Apple Slips to Fourth in Worldwide PC Sales With iPad Included

[paul4339]

However the iPad is not a pc, so this report is a bit on the Apple side here.

I see where you are coming from, but these reports has nothing to do what you or I or MR thinks whether the iPad is *technically* a pc ... the reports are used to communicate to an audience interested in understanding where the market is heading so that they can make more money.

These are sales/shipment reports. The reason why the iPad is grouped in is because they compete for the same consumer dollar pool and execs from companies want to understand the direction of market and where the money is going.

If anything there's any criticism, I would like to see a consumer vs enterprise breakdown (since they have different dollar pools).

Also, I think the reason why 'Apple slipped' is because Calendar Q4 quarter is the holiday season and usually consumer electronics sales surges and unlike HP/Dell (who sell alot to enterprise), Apple sell mostly to consumers electronics market.

P.

 

[Vegasman]

Isn't this misleading? It says 'shipped' not 'sold' so I assume basically it's a bogus report. You can ship all the crappy tablets you want..doesn't mean they sold.

Companies that "ship" stuff that people don't buy do not stay in business very long. Therefore, "shipping" is a good enough approximation 99% of the time. The other 1% is quickly identified and purged from the economy.

 

[Al Coholic]

Steve is afraid of PC's

To all that insist your Apple kool-aide glass is "half full" I say…

…whatever floats your boat.

But… 3.5% mac market share which includes stupid iPads as computers is pretty dismal (laughable even). As an enterprise user of macs I find that pretty embarrassing and quite telling of where OSX really stands in the grand scheme of things.

After the MS Vista debacle, Steve was handed a CEO's dream to make macs a full contender in the PC arena (or at least a big thorn in the ass) but he chose a different path. A fruitful path to be sure but mac penetration alone today could easily read 15% along side all the iOS success.

But a pitiful 3.5%? Absolutely mind-boggling.

Any CEO who couldn't manage this with 35 billion in cash (at the time of Vista) should be grilled by the Board. Of course he blew it in '83 as well so why am I surprised?

Rolling out Leopard in '07 had the potential to at least be a tiny nail for the Vista/Windows coffin but Steve couldn't wield the hammer. Instead we get a pathetic followup to Leopard so dismal in features Apple admits it doesn't warrant a new name. They even apologize in advance by making it only a $29 upgrade. And now in 2011 and we'll get iLion. It's all about iOS folks. And Apple has shown it doesn't multitask very well.

My family has macs, iPhones, iPods, even an iPad. But with all these iDevices, we always gravitate to the macs to actually get something useful done. They are the mothership for all that we do… the real muscle, the "bread and butter" of our productivity-based lives. Ironically, if it weren't for Apple's adversary in the industry and their office suite... a few of us would still be forced to use Windows exclusively.

I'm sure Apple can do better with macs in the enterprise market but either they don't want to or don't know how. Either of which is troubling. To me, it's clear they will always be a general consumer company that's perfectly content with a user base who spends its time face-booking, twittering and playing with pissed off cartoon birds.

What Apple hasn't figured out though is that one day we grow up and need something else.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

It's all about timing

Q1 is usually the worst time to launch a high-price consumer product. Most people are broke and trying to recover from Christmas. The iPad 2 did very well for a Q1 launch.

I believe Mac Q1 sales were low because everyone is waiting for the refreshed models, due anytime now.

So let's see how Apple does in Q2...

 

[Piggie]

Companies that "ship" stuff that people don't buy do not stay in business very long. Therefore, "shipping" is a good enough estimate 99% of the time. The other 1% is quickly identified and purged from the economy.

Does this rule apply to non Apple computers and tablets?

I recall only a short time ago when non Apple companies where posting numbers, people on these forums were ripping the figures to shreds as they said they were not sold items but only shipped items.

Do we all agree the same rules for everyone

 

[paul4339]

Isn't this misleading? It says 'shipped' not 'sold' so I assume basically it's a bogus report. You can ship all the crappy tablets you want..doesn't mean they sold.

arguably yes,,,, but it's hard to get 'sold' data. that is 10 manufacturers may ship to lots of distributors who sell to thousands retails or re-distributors (enterprise) who may sell them again. To get 'sold' data is difficult, so they get 'shipped' data instead and just throw in a margin of error.

It's better to focus on the *trend* then dismiss a report because number may be slightly off (stats are never entirely accurate and can be messed with)

P.

 

[bpaluzzi]

But… 3.5% mac market share which includes stupid iPads as computers is pretty dismal (laughable even). As an enterprise user of macs I find that pretty embarrassing and quite telling of where OSX really stands in the grand scheme of things.
<snip>
But a pitiful 3.5%? Absolutely mind-boggling.

Where are you getting 3.5% from? It's higher than that without counting iPad.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

It's too expensive. as a business, why buy an imac when I could but a dell or hp for a fraction of the price to do the same job?

Please, don't buy Macs for your business. we IT support people love PCs, as these generate a lot of revenue for us.
We love it every time a PC user calls us with problems and we get to charge $100's to solve them.

 

[bpaluzzi]

Does this rule apply to non Apple computers and tablets?

I recall only a short time ago when non Apple companies where posting numbers, people on these forums were ripping the figures to shreds as they said they were not sold items but only shipped items.

Do we all agree the same rules for everyone

How are those tablets working out for those companies? I'd say it's pretty much adhering to the "rules" as set out above. If all of their products sold as "well" as their tablets did, those companies would be purged. Not a double standard.

 

[OllyW]

Where are you getting 3.5% from? It's higher than that without counting iPad.

It's the Q1 2010 share from the chart in the first post.

 

[valkraider]

Actually, I'm note sure about the US, But I would fully agree with stopping Schools etc from buying Mac's for use in education.

The point of a school is to teach/educate/prepare children/students for the skills they are going to need when they leave and enter into the real world, the marketplace for jobs.

Like it or not, PC's are vastly more in use in typical businesses these days.
You do now want a vast amount of people leaving school to start their new jobs, being confronted by PC's and say, oh, we're never used PC's we only used Macs at college.

On my Mac I use Microsoft office: Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. They differ slightly from the Windows versions that I have at the office.

90% of office use of PCs is Microsoft office, or web systems and email/calendar.

There are a few things, certainly, you just can't learn on a Mac. Like Visio or Project for example. But there are similar products for the Mac.

A much more important skill is teaching kids how to use computers no matter what platform they are. Having the ability to switch platorms is incredibly valuable.

The school just requires PCs because they heard that PCs and Macs are not compatible. It's not true, I use both every day in a regular office environment.


--
"Officer, I know I was going faster than 55mph, but I wasn't going to be on the road an hour." -Steven Wright

Posted from my iPhone using the "Tapatalk" app.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

I just think Apple is making a mistake by not making some low end machines.

I know many here go OMG SHOCK HORROR about anything not made from Aluminium and Unicorn Horn Dust, but in reality, it would pay them, long term to make some nice looking plastic low end machines.

You can make plastic and metal trim things still have a nice finish.

Families walk into stores in the UK, I'm not sure about the US and look at the vast, and I mean VAST array of nice, in their mind, looking PC Laptops, perhaps to buy one for the wife, or one for the kids at school. They may walk past the small Apple table, see the near £1000 price tag, and think, yeah, right, like we're going to get one of those. I could get two good spec'd windows Laptops for that price.

I know people here will disagree as many are in a different wage bracket to "normal consumers" but I can tell you, most people are not going to throw down a grand for a computer for the kids to take to school.

As the only REAL difference between a PC and a Mac these days is the OS it's running, there is no reason Apple could not make a laptop directly at the price point of a medium to low end Windows laptop and then, people may buy them, and perhaps get used to OS X and in years to come go for an iMac.

Ever heard of the Mac Mini???

The day Apple starts making Netbook quality computers I will start hating Apple.

How good is a cheap computer when it works like crap? I know many people who bought cheap PCs and laptops, and when I tried to used them, it was very annoying how slow these were.

 

[bpaluzzi]

It's the Q1 2010 share from the chart in the first post.

Ahh, good catch! But that's before the iPad was even released... not sure what Al meant by his comment...

 

[OllyW]

Ahh, good catch! But that's before the iPad was even released... not sure what Al meant by his comment...

The launch of the iPad won't affect Apple's market share without the iPad included, which brings us back to Al's comment.

 

[bpaluzzi]

The launch of the iPad won't affect Apple's market share without the iPad included, which brings us back to Al's comment.

"But… 3.5% mac market share which includes stupid iPads as computers is pretty dismal (laughable even). "

That was his original comment.

 

[OllyW]

"But… 3.5% mac market share which includes stupid iPads as computers is pretty dismal (laughable even). "

That was his original comment.

Ah, my mistake.

Al's misread the table and I've misread Al's comments.

 

[firewood]

I dont think iPads should be included. A computer shouldn't need a computer to be usable.

It doesn't matter what you think. It only matters what people are buying. Many are buying iPads for browsing/facebook/farmville instead of another HP or Dell laptop.

And a Mac or Dell PC needs a computer to be usable. Several of them. There's a computer (maybe two) inside the disk drive that it boots from, the mouse, and any access points or routers that it uses to connect to the net. Etc.

 

[NebulaClash]

Yes, I strongly disagree that students need to learn Windows in order to thrive in the workplace. Nowadays work is being done in browsers more than anywhere else, and that trend will continue inexorably as we move to the cloud future. Kids need to learn how to use a computer. Which one is not that important any more. Times have changed.

And on the topic of laughing at OS X market share, keep on laughing. Apple is the most profitable computer company on the planet. Dell and Microsoft wish they had Apple's problems.

 

[paul4339]

Yes, I strongly disagree that students need to learn Windows in order to thrive in the workplace. ... Kids need to learn how to use a computer. Which one is not that important any more. ...

I agree, students need to learn to use a/any computer and how to *think*. If they can do that they can learn any computer and adapt to change.

P.

 

[davelanger]

This is because they have continued to put time and money in to iOS and not Mac. They have been lazy and done practically done nothing with desktops and their notebooks. They need to start putting emphasis on to Macs now.

Isnt that what they are doing with Lion?

I am quite familiar, perhaps you should read it again.



The iPod was introduced in 2001, hit popularity in 2003 / 2004, when it was later replaced (in the eyes of masses of people buying them) by the iPhone, and later iPod Touch as the next "new thing".

Do you still see masses of people with White or Black iPods? Or do you see them carrying iPhones or iPod Touches now?

What has been on the news recently the most, sought after by most Apple fans? I don't think it is the iPod.

You dont know what a fad is. Thats like calling dial up internet a fad because now pretty much everyone is using cable or fios internet. An ipod touch is still an ipod, its just better version of an ipod black/white.

A fad is something that comes alot that is huge for a short time then fades out. Just because tech advances doesnt mean the first gen was a fad.

 

[NebulaClash]

Right, schools should teach you how to think. Besides, what a kid learns at age 7 will be somewhat obsolete by the time she enters the work force at 24, seventeen years later. For all we know, she could be given a Linux box at that time, or a Chrome PC, or a Mac, or something not even invented yet instead of a Windows box.

A lot can change in almost 20 years.

 

[Al Coholic]

And on the topic of laughing at OS X market share, keep on laughing. Apple is the most profitable computer company on the planet. Dell and Microsoft wish they had Apple's problems.

Wow. A bit shortsighted aren't we? (And the Apple pom-pom squad is out in force today).

Don't you see that all the iOS success does is point out to the Board that OSX isn't where it's at and more resources will keep going to iPads and iPhones?

If you're a mac user is this really what you want?

They didn't delete the word "computer" from the Apple name for nothing.

 

[Žalgiris]

They didn't delete the word "computer" from the Apple name for nothing.

I could use a good laugh. Please "deduce" this one.

 

[blahblah100]

Please, don't buy Macs for your business. we IT support people love PCs, as these generate a lot of revenue for us.
We love it every time a PC user calls us with problems and we get to charge $100's to solve them.

Ah, Geek Squad... Do they let you drive the Bug?

 

[chrono1081]

No surprise the iPad is just a fad and people are starting to realize how limited it is. Its frustrating on a lot of cool websites and no file system makes it very limited.

You've obviously never used one to its full potential.