Apple's Consumer Marketshare Much Higher?

[Doctor Q]

It's not surprising that Macs get short shrift in many businesses, where the IT department doesn't want to deal with a "minority" platform. If only they'd realize that they can justify their own existence as a support center for their organization, and expand their department, by providing broader support to employees across platforms, rather than sticking to the short-sighted "one size fits all" philosophy.

Given all that, it's surprising that Linux is gaining acceptance in the corporate world.

 

[rented mule]

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.

The game studios/developers are somewhat retarded. They go off numbers like "5% Mac market share" and "95% PC/Windows market share" without looking at the gist of it. Remove all the business PCs out there and the crowd that can afford a cheap PC but could never afford to buy the software or games to go with it or live in countries so corrupt, that pirating is tolerated or even applauded (yeah, I'm looking at you Russia and China) and we're left with a consumer segment that would play a game and can actually afford buying one.

Numbers would probably look more like 10% Mac, 90% PC...with a large chunk of this 10% consumer Mac market being young adults that would probably enjoy playing games.

 

[CalfCanuck]

Article didn't make much sense ...

Well, speaking from statistical viewpoint, the article was nonsense.

His conclusion is that Apple holds almost 50% of the high-end of the market, so it only has limited growth potential: "But if you look at the high-priced markets Apple chooses to play in, says Sacconaghi, you see that it already has a surprisingly dominant market share — without much room for growth".

Total nonsense!

Even if Apple had 100% of the top quintile, it could still be growing much faster than the overall market. It is just that it would "grow down" into controlling more of the cheaper sections of the market.

Pretty weak analysis to be quoted on a business site (though I don't really expect much insight from these...).

 

[Zegna]

The research was heavily based on the NA market alone, so it seems.

So I believe, globally, the traditional marketshare number of 5% still stands.

But this surge in sales is deservedly beneficial for Apple, although I'm particularly concerned whether the satisfaction of consumers will deteriorate overtime if Apple is blinded by the surge of it's wealth and forgot it's original producer ethos.

 

[levitynyc]

This article does not surprise me. Macs have been getting better and better since I was at college.

My freshman year, we had Cubes at the computer labs at Rutgers and they worked like ****. I bashed Macs based on the horrible hockey puck mouse and the high crash rate of MS programs on the cube.

Towards my senior year, people bought iPods and suddenly I started seeing ibooks pop up left and right.

4 years later, my friend's son goes to Fordham in NYC and speculates that half the class brings a macbook or pro with them to class everyday. I have been telling him for months to get a mac (which i was always told, that they suck) and now he can't get one soon enough. He is enamored with OSX and how gorgeous and functional the MBP is.

Granted, Fordham is expensive and represents high class, high cost, but still, I would imagine this trend is growing at colleges around the country.

Who knows? Perhaps when these kids graduate in a few years they wont want to part with their macs when they get to the workplace and perhaps we can see more macs in the workplace.

 

[lord patton]

What's sad is comments to the original blog asking how many percent of laptops were in each quintile...

err, no. The quintiles are defined by price. The comments asking what *percentage of units* are in each quintile are actually raising an essential question.

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.

Good question. Although some analysts do stake out Apple Stores... beats working.

 

[NewSc2]

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.

Apple does state how many Macbooks and Macbook Pros they've sold.

 

[twoodcc]

great news! i bet it is much higher

 

[Eriamjh1138@DAN]

100% Market Share!

A survey found that among businesses that use Macs, Apple computers make up 100% of the computers used.

A survey found that Apple commands 75% of all notebook machines are all white.

Lame.

 

[KingYaba]

So the conservative numbers report Apple holds a 5-6% market share. It would not surprise me if Apple passes the 10% within the next two years directly attributed to their notebooks sales.

 

[inkswamp]

It will be interesting to see how this affects Apple's market share in the future. All these Mac-literate types in college will join the work force and, in some situations, will be in a position to ask for a Mac to use at work. In some cases, these people may be in the position to decide PC vs. Mac for entire depts. in the workplace and may not be so knee-jerk anti-Mac as previous generations of computer users.

That, combined with Apple's apparent willingness in the last half-decade to play nice with Windows, will be Apple's best hope for gaining a better foothold in business.

 

[arn]

Well, speaking from statistical viewpoint, the article was nonsense.

Yep, as mentioned, the numbers by themselves are almost meaningless. But I hadn't seen the extraction of Business sales before.

arn

 

[jackc]

Nooooo, I'm not going to be part of the elite anymore!

 

[MattInOz]

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?

That's more than good,
It means when these people get real jobs they'll expect real technology to help them.
bosses are going to hearing alot of...
"your paying me to do .... not be a computer nerd"

 

[maninthemoon]

I was in a coffee shop a couple days ago and it was like an apple commercial.
Every laptop in the shop (small place maybe 4,5 laptops). Was either a mb or mbp. Everybody sitting there behind the glowing apples.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Not my photo but it makes the same statement. I think the college was in Illinois somewhere and a member of these forums posted it.



Those poor students with PCs not learning a thing because the instructor is showing them with iPhoto...

Sucks to be using Vista right now.

 

[henjin]

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.

who cares? Really why does this matter?

 

[motulist]

I've been saying this for YEARS and it's only become more and more significant.

Market share is merely the amount of computers that are sold that ship with a specific OS. But the actual number of people running computers with a particular OS on it (aka installed userbase) is a TOTALLY different number.

There are two primary reasons between the difference in the number of Windows vs Mac computers sold (marketshare) and the number of Windows vs Mac computers that people actually use (installed user base).

1) Macintosh computers are used for much longer periods before being replaced be a new computer.

For instance, if 10 people buy Macs and keep them for 2 years before they buy new replacement Macs, and 10 other people buy Windows machines but buy new replacement Windows machines after 1 year, then the market share would show 10 Windows machines bought every year but only 5 Mac macs bought every year, which suggests that there are twice as many Windows machines out there - but in reality there are 10 windows machines out there being used but also 10 Macs out there being used.

2) TONS of machines that get sold with MS Windows on it are absolutely irrelevant to the number of people actually using that OS on their primary computer.

SO many of the computers that get sold with MS Windows on it wind up being used in ways that are meaningless, such as in ATM machines, kiosks, etc. And TONS and TONS (and TONS!) of computers sold with MS Windows on are used in a manner where the OS is basically meaningless, meaning the user can't install any applications, they can only run the small number of basic programs allowed by the system administrator. This includes ALL the computers that are used in ways where the user is only given basic system privileges, such as ALL the MILLIONS of machines that are in the cubicles of businesses with managed computers, all the computers in libraries, school rooms, college computer floors, etc.

-

Once you subtract the number of computers where the OS is meaningless and offset the length of time that a Mac vs an MS Windows computer will be used before being replaced, then you wind up with a number much closer to accurately representing the number of computers that are ACTUALLY running a particular OS in a meaningful way.

Once you factor out those aspects you get close to actual number of computers that people have installed on the computer in their real life.

And so the number of computers running OS X in a meaningful way vs. MS Windows shows a LOT more people using OS X than gets reported in the media.

 

[hadlock]

PowerPC users seem to be a lot of the old guard Macintosh users.

Intels are switcher machines.

Old Guard PPC users must be running beige 603es or somthing. Apple started their "switch" campaign in 2000 (I think) and I purchased my 550 g4 tibook in jan of 01 after seeing my friend's 500mhz tibook a couple months prior. Do I get to be called "old guard" when i get my second mac (hopefully the santa rosa based macbooks with LED backlights... whenever they arrive) sometime next year?

 

[AppleIntelRock]

I'm not surprised... apple's most expensive laptops don't tend to have as much of an premium as the lower-end models do.

 

[EagerDragon]

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

Because of all the old gard at work, most of the IT department I seen is primarly over 40 specialy manager that make the decision. They are too scared to take a chance. They spend most of the IT budget fighting virus and reloading windows machines cause they are blue screening a lot.

My company buys over 10,000 pc's a year and maybe 500 Macs for those in the creative side.

Business will be changing when all the new colloege students start entering the work force and want a Mac not a pc at work.

BTW I am over 50.

 

[aristotle]

Wakeup call for software companies. Mac marketshare matters

As a windows software developer who works in IT for a large company, I can tell you that Application developers should be looking at the consumer+educational market numbers and ignoring the business sales unless their product does not compete directly with MSFT office and is likely to fit in with a high percentage of locked down corporate desktops/laptops.

The large majority of business machines are so locked down and standardized by the corporate Sys Admins that companies other than MSFT are going to have a hard time making any inroads onto corporate desktops. These companies should instead look at focussing on the home, educational and soho home business markets where mac marketshare is skyrocketing.

 

[AppleIntelRock]

Business will be changing when all the new colloege students start entering the work force and want a Mac not a pc at work.

I'd say within ten years we'll have about 1/4 of the market- beacuse of what you mentioned.

 

[EagerDragon]

I'd say within ten years we'll have about 1/4 of the market- beacuse of what you mentioned.

LOL assuming that Apple still makes computers in 10 years.

 

[EagerDragon]

As a windows software developer who works in IT for a large company, I can tell you that Application developers should be looking at the consumer+educational market numbers and ignoring the business sales unless their product does not compete directly with MSFT office and is likely to fit in with a high percentage of locked down corporate desktops/laptops.

The large majority of business machines are so locked down and standardized by the corporate Sys Admins that companies other than MSFT are going to have a hard time making any inroads onto corporate desktops. These companies should instead look at focussing on the home, educational and soho home business markets where mac marketshare is skyrocketing.

Yup, we have our own build for the PC, for Solaris, for AIX, for Linux, and for MS server. They are all lock down.

My PC for work takes over 90 seconds to boot due to all the junk they install (I go get coffee), most other people I see in the train boot in about 20 seconds.