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Apple's Consumer Marketshare Much Higher?

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Fortune's Apple 2.0 Blog reports on an analyst research note by Berstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi Jr that reframes some of Apple's notebook marketshare numbers.

In breaking notebook shares into 5 separate price ranges (quintiles), Sacconaghi found that Apple's marketshare amongst the most expensive quintile of notebooks was as high as 29%. Of course, also based on his data, Apple lost marketshare amongst the bottom three quintiles (cheapest notebook sales).

Unfortunately, these numbers by themselves are near meaningless. However, the most interesting tidbit of information gleaned was when they excluded business sales: Apple's 29% notebook marketshare rose to 46% when counting only consumer + educational sales.

This may confirm anecdotal reports that Apple's marketshare appears to be booming amongst college campuses. As a result, Apple's consumer marketshare could be substantially higher than the traditional 5-6% marketshare numbers would suggest.

Article Link
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2007/10/11/apples-consumer-marketshare-much-higher/
Colleges and college students seem to be the highest supporters of Apple. Just walk around a college campus for a day and anyone carrying a laptop that isn't made by Apple seems out of place. My college library also had a whole section in the library that was all Mac. I think these students and colleges are the ones that will take Apple to the next level.
 
Market share can be twisted any which way you like. If you are measuring Apple against every single computer ever shipped with an OS inside then they won't do very well.

I think sales and profit are far more important figures for how a company is doing. If you have 60% market share but struggle to make any money then it's no good anyway.

If you count people who actually choose go out an buy their own Computer for home use then the figure has always been higher than 4-5% anyway.
 
I'm seeing more Macs on campus.

...And more users telling me they bought a Mac since they're computer illiterate...

That's still good right?
 
Apple notebooks sales are surging. Every time I visit my Apple store I see at least a couple people walk out with macbooks and probably one guy with a macbook pro. What's even more interesting is how fast they're selling iPhones. I see the Apple employees run back there a couple times and bring out a couple each visit in the back.

If you want to see how well the notebooks are selling, just go to a college campus. The kids who don't have one want one or plan to purchase one soon. They're expensive compared to some (like the one I just picked up at Best Buy for $299) so you'll notice the trend at better universities.

For the business people I haven't seen many people with Macs....but I almost always see a couple people on the train with macbooks. Usually younger people but some older accountant looking types. Even my sister was thinking about an iMac....she needs Office and Citrix for work but would love to do the cool stuff with her photos, cards, etc for the kids. Best of both worlds though...just take the serial off your Dell box and use Boot Camp when you need it.
 
Around my college campus, over half of the people I see have MacBooks/MacBook Pros (although very little of PPC portables) I mean just like any other college campus, you can see Macs are starting to become pretty popular in the education market.
 
Macrumors said:
This may confirm anecdotal reports that Apple's marketshare appears to be booming amongst college campuses. As a result, Apple's consumer marketshare could be substantially higher than the traditional 5-6% marketshare numbers would suggest.

Article Link
Click to expand...

'course it is...why do we need someone else to point this out. Everyone knows that PCs are common place in businesses and businesses take up a large amount of the PC market share. This isn't new and nobody needs to point this out like it's some amazing new discovery.

When I'm talking about game developers and how they base their decisions to port to other platforms, I always explain why it's stupid for them to consider that they're reaching to 95% of computer users by targeting PCs when probably around 10-15% of the PCs and probably another 30% are people from countries that simply don't enforce intellectual property rights and pirate software like there's no tomorrow (but that's another story).

So if we only consider the consumer user base, for sure Apple holds a much larger market share. This is not rocket science.
 
alexhp03 said:
Around my college campus, over half of the people I see have MacBooks/MacBook Pros (although very little of PPC portables) I mean just like any other college campus, you can see Macs are starting to become pretty popular in the education market.
Click to expand...
PowerPC users seem to be a lot of the old guard Macintosh users.

Intels are switcher machines.
 
chr1s60 said:
Just walk around a college campus for a day and anyone carrying a laptop that isn't made by Apple seems out of place.
Click to expand...

over here, they're ashamed to carry their laptop out of it's case (if they can lift it up at all), in case someone tells them they're just not stylish... ;)
 
Seen this trend for few years now...

For a few years now I can not even count how many people I know have bought a Mac. Then these converts get their friends to buy a Mac. I think the market share numbers are higher.I would say more like 8 or 9% at least... Just my 2 cents...:D
 
I work at a community college, and I have to say for those students not as economically inclined as private colleges, Dells are king. I see the odd MacBook or MacBook Pro now and then, but by and large it's Dells, followed by Lenovos.
 
What's sad is comments to the original blog asking how many percent of laptops were in each quintile...
 
I work in a fairly conservative aerospace company. The average age here for even software developers is well over 40. But still when I walk down the halls i notice empty black MBP boxes in the trash carts or left out to be picked up and pt in the cart. If I can notice one or two empty boxes being thrown out every day there must be many more.
 
There are definitely more Macs visible on campus now than when I started my undergraduate work 6 years ago (2nd year grad student). Very rarely do I go through the campus center without seeing at least a few and that's just fine by me. I know of a lot of friends that are planning on making a Mac their next computer when they graduate or when their computer bites the dust. Notebooks are the most popular item on the wishlist.

PS: ChrisA: Hire me! :) ME with aero thesis. lol
 
pixlnet said:
Best of both worlds though...just take the serial off your Dell box and use Boot Camp when you need it.
Click to expand...

Dell serials require Dell hardware AFAIK. At least when combined with the Dell MS OS disk. Never tried it with non-Dell MS OS disk although.
 
Remember Apple's stance during the Apple-Microsoft deal? "People who usually buy Apple products, think a little differently then the rest of them do." Don't most college kids "Think Different" and go with the computer that won't crash? Apple isn't just a company, it has now been inscribed as a Culture Icon. If you see the Apple Logo, your hip.
 
goodcow, at the CC I go to, I have yet to see someone using a laptop that wasn't a mac, but it's also pretty high up the food chain as far as community colleges go.

Really though, combine this with the speculation that a HUGE CHUNK OF MAC USERS ARE COLLEGE STUDENTS....

HrmmmmmMMMMMM!

College students.. gaming?

Ya know, I really think the game studios are F*@#%ing idiots ignoring this "3% of the computing market?" when it's probably more like 40% of their current target audience, at least.
 
And one day, as we commute to work in our hovercars, we'll start to wonder why we keep putting up with Windows at work, when everyone's using Macs at home and having so many fewer problems :)
 
Eidorian said:
PowerPC users seem to be a lot of the old guard Macintosh users.

Intels are switcher machines.
Click to expand...
Interesting point.

Over the years, most of the folks that I've known that use Mac laptops tend to use them for 3-5 years. Whereas those who use PC laptops tend to use them for 1-2 years. Granted this is a subjective observation.

But it makes sense as the new users are probably the switchers and therefore are using the MBs and MBPs. Whereas the "Old Guard" as you say, are still happily using their current iBooks and PowerBooks.

Personally, I figure that my PowerBook that I've had for almost 4 years will work for me another year or two. Then I will upgrade. :)
 
sushi said:
But it makes sense as the new users are probably the switchers and therefore are using the MBs and MBPs. Whereas the "Old Guard" as you say, are still happily using their current iBooks and PowerBooks.

Personally, I figure that my PowerBook that I've had for almost 4 years will work for me another year or two. Then I will upgrade. :)
Click to expand...
See what I mean? :D

My own switcher blood isn't content. I need a Mac Pro or something to tweak.
 
hmn....if you remove business sales from the most expensive 25% of laptop sales, you have basically removed all but the 25 lb "extreme gaming" laptops and Apple's Pro models.

So all this particular bit of info means is that the MBP costs more than most other high-end laptops...as much as most expensive business laptops.

You have to max out one of Dell's 3lb ultra-portable 12" enterprise notebooks (or get one of the aforementioned cinder block XPS gaming rigs) to get up anywhere over 2,000 dollars....

So MacBook Pro's are expensive compared to most laptops...I'm sure glad someone told me!

Also, I'm very curious about how they determined how many of Apple's laptops sold were in the top "quintile" when Apple doesn't release detailed sales information of its product lines...did he just make it up by guessing? Standing in an Apple Store and taking a count of who bought which machine?

Bah.
 
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