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

[adamtore]

Makes a great argument for the Mac App Store. Every time, I see an update notice from Adobe, I get the chills (and this started before the recent trojans specifically targeting OS X).

Speaking of Adobe, I wish Acrobat Reader was in the App Store. While I mainly use Preview and PDFPen, some services we are required to use mandate their own proprietary Acrobat files that won't work in either. It would be easier to tell people to just open the Mac App Store and run an update rather then having to go to Adobe.com and download the latest version on each machine or pass the installer around the network and contend with questions from computer novices afraid they'll nuke their machines during install. (Sorry, my inner Nick Burns is rearing its ugly head. )

Chrome has a pdf and flashsupport built-in so I dont think you should go around and call ppl novices.

 

[ZipZapRap]

I hear people all the time saying Macs have a 3% or 5% market share.

Outside the US.

 

[macbook pro i5]

Well hello to you too!!

You are wrong.

Have a nice day!

how is he wrong he is voicing his opinion/experience
i agree with him btw hello to you to

 

[MacNewsFix]

Chrome has a pdf and flashsupport built-in so I dont think you should go around and call ppl novices.

Indeed.

(cue sad trombone)

 

[Steve Mobs]

I wager it'll go up to 25% one day.

 

[GulGnu]

Mac OS X can be incredibly secure, if developers are smart enough to take advantage of what it offers.

On a technical level, I´d say that Windows has the upper hand today in the security game. In practice, of course, OS X is much more secure.

What MacOS X does have as a crucial advantage is the possibility of facing off new threats one at a time, thereby dissuading hackers from "investing" in the Mac platform. There is no point in putting effort into creating a new trojan, if that trojan will be directly targetted and destroyed by Apple straight away.

The built-in anti-malware software in OS X isn´t terribly advanced, but it doesn´t have to be since Apple has the luxury of a "handcrafted" response to new threats, as the successful defense against the MacDefender trojan showed.

 

[PlipPlop]

Good to see HP dominating, they do some great products.

 

[Northgrove]

The real question is how much longer this market will really matter.

For as long as people need to do professional work.

Regardless how incredible an iPad or iPhone would be, they would still not have large enough displays for e.g. photo post-processing other than the kind you do where you upload to Instagram and share with Facebook. Or large enough displays for programming IDE's like Xcode. And in both these cases, they lack the horsepower necessary.

There is no question.

 

[Mattsasa]

Still wondering where Tim got his numbers from...

it says right in the keynote where he got his numbers...

and his numbers are bigger because he was just targeting retail us marketshare

 

[saviour]

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

Global - repeat Global, think outside the US for a bit.

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.

That is very much true, I could agree more. But laptops are not the bulk of sales. Having said that, I am sure they are the most valuable one.
But if Apple wants to have its systems in every office, they will have to form a more extensive network. In a high-flying business, "return-to-depot" is simply unacceptable. IBM's experience (at least as dependable machines if not more) is strongly pointing to that. No matter how solid your kit is, it will fail. Your response to that failure ultimately forms opinions.

At the end of the day, that's how Apple has forged the reputation for stellar customer support it has today.

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

XP are going to be supported throughout 2014 at least according to M$. That is 14 yrs that my boss does not have to buy a new OS. I know it is silly, but he (and many bosses out there I suspect) is ruthless when it comes to cutting costs. At the same time M$ makes sure that programs keep working at least between 3 editions, perhaps even more important in a world where AutoCAD LT costs £1300, and MSOffice £100 (am not sure 'bout that) and CATIA a wooping £30000 minimum.

In sharp contrast, Apple released Lion only to make previous versions of Office redundant. You have to understand the poor guy's perspective, he does not want to spend money on a new version of something that is more than adequate for his business, they are literally money going down the drain.

I use M$ at work and MacOS at home and for personal work, I know which I like the most; but at the same time I have to admit that when it comes to business, Apple has a lot to learn.

However, I do not think it is one of the things they want to pursue. I am quite sure that they will be more than happy obliterating the home market first before moving on to business users.

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

See above.

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

Agree 100%. You get what you pay for.

 

[jouster]

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

As an iPad owner, I can say an iPad is a real computer.

What now?

 

[SVegard]

The real question is how much longer this market will really matter.

Well, it certanly matters to all of us doing work that demands things like fast CPU, lots of ram, lots of storage, bigger screens, hardware keyboards and other "old fashion" gear (post pc era...lol).

Oh sorry I forgot...in a few years I just pull up my iPad and record a 64 track huge production record. Hey! I can even mix and record at home..but then ..oh, I need to catch that bus...dont worry. Can just pick up the mixing on my iPhone once I'm on the bus...thanks iCloud.

 

[gnasher729]

As an iPad owner, I can say an iPad is a real computer.

What now?

The Gartner number are for people to get a realistic idea of what is happening in sales. On forums like this, people reinterpret it as being about bragging rights. Which is why some people would want to count iPads as computers to increase Apple's numbers, and other people want exactly the opposite. Some people here are either glad or unhappy that Apple is not in the top five world wide. I regret it because Gartner doesn't tell us how Apple is developing. Especially since there are huge movements in the PC world, so the company that is #5 today could take 20% away from #4, and it would take very long time until Apple reaches #5. (And of course it doesn't matter whether Apple is first, second or tenth; what matters is how much they sell).

Whatever the iPad is, Apple sells a lot of them and makes a lot of money, and Apple also affects the number of computers sold by its competitors negatively. You can see that the US total numbers excluding Apple actually dropped by 200,000. So anyone who wants a realistic outlook and proper understanding of the computer market would probably want a distinction between computers, netbooks, and tablets. Not sure where something like a Kindle or Kindle Fire would fit. If Gartner published statistics about sales of DVDs, you'd also want to know about Bluray even though Bluray is not DVD.

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

Gartner doesn't tell us, but the 2.3 million in the US alone are 2.5% of the world wide total. So assuming that sales outside the US are exactly the same as sales within the US, there would be exactly 5.0% world wide. An old quote from Apple: "5 percent, that's 95 percent to go.".

 

[DaffyDuck]

I think the virtualization that is happening in Enterprise is an opportunity for Apple to make a move into companies by providing the best platform to virtualize legacy software while providing employees with the efficiencies on the newest operating system. I don't see them making any moves in this direction though. Perhaps iOS is their way to get a foot in the door.

 

[John Frum]

Whaddya know. Finally passed the old market share peak of 12%, reached in 1993. This time Steve was there—but unfortunately it was reported too late for him to see it.

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/12/total-share.ars/7

 

[linux2mac]

Indeed.

(cue sad trombone)

More people should follow your lead by posting evidence to support their statements instead of merely making stuff up.

 

[rdowns]

The real question is how much longer this market will really matter.

Yeah, companies always decide that an ~$20 billion business no longer matters. Where do people get this stuff?

 

[rumplestiltskin]

Tough to tell...yet

I'll go out on a limb. Are we seeing the beginning of the "knee" of the curve where exponential growth will, eventually, become obvious (in hindsight)?

 

[robeddie]

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

Please no, and let them screw up Premiere like they did to FCP? (more likely discontinue Premiere altogether).

 

[gnasher729]

Whaddya know. Finally passed the old market share peak of 12%, reached in 1993. This time Steve was there—but unfortunately it was reported too late for him to see it.

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/12/total-share.ars/7

Steve Jobs would have known if he wanted to. Remember that Gartner's numbers are estimates based on second hand information; Apple would _know_ how many computers they ship.

 

[KnightWRX]

Apple would _know_ how many computers they ship.

But not the numbers that the competition shipped. Which is kinda required to calculate a percentage of market share.

 

[divinox]

And still applies on a worldwide scale I believe.

Of course, these numbers also don't seem to take into account the 'Custom' category - which is still the one that hosts both the fastest, and best quality systems. Admittedly, how to measure that is rather... tricky.

hard to tell exactly where they are. no significant growth to speak of though. for those arguing that the pc is dead, i'd like an explanation for the growth of W7 though. Not like these are all updates (although a few certainly are xp-licenses in disguise).

edit: i grabbed the number. 7.6% is the Mac OSX total share.

----------

Yeah, companies always decide that an ~$20 billion business no longer matters. Where do people get this stuff?

From Steve Jobs quotes, sadly enough.

----------

I think the virtualization that is happening in Enterprise is an opportunity for Apple to make a move into companies by providing the best platform to virtualize legacy software while providing employees with the efficiencies on the newest operating system. I don't see them making any moves in this direction though. Perhaps iOS is their way to get a foot in the door.

GL with that. MSFT has a) Hyper-V b) built the platforms you need to virtualize to run legacy software. Apple has... Money?

(iOS is definitely working as a door opener though. Its gonna take quite some time to convert the IT-peeps though.)

 

[seashellz]

Ill bet we will see 15% marketshare by Jan 1;

possibly 25% by the end of 2012-an avalanche effect seem to be happening

 

[SandynJosh]

Image

hard to tell exactly where they are. no significant growth to speak of though. for those arguing that the pc is dead, i'd like an explanation for the growth of W7 though. Not like these are all updates (although a few certainly are xp-licenses in disguise).

...and no small number of W7 sales are folks getting shed of Vista too.

(iOS is definitely working as a door opener though. Its gonna take quite some time to convert the IT-peeps though.)

It may take less than you imagine. With the advent of iCloud, the iOS devices will sync all the important business things with the PC back on their desk, making it easier and easier to rely on the iPhone and iPad for the growing need to be "plugged into" work when you are at home or elsewhere.

The IT-peeps would like a nice stable world where everything is plugged in and still running XP. That world is rapidly vanishing in the current climate of doing business faster, cheaper, smarter or else.

IT is also being lured to the iPhone due to the terrible screw-ups within RIM's messaging infrastructure which has seen some recent massive downtime. Tie that to the absolute dominance if the iPad and the MBA and Apple has a lot of reasons to be confident of its future in the enterprise market.

While I don't see the PC computer vanishing, I see it moving from the center of the workstation to a lesser role in a worker's day as we all march into a new work paradigm.

 

[rjohnstone]

...and no small number of W7 sales are folks getting shed of Vista too.



It may take less than you imagine. With the advent of iCloud, the iOS devices will sync all the important business things with the PC back on their desk, making it easier and easier to rely on the iPhone and iPad for the growing need to be "plugged into" work when you are at home or elsewhere.

The IT-peeps would like a nice stable world where everything is plugged in and still running XP. That world is rapidly vanishing in the current climate of doing business faster, cheaper, smarter or else.

IT is also being lured to the iPhone due to the terrible screw-ups within RIM's messaging infrastructure which has seen some recent massive downtime. Tie that to the absolute dominance if the iPad and the MBA and Apple has a lot of reasons to be confident of its future in the enterprise market.

While I don't see the PC computer vanishing, I see it moving from the center of the workstation to a lesser role in a worker's day as we all march into a new work paradigm.

No major corporation would ever rely on iCloud.
It's a consumer grade product with unproven security.

Apple has a LONG way to go before they can seriously crack the Enterprise market segment.
They failed in the server market and are still just a niche product in many corporations.

As for RIM's network issue, it is/was expected, but it's still the most secure messaging network in the world.

No system will ever have 100% uptime. Murphy's law applies to everything.
Anyone saying otherwise is full of it.