Apple's Share of U.S. PC Market Leaps to 12.9% in 3Q 2011

[-hh]

If and when Apple hits 25% market share for the personal computer sector I wonder if we'll see a huge increase in malware and viruses on the Mac. That's my biggest concern about an ever increasing market share.

The better question to ask if it is even possible for it to get anywhere near as bad as the alternative OS of Windows.

Still wondering where Tim got his numbers from...

I suspect Tim was quoting personal (home) computer share, which excludes Enterprise.

If we simplistically assume that many Americans have a PC at home and another in the office, then 50% of the US Market is to business and 50% home ... and since big business doesn't typically have many Macs, we can model that as being 100% Windows on that side, which means that we can take Gartner's grand sum average and estimate the "US Home Market" marketshare just by doubling it: 12.9% becomes roughly 25%.

FWIW, I'd love to see some data on the statistical distribution of personal computers by market (home vs work), but I've never seen any.

Very impressive for both Apple and HP. Why on Earth would HP want to ditch PCs with 1/4 of the market and 15% annual growth (?). Makes no sense.
Their numbers are imo even more impressive than Apple's, considering they own a large chunk of the business world.

Agreed, although that's also HP's and Dell's weakness: the world of big business is all to willing to compete them against each other as a simple commodity, which limits HP's and Dell's ability to be profitable. As such, both HP and Dell have to sell more machines to make the same amount of profit that Apple makes per machine.

If we look at TMay's comment that HP makes 1/7th the profit margin of Apple, this would mean that HP needs to sell 7x more HPs than Apple sells Macs in order to make the same bottom line profit. But let's be more conservative and say that HP only makes 1/3rd...and now let's look at the numbers: since HP is only selling 2.2x more (and Dell 1.7x), it becomes pretty evident that from a "Bottom Line" perspective, Apple already is #1 in the USA Market.


-hh

 

[saviour]

If we look at TMay's comment that HP makes 1/7th the profit margin of Apple, this would mean that HP needs to sell 7x more HPs than Apple sells Macs in order to make the same bottom line profit. But let's be more conservative and say that HP only makes 1/3rd...and now let's look at the numbers: since HP is only selling 2.2x more (and Dell 1.7x), it becomes pretty evident that from a "Bottom Line" perspective, Apple already is #1 in the USA Market.

-hh

I agree on that but its not just the US, I am viewing from a Global perspective. IBM ditched PCs pushing them to Lenovo and now Lenovo is experiencing record growth on par with Apple in the US. Hell, they managed to make Thinkpads desirable again. Seems like a string of idiotic decisions to me - boards ditching sections because of market bumps. Then again IBM is *the* IT giant, it may actually not matter to them at all.

For apple to succeed in the business sector, it will invariably have to reduce its margin to sustain the huge support networks of Dell & HP. There is also the huge issue of MacOS and the support or lack of for obsolete versions. I think that in the UK probably 30% of business machines still use XP which Microsoft happily supports. Cannot state strongly enough how important this is for small businesses. Add to that the popular perception that Macs are overpriced (I don't subscribe to that - they are well built machines at almost the same level with well built PCs) and then you can see that it will be a difficult process, one that Apple may not want to go through at the end of the day.

At least for Dell, I think that if they reduced support they would increase their profits 10fold. Their machines are really bad even for the price they sell for.

 

[tinman0]

Naturally IBM is key here as well - though they haven't been a visible brandname in the consumer computer market for some time - that section is better known as Lenovo.

Lenovo is nothing to do with IBM. It was merely the new name of the company that bought IBM's PC business.

However, IBM still have a very solid server business, so we can easily include them from the 8bit era.

 

[toddybody]

No surprises from Apple here...theyre making great strides. I am pretty surprised to see HP's 3rd Quarter growth. Thats impressive for a company that's "getting out of the PC business".

 

[gnasher729]

If we look at TMay's comment that HP makes 1/7th the profit margin of Apple, this would mean that HP needs to sell 7x more HPs than Apple sells Macs in order to make the same bottom line profit.

Worse (for HP): The "margin" is the percentage of profit relative to price. But Macs are generally quite at the high end, with a much higher average selling price. HP would have to make 7 times more revenue in dollars, but probably would have to sell 11 to 12 times as many machines to make the same profit.

 

[SandynJosh]

I agree on that but its not just the US, I am viewing from a Global perspective. IBM ditched PCs pushing them to Lenovo and now Lenovo is experiencing record growth on par with Apple in the US.

However, Lenovo is still lost in the "Other" category of the chart.

For apple to succeed in the business sector, it will invariably have to reduce its margin to sustain the huge support networks of Dell & HP.

Apple is succeeding in the business sector via laptop computers where it is already very competitive price-wise and offering a more reliable laptop than the competition. So, Apple is making their usual margin AND enjoying the highest rating for customer service.

There is also the huge issue of MacOS and the support or lack of for obsolete versions.

All Apple Laptops for the last five years run Windows as well as OSX. However, the need to run Windows has greatly lessened as it has long been unnecessary to for a computer to have a specific OS when communicating remotely, as is mostly the case with laptops.

I think that in the UK probably 30% of business machines still use XP which Microsoft happily supports.

Even though XP may be widely used, you apparently haven't heard that Microsoft has not supported XP for a while.

Cannot state strongly enough how important this is for small businesses.

If it's so important, and MS isn't doing it, how can your statement be remotely true?

Add to that the popular perception that Macs are overpriced (I don't subscribe to that - they are well built machines at almost the same level with well built PCs) and then you can see that it will be a difficult process, one that Apple may not want to go through at the end of the day.

While that perception may still be true for desktop PCs, it doesn't exist for Apple laptops.

Lenovo is nothing to do with IBM. It was merely the new name of the company that bought IBM's PC business.

However, IBM still have a very solid server business, so we can easily include them from the 8bit era.

IBM entered the market with 16 bit computers and single-handedly ended the 8 bit market except for classroom education. IBM made stand-alone business computers legitimate, and quickly killed off the dumb terminal market as well.

your argument that servers count as PCs is interesting. I'm not sure they do for the purpose of this survey, but I'm not certain of that either way.

 

[Windlasher]

As long as Apple's market share, but more importantly (for Apple) Apple's sales numbers are growing. 43 percent in the US from last year. That _really_ matters.

If I were Apple I would:

1: BUY RIM
2: KIll the playbook.
3: Spend the next 12 months converting the BES software to work with iPhones and ipads.
4: Tell corp America that they can keep those BBs for the next 24 months but after that the curtain falls. BY then it will be time to upgrade them anyway.
5: Give them the new AES "apple Enterprise Server for free.

 

[cameronjpu]

Some bold move like acquiring Adobe would help Apple personal computer business growth and buildup ecosystem. Adobe is so cheap now.

Dumb

 

[Funkymonk]

iHelped

 

[accessoriesguy]

wow only HP and Apple were int he positives, insane!

 

[RobertMartens]

Malware as in Trojan's yes. I am not aware of any Viruses on the Mac. (self propogating malware to keep it simple).

Don't forget 'etc'

He said they get malware/viruses/etc

You can't deny that they get etc can you!

FUD FUD FUD

 

[Mac Kiwi]

Wow I still remember being under 5% and Motorola processors :}


I am hoping Apple would look at buying Wacom, Wacom would have great tech for the Ipads of the future, because sooner or later an Ipad will be capable of running Painter or PS etc.

 

[unlinked]

Even though XP may be widely used, you apparently haven't heard that Microsoft has not supported XP for a while.

Microsoft are providing security updates for 2 more years. Doesn't that count as support?

 

[toddybody]

If I were Apple I would:

1: BUY RIM
2: KIll the playbook.
3: Spend the next 12 months converting the BES software to work with iPhones and ipads.
4: Tell corp America that they can keep those BBs for the next 24 months but after that the curtain falls. BY then it will be time to upgrade them anyway.
5: Give them the new AES "apple Enterprise Server for free.

Smart, but I think Apple's increasing market share in business environments + Playbook Flop + RIM's recent service woes are killing them slowly. I'd rather Apple spend the money on more R&D/better warranties/higher quality control and just let RIM bleed out.

 

[MacNewsFix]

Does this include iPads ?

If so, these numbers are meaningless.

I don't care haw anyone wants to rationalize it; an iPad is not a PC.

And You just know they did

From Gartner's report:

Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs, including mini-notebooks but not media tablets such as the iPad.​

So I guess the numbers are meaningful. Were iPads included, 's numbers would likely have been astronomical.

 

[pdwickizer]

Dell government sales

I would be curious to see what Dell's numbers are without their government sales. I bet they would be below Apple.

 

[linux2mac]

From Gartner's report:

Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs, including mini-notebooks but not media tablets such as the iPad.​

So I guess the numbers are meaningful. Were iPads included, 's numbers would likely have been astronomical.

Can't argue with that!

 

[haruhiko]

Worse (for HP): The "margin" is the percentage of profit relative to price. But Macs are generally quite at the high end, with a much higher average selling price. HP would have to make 7 times more revenue in dollars, but probably would have to sell 11 to 12 times as many machines to make the same profit.

This is not the case for Macbook Airs.

 

[Avalontor]

12% Great progress!

I hear people all the time saying Macs have a 3% or 5% market share. Macs are becoming rapidly more popular though, the days of Macs having a 5% market share are long gone!

Apple is an International company, world wide market share is around 4-7%.

 

[MacNewsFix]

Worse (for HP): The "margin" is the percentage of profit relative to price. But Macs are generally quite at the high end, with a much higher average selling price. HP would have to make 7 times more revenue in dollars, but probably would have to sell 11 to 12 times as many machines to make the same profit.

This is not the case for Macbook Airs.

I believe he is referring to overall average profit per Mac versus overall average profit per HP computer. I've seen similar statements made by analysts and talking heads stating HP needs to sell somewhere around 7 or so times the number of computers to make the same profit as one Apple computer.

 

[DakotaGuy]

Surely HP will continue in the computer market. That's a lot of PCs.

They are rethinking their decision to spin-off the PC division. I bet in the end they keep it. I wonder if HP is going to the same people Netflix did to get their business advice?

http://www.techspot.com/news/45829-hp-rethinking-pc-unit-spinoff-report-says.html

 

[MacNewsFix]

they are rethinking their decision to spin-off the pc division. I bet in the end they keep it. I wonder if hp is going to the same people netflix did to get their business advice?:d

http://www.techspot.com/news/45829-hp-rethinking-pc-unit-spinoff-report-says.html

lol!

 

[alent1234]

From Gartner's report:

Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs, including mini-notebooks but not media tablets such as the iPad.​

So I guess the numbers are meaningful. Were iPads included, 's numbers would likely have been astronomical.

as ipad owner i can say an ipad is not a real computer

 

[adamtore]

Hi there!

I think the trend will continue, there's no other system that performs as seamlessly as the iMac and MBP.

Well hello to you too!!

You are wrong.

Have a nice day!

 

[unlinked]

Apple is an International company, world wide market share is around 4-7%.

World wide share probably is 5 point something or less. Somewhere below 5th place which was 6.2%.