainly use the iLife suits etc, the intel thing won't even be noticed.

This new iMac should sell bucket loads, I reckon. Apple should use some of that $8 billion in cash to go crazy for six months, pushing iBooks, Mini's and iMacs in front of everyone, with crazy cost-cutting deals, go grab that market now. Bribe schools, bribe business, cut a bit of margin for a short period and get those machines out the door.

Just a thought.
 
Macrumors said:
Investor's Business Daily attributes this rise in marketshare to a "halo effect" from the iPod spilling over into Macintosh sales.
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Lest we forget.

The "halo effect" is one thing. But why no mention of mainstream computer users' getting wise to the alternatives to Window's adware, spyware, and virus epidemic?

Mac OSX is inherently more secure than Windows; hands-down. This is key to growth in Mac-sales.
 
GeeYouEye said:
A very impressive climb, but what's the installed base %age at currently?
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It was at 4.4% last October, and would still be under 5% now. Chop that number about in half to get the OS X base.
 
Some good figures there but I feel Apple still need to make progress on their distribution and manufacturing. An example; Whilst there is an Apple store in London and Birmingham (UK) vast swathes of the UK and Northern Ireland are ill served by PC World stores who just can not or will not get sufficient stock of Apples in. The new ibook model (it's not that new now!!) has still to arrive at most PC World stores. Ditto the rev. b imac which took an age to get here. And so on. Queries are met with the normal "no stock from Apple" excuse. The same in John Lewis (a UK department store). Sales are being missed as potential punters walk away or head to the Windows display and pick up a Toshiba or Sony, etc.

A minor point yes but these figures could be improved upon with a bit more of a concerted distribution push.
 
Xtremehkr said:
Finally, what an incredible lag time between the iPod being released and it influencing peoples choice of computer.

I suppose most switchers waited until the current PCs needed replacing before they moved onto Apple.

Good job. Apple now has Momentum. The move to Intel should bring more good things, and hopefully a lot more selection when it comes to software.
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It took 2 years from my iPod to my iMac, and my PC was already old when I got my iPod. So I expect this will increase even more in the coming years...
 
denial said:
Some good figures there but I feel Apple still need to make progress on their distribution and manufacturing. An example; Whilst there is an Apple store in London and Birmingham (UK) vast swathes of the UK and Northern Ireland are ill served by PC World stores who just can not or will not get sufficient stock of Apples in. The new ibook model (it's not that new now!!) has still to arrive at most PC World stores. Ditto the rev. b imac which took an age to get here. And so on. Queries are met with the normal "no stock from Apple" excuse. The same in John Lewis (a UK department store). Sales are being missed as potential punters walk away or head to the Windows display and pick up a Toshiba or Sony, etc.

A minor point yes but these figures could be improved upon with a bit more of a concerted distribution push.
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I was in SF at the Apple Store, the one close to the Moscone center last week and they still had the 1.42 on display. No 1.5 anywhere to be bought :( I travelled all the way from the EU and I really wanted the 64 VRAM. Now my next trip to the US is in mid Dec but I am sort of tempted to wait for MacExpo. Dual-core intel minis anyone?

I just read an article that looked at desktop sales and mentioned that AMD has now 51% of the desktop mkt, thanks to the media PC. Intel had about 46% so that leaves Apple in the 2 to 3% mkt share in desktops. I venture to say that, since over half of Apple's unit sales are laptops, their share of the mobile mkt is a lot higher then 4% to come up with that average
 
bryanc said:
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
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On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that an Apple fan is more likely to purchase a greater number of MP3 players than people who don't follow Apple trends. I know a lot of people in this forum own at least two or three iPods. I saw someone's sig the other day which showed they owned every model of iPod available!
 
grouse said:
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?
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Because if their market-share is too small, they might become irrelevant. Would Adobe bother releasing Photoshop for Mac if Mac had a 0.4% market-share? Or any other developer for that matter? Luckily Apple and Mac are on a right track as far as market-share is concerned. Apple could do just fine with it's small market-share, but at some point Adobe (for example) would decide that "we will focus on Windows from now on", and cease supporting the Mac. And that would be disasterous for the platform. It would make it that much less compelling platform for people, and market-share would drop even more. Then more developers would switch from Mac to something else, causing further problems for Apple and Mac.

At some point there would be very little third-party software for the Mac, with Apple doing most of the work. And that would be a huge strain on Apple.

grouse said:
oh DO read the whole of people's posts!
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I find it very funny, really.... You people keep on saying "market-share does not matter", and then you proceed to tell that market-share DOES matter. So which way is it?
 
BGil said:
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.
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Service Packs,Updates,Bug Fixes,Antivirus,Firewell,Antispyware... system gets slower everytime. After two or 3 years of those they pack it together and give it a new name! I have in addition to my Macy a Dell 2.4Ghz, a self-build 2.0Ghz and a Shuttle XPC Athlon 64 3Ghz (use it for backup only nowadays).Windows only runs smooth on the Shuttle which i never installed any additional software on and never did a Windows update.
 
adamfilip said:
wonder how many computers equals to 1%

10, million ?
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Worldwide pc shipments will be about 200 million this year, so 5 million computers sold yearly (estimate for apple in 2005) will amount to a global marketshare of 2.5 %.
 
grouse said:
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?
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It doesn't really matter that much, especially in a marketplace that overall is still expanding. Far more important is the absolute number of sales, as in, "are there enough of these things out there to make it worth my while to make an accessory or program?" Mac add-ons are generally seen as easier money than in the Wintel market, even though it's a smaller world. They're different ways of making money and that's a lot of why you see different companies covering each platform.
 
Evangelion said:
I find it very funny, really.... You people keep on saying "market-share does not matter", and then you proceed to tell that market-share DOES matter. So which way is it?
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I know you wern't asking me but...
Market share does not matter, in my oppinion, in terms of "if it is a good comapny or not." And something can still be very popular with a low market share (ie: BMW has less than 2% worldwide).
 
Business & Government

teh_pwnerer said:
Good news.. but honestly I'm surprised they don't have more share.
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There problem is the business & government markets. At my work you have to go through so many hoops to get approved to by a non-standard (i.e. non Dell) that there are only a handfull of Apple Computers in a company of thousands of employees. Unfortunatly most large corporations and government agencies are run in the same manner. It would be interesting to see the market shares of consumers and educational market broken out individually. Apple would be getting close to 10%.
 
I'm not so sure I want Apple to grow like they did in the late 80's and early 90's. Apple got too big and started making everything under the sun (printers, newton, quicktake camera, etc). Quality also suffered, just look at the Performa line. :eek:
 
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