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

Apple Sold More Macs and iDevices Than All Windows PCs Sold in Holiday Quarter

LordVic said:
Apple on the other hand is Still selling that 2 month hardware, at the price it started at.
...
This is the Apple tax.

And it's this, plus the forced 45% (estimated) profit margin that Apple insists must sell hardware at that tends to steer people towards PC's.
Click to expand...

I agree with the first point and Apple does this because they can (doh)

But the second point is simply wrong. Apple would love it if they could have "forced" 45% profit margin with Macs. It's much lower and that's even including all the fancy expensive upgrades.


LordVic said:
Apple also hasn't helped make things better by having very Niche products that don't actually serve the mass audiences.
....
the Majority of 'desktops' that are sold are traditional towers. Something Apple does not have.
Click to expand...

Not really important though. The majority of computers are laptops, and really cheap ones. We're talking about an average sales price of $400 - $550. That's the average price, including all the high end laptops, meaning there are many computers being sold even below $400. Apple is simply not going to touch that market.

AppleScruff1 said:
This has been debunked here several times recently, at least where phone sales are concerned. Apple uses the same method to report phone sales as Samsung. I believe that KDarling has provided ample evidence. Apple does give numbers at their quarterly reports.
Click to expand...

That's true to an extent that they both report sell-ins without sell-outs, but Samsung conflate matters by including all the carrier preorders and channel fill-ins and drum up those numbers. How Samsung really reports their numbers and their sell-out number has always been the point of contention as well as investors' worry in recent quarters. For all their short comings and secrecies, Apple is one of most transparent corporations around both in financial reporting as well as corporate responsibility reports, and deserve some kudos there I think.
 
AppleScruff1 said:
This has been debunked here several times recently, at least where phone sales are concerned. Apple uses the same method to report phone sales as Samsung. I believe that KDarling has provided ample evidence. Apple does give numbers at their quarterly reports.
Click to expand...

I don't think you understand what I said. Apple reports a number in their quarterly earnings (the number of handsets & tablets they shipped). Samsung does not report any number. They occasionally announce milestones of their top-tier handsets, but not quarterly numbers ala Apple.
 
Last edited:
tdale said:
Android does have a high percentage of lower cost devices, but they have some very very good mid and high end as well. Galaxy phones and Note and Tab to name one. And they dominate market share so off course they belong as a member of smart device stats.
Click to expand...

There were 226 million Android smartphones sold last quarter.

Sadly... we don't know breakdown of flagship phones, mid-range phones, and cheap phones.

I'm guessing that a majority of them were cheaper low-end Android phones... given that there are so many consumers buying off-contract phones around the world.

If flagship Android phones were selling in record numbers... we would have heard about it.
 
TC03 said:
It tells us that the mobile market is an extremely fast growing market that will change the scale of the industry. That is a very relevant observation, because it's what all the naysayers in this thread completely misunderstand.
Click to expand...
Sure, but it's not telling us anything we didn't already know. Basically it just combines the fact that Apple's biggest profit is now in mobile devices, and the fact that mobile devices outsell desktop PCs, but we knew both of these things already.
 
DeathChill said:
I don't think you understand what I said. Apple reports a number in their quarterly earnings (the number of handsets & tablets they shipped). Samsung does not report any number. They occasionally announce milestones of their top-tier handsets, but not quarterly numbers ala Apple.
Click to expand...

I think I did misunderstand you. I thought you were referring to units shipped vs units sold and it had been determined that Apple reported sales the same way as everyone else. I apologize.
 
haravikk said:
Sure, but it's not telling us anything we didn't already know. Basically it just combines the fact that Apple's biggest profit is now in mobile devices, and the fact that mobile devices outsell desktop PCs, but we knew both of these things already.
Click to expand...
It is nothing new, yet this thread makes it very clear that very few people understand the implications of these two simple data points properly. So putting things in perspective, even though the data itself is not really new, isn't a bad thing.
 
LordVic said:
And it's this, plus the forced 45% (estimated) profit margin that Apple insists must sell hardware at that tends to steer people towards PC's. Dont' be fooled by Mass Media. Apple computers are still in the < 10% of computers used. mass MEdia and Product placement just makes it look like Apple shares a dominant market place for computers.
Click to expand...

Well, that would be a great argument except for the tiny detail that your assumptions and conclusions are both wrong.

Apple doesn't have a 45% "profit margin". You probably read about someone's estimates for cost of material and concluded that retail price minus cost of material equals profit margin, and as a result you are posting a number that is total nonsense. Apple does however make an estimated 45% of all profits in the PC market.

Apple's margins are not "forced". Since nobody holds a gun to your head to force you to buy a Mac, Apple's margins are not forced but the result of selling top quality products at a price that leaves a profit.

You say people are steered towards PCs. That doesn't quite match the fact that Apple's market share has been growing all the time. And hey, 10% of a market is excellent. Name one car manufacturer that has 10% market share. If Apple wanted 30% market share, they could buy ASUS and Acer (and it wouldn't actually cost a lot, because these are two PC manufacturers that avoid making profit very successfully and would be cheap to buy). It would just be pointless, because market share without profit is pointless.

But that 10% is unit share. One computer counts as one computer. If Acer sells four laptops for $250 each and Apple sells one MacBook for $999, according to "unit sales" Acer has outsold Apple 4 to 1. But reasonable people would look at revenue.

----------
brendu said:
They sell a license for each PC shipped. That is the units Microsoft deals in (for now).
Click to expand...

Since when are Windows licenses PCs? The comparison was between devices running Apple operating systems and devices running Microsoft operating systems. Of the first kind, Apple makes a lot, and nobody else makes any. Of the second kind, HP makes a lot, Dell makes a lot, Lenovo makes a lot, Apple actually makes a tiny number (there's a surprisingly high number of MBAs running Windows and nothing else), and Microsoft makes exactly zero. Apple makes a lot more computers running Windows than Microsoft does.

----------
Amazing Iceman said:
Exactly, that's why I couldn't understand this report. It's flawed!
Click to expand...

You didn't seem to understand this. If you count Windows PCs and Windows phones, Microsoft doesn't make any.
 
Kilamite said:
This is a really stupid article..

Let's compare the total sales of computers, phones, tablets and mp3 players by one company to the total of just computers sold by the rest of the industry.
Click to expand...

Dude, they compared the Windows phones, as well. Look at the graph again.
 
I'm trying to figure out what's more ridiculous... Comparing essentially all the products you make to PC sales, or the fanboys who think it makes perfect sense.
 
gnasher729 said:
Well, that would be a great argument except for the tiny detail that your assumptions and conclusions are both wrong.

Apple doesn't have a 45% "profit margin". You probably read about someone's estimates for cost of material and concluded that retail price minus cost of material equals profit margin, and as a result you are posting a number that is total nonsense. Apple does however make an estimated 45% of all profits in the PC market.

Apple's margins are not "forced". Since nobody holds a gun to your head to force you to buy a Mac, Apple's margins are not forced but the result of selling top quality products at a price that leaves a profit.

You say people are steered towards PCs. That doesn't quite match the fact that Apple's market share has been growing all the time. And hey, 10% of a market is excellent. Name one car manufacturer that has 10% market share. If Apple wanted 30% market share, they could buy ASUS and Acer (and it wouldn't actually cost a lot, because these are two PC manufacturers that avoid making profit very successfully and would be cheap to buy). It would just be pointless, because market share without profit is pointless.

But that 10% is unit share. One computer counts as one computer. If Acer sells four laptops for $250 each and Apple sells one MacBook for $999, according to "unit sales" Acer has outsold Apple 4 to 1. But reasonable people would look at revenue.

----------



Since when are Windows licenses PCs? The comparison was between devices running Apple operating systems and devices running Microsoft operating systems. Of the first kind, Apple makes a lot, and nobody else makes any. Of the second kind, HP makes a lot, Dell makes a lot, Lenovo makes a lot, Apple actually makes a tiny number (there's a surprisingly high number of MBAs running Windows and nothing else), and Microsoft makes exactly zero. Apple makes a lot more computers running Windows than Microsoft does.

----------



You didn't seem to understand this. If you count Windows PCs and Windows phones, Microsoft doesn't make any.
Click to expand...


Well written.
Market share is the "magic word" for haters and Apple basher in this forum.
They don't understand that Apple isn't and never was in the market share race.
 
Max(IT) said:
Android has nothing to do with windows/OS X universe, and Android numbers are mainly made by extremely cheap smartphones that have nothing to share with iPads , Macs, Windows Pcs or even Surface tablets.
Click to expand...

And that has absolutely *nothing* to do with anything I just posted. Did you, perhaps, mean to respond to someone else? :confused:
 
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