Apple's Stock Sets First New All-Time High Closing Price in Nearly Two Years

[julesme]

Au contraire. "Try to buy when everyone else is scared, and hold or sell when everyone is really excited again," is a working definition of trying to time the market. It assumes you know the right moments to buy and sell. Even the pros have a poor track record trying to guess the right entry and exit points.

But hey, I bought my AAPL in 1997 and held most of it and my return is somewhat short of 30,000%, so what do I know?

You misunderstood me - I'd advise basing a stock purchase/sale on fundamental analysis, not market timing. That doesn't change the fact that the most money is made by buying when there is proverbial blood in the streets and selling when there is euphoria. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive, as you seem to suggest.

You should still take advantage of dollar cost averaging and try to diversify as much as possible. Good luck.

 

[TallManNY]

Microsoft is the worlds predominate group of coders. They also successfully pivoted not only their main business but also the culture. You understand Office, do you realise Office 365 is the most profitable piece of software ever written? Then there is the cloud Azure which ALL companies will be utilizing to great extent in the next 0-10 years. They along with AWS and Google own the cloud space. Then add in Gaming and all the money there.

See you are trapped to an extent thinking its Apple and Samsung. That's so far off how the world works its obtuse thinking. Mobile is important sure, so is cloud hence "Cloud First Mobile First" the Microsoft goals under Nadella.

I definitely am no expert. Though I am familiar with Office 365 since I switched over my company to it last year. Some good aspects to it. And the cost is meaningless for my small company's limited number of users. But I'm not entirely sure that I couldn't get just about as good a collection of apps and services from Google for cheap. Or from Apple for nearly free if my company used Macs. And some of the limitations are crazy (their cloud storage system, Sharepoint, can't handle storing and displaying more than 5,000 documents).

Another weird example. I was doing some stuff with Office 365 advanced settings and it involved going into the terminal and typing in code. The terminal (also called the "powershell" according to my IT support guy) still doesn't even have a freaking font that looks decent. The terminal looks not much different than the terminal for a freaking IBM pre-Windows. It is insane. There is just so much old stuff in their OS that just makes me think they don't care.

Here are a few other things. Microsoft gave away Windows 10 for a period of time to spur adoption. I'm really not sure how many people will go out and buy Windows "11" when they are getting a free update from Apple for their Mac. Microsoft can sell that Window OS to OEM's for Windows machines, but that whole industry is shrinking. Are we sure that it won't start shrinking really quickly? They also used to sell their Office suite, but have switched to a subscription service. I think that is a great decision because it allows someone to get into the suite cheaper. But again their competitors give away free copies of comparable software suites. And those comparable get better every year. There is a limit to improvements that can be made to Word. Excel is still irreplaceable for certain workflow. I don't see that changing. But ultimately it is just simple math. The other programs can do spreadsheets as well.

So you see I'm skeptical about the cash flow from Windows and Office Suite in the years to come (and keep in mind that when you are trading at 30 times earnings, you need to grow those earnings a lot and very quickly). I don't know what kind of cash they get from Azure and their other businesses. I really have no idea. I just think their monopoly from Windows and Office is under serious attack.

 

[mi7chy]

With the smartphone market saturated and Apple trailing the competition on hardware, AI and services there's a lot of room for AAPL to fall. A smarter investor would move into a new high growth market with little competition like TSLA.

 

[Bart Kela]

Au contraire. "Try to buy when everyone else is scared, and hold or sell when everyone is really excited again," is a working definition of trying to time the market. It assumes you know the right moments to buy and sell. Even the pros have a poor track record trying to guess the right entry and exit points.

But hey, I bought my AAPL in 1997 and held most of it and my return is somewhat short of 30,000%, so what do I know?

Luck is often somewhat of a factor in equity investing.

Best investment decision I've ever made? I bought AAPL in 2005 in a Roth IRA. Second best decision? I sold this tranche in early 2015 at a return of about 2,000%, all tax free. Third best decision? Most of the proceeds went into boring ETFs like SPY, QQQ, IWM, all of which have outperformed AAPL in those two years since.

I still have some AAPL shares, but they are held in a regular brokerage account so I'm gonna get dinged for long-term capital gains tax when I sell those. That's okay, better to pay taxes on a handsome profit than to not have the profit at all.

I won't sell them all, I'll probably donate some shares to charity, ease the tax pain a bit.

I think Apple's days as a growth stock are over. My attention has swung toward FANG these days, have three of the four now in my portfolio.

 

[TallManNY]

Au contraire. "Try to buy when everyone else is scared, and hold or sell when everyone is really excited again," is a working definition of trying to time the market. It assumes you know the right moments to buy and sell. Even the pros have a poor track record trying to guess the right entry and exit points.

But hey, I bought my AAPL in 1997 and held most of it and my return is somewhat short of 30,000%, so what do I know?

Nice trade. Or at least it might be depending what the stock price is when you sell. You've done hard part (buying it cheap). But don't ignore that you need to do the second half of that trade, which is sell it and take that money and buy something you can use. You have to do that part as well for this to actually be a successful investment. Of course you can hold it until you die and then a family member can inherit it. You can count that as success. But the family member then needs to make the decision to sell at the right time. You have to buy and sell to finish an investment and declare it a success.

Of course with 30,000% of increase, I'd say you have a pretty nice margin to choose a good time to sell to actually get some money out of this trade.

I'm an Apple stockholder as well. But I decreased my position by 20% last year. Whoops. That didn't work out for me. But I was taking some "winnings" off the table and was re-balancing my portfolio. Of course this run up has again un-balanced my portfolio. Oh well it is a good problem to have.

 

[BoltmanLives]

I definitely am no expert. Though I am familiar with Office 365 since I switched over my company to it last year. Some good aspects to it. And the cost is meaningless for my small company's limited number of users. But I'm not entirely sure that I couldn't get just about as good a collection of apps and services from Google for cheap. Or from Apple for nearly free if my company used Macs. And some of the limitations are crazy (their cloud storage system, Sharepoint, can't handle storing and displaying more than 5,000 documents).

Another weird example. I was doing some stuff with Office 365 advanced settings and it involved going into the terminal and typing in code. The terminal (also called the "powershell" according to my IT support guy) still doesn't even have a freaking font that looks decent. The terminal looks not much different than the terminal for a freaking IBM pre-Windows. It is insane. There is just so much old stuff in their OS that just makes me think they don't care.

Here are a few other things. Microsoft gave away Windows 10 for a period of time to spur adoption. I'm really not sure how many people will go out and buy Windows "11" when they are getting a free update from Apple for their Mac. Microsoft can sell that Window OS to OEM's for Windows machines, but that whole industry is shrinking. Are we sure that it won't start shrinking really quickly? They also used to sell their Office suite, but have switched to a subscription service. I think that is a great decision because it allows someone to get into the suite cheaper. But again their competitors give away free copies of comparable software suites. And those comparable get better every year. There is a limit to improvements that can be made to Word. Excel is still irreplaceable for certain workflow. I don't see that changing. But ultimately it is just simple math. The other programs can do spreadsheets as well.

So you see I'm skeptical about the cash flow from Windows and Office Suite in the years to come (and keep in mind that when you are trading at 30 times earnings, you need to grow those earnings a lot and very quickly). I don't know what kind of cash they get from Azure and their other businesses. I really have no idea. I just think their monopoly from Windows and Office is under serious attack.

Actually Windows did very well last quarter bucking industry trends... Many Enterprises just now are doing 10 rollouts and that will continue full force until 7 expires in 2020. Office is fine and being integrated with LinkedIn who is also fine. Azure will be the worlds biggest cloud with the most offerings and compliance . Every custom Azure server (~400,000 per region) has FPGA Their Datacenter regions for a Supercomputer global brain 35 regions and growing more than double AWS. They demoed translating the 5,000,000 (1/3 of a mile high stack) articles of Wikipedia on stage from Russian to English in .....................0.89 sec (20x beyond Moore's law) . This among other things is a service a business can use. Azure monitors all of Norway's power grid with drones. Each drone 12 sensors replacing dangerous human checks.

Its all about platforms and services with Microsoft. Right now they are about to launch Windows Holographic which is basically writing the book on VR/AR platforms and the bot framework is writing the book on AI.

Windows is no longer the focus just a part of what they are doing which is building the future for the next generation. Apl and Samsung are fighting each other on the last big thing...Microsoft is on to the next two or three big things. Look at MSFTs chart! You'll see what i speak of clearly, go back to entire history...not stopping. Successful Pivot...and about to unleash on Mobile too because they can. This time in a way that ensures success and brings mobile modern. Mobile needs to move beyond boring and overpriced $800-$1000 limited slabs, it will.

This is why Apl is in trouble...Microsoft is not Google. "Mobile First, Cloud First" its going to be a very interesting 2017-2020 in mobile.

Look at Apl eco being picked apart..iPhone is next. As iPhone goes Apl goes. Their fault.
Both Apl and Google now need to pivot, Apl more so.

One truth always holds true...software always triumphs hardware. Do not sleep on MSFT. They are very smart and very efficient, they pivoted already. Nadella is a mastermind CEO he is ten steps ahead of Cook. Free office on Iphone? That was Nadella.

PS... there will be no windows 11, windows ends around 2028 is a service like Chrome (constantly improving rapidly)

 

[TallManNY]

My story: I'm a school teacher, not a rich person at all. In the 1990s I opened an Ameritrade investment account and I purchased Apple stock (APPL). I invested about $16,000 in Apple stock over about a five year period and I have never sold a single share, I just let it ride and I collect about $5,500 a year in Apple dividends which has paid for my initial investment in the stock plus it pays for every Apple product that I have ever purchased. Today my Apple stock is worth $326,708 before taxes which is a gain of 1,969%.

That is a nice story. I know an Actor (a struggling type) who bought stock in a little company called Microsoft. He had to explain to his broker what the company was; it was that long ago. He still owns much of that stock today. But it has also served him and his family well for years as well as dividends have been taken and pieces have been sold off. It has kind of been the "Giving Tree" for his family. But he still has a chunk.

That said, the principles of diversification probably say that you are way over exposed to Apple Of course those same principles would have had you sell your stock ten or twenty years ago. If you are relying on this money for retirement, you might want to consider if your Apple ride has to come to an end.

 

[IJ Reilly]

You misunderstood me - I'd advise basing a stock purchase/sale on fundamental analysis, not market timing. That doesn't change the fact that the most money is made by buying when there is proverbial blood in the streets and selling when there is euphoria. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive, as you seem to suggest.

You should still take advantage of dollar cost averaging and try to diversify as much as possible. Good luck.

Fundamental analysis is another way of claiming to have access to information not available to the rest of the market. Do you really think you have some of that stuff? I can safely say that you don't.

The lesson I have learned from 30-plus years of investing is that I might be able to get lucky once in a blue moon, but I am never going outsmart the market. My AAPL purchase was a once in a blue moon lucky guess, but one thing I managed to do right over the last 20 years was to never jump at any of my many opportunities to time the stock.

I've been reducing my AAPL position for the last several years based entirely on investment objectives and personal needs rather than any effort to time the sales. The proceed have gone into a diversified and balanced ETF portfolio, which is the only way I will ever invest again. No more of my money is going on the black 13.

 

[macsrcool1234]

Maps? Getting better and better. AR and AI? Beefing up the teams with dozens af acquisitions.

You consider Maps and AI a strongpoint for Apple?

Did April fools come early this year?

 

[smacrumon]

Apple is one dud product away from its next recession. Get it right.

 

[Abazigal]

Silicon: Qualcomm/Intel/ARM
Industrial processes: HP+Microsoft
Accessibility: Microsoft
Health: Microsoft
Stores/Support: Microsoft's OEM network same for support.

Apl users better not sleep on Microsoft+ OEMs when they really focus on Mobile it won't be pretty for Apl, we already see it in every other sector look at Macs and iPads. Apl has had little real challenge at high end, that will change and change soon.

Keep in mind these "mind blowing #'s" are based on a declining group of humans Iphone globally . Iphone saturation globally has actually decreased and holds at about 12% almost single digits. Last year the stars aligned this year I doubt it.

Don't you people get tired of being dead wrong every year? Next year, Apple is doomed! I promise!

 

[BoltmanLives]

Don't you people get tired of being dead wrong every year? Next year, Apple is doomed! I promise!

Apl is not doomed next year , heck AOL is still around.
Peak iPhone you bet after the X all downhill like way downhill

 

[Codeseven]

Yup, sometimes just a lucky hunch.

I'm just a regular slob the was walking through a mall back 2006 when I came across a brand new store, an Apple Store. I had very little interest in it because all I ever had been familiar with was Microsoft and I had just built a new gaming machine with Windows (XP if I remember right). But just out of curiosity I went in anyway.

The store itself looked immaculate and the salespersons were very professional. There were very few people in there and very little software on the shelves. But I was impressed at how well manufactured and high quality looking the Mac computers seem to be. Even more impressive to me were a small group of kids sitting at a round table each with they're own Mac, laughing and typing away. I hadn't seen 'kids' interacting with computers before? For some reason that really struck me as amazing.

A couple weeks later I went by that same store and it was filling up with people.

When I got home I started to look into who and what this Apple company is. Then I started to geting the feeling that something was brewing and I might be missing out on some kind of opportunity or something big. I had never invested in anything before, never bought or even knew what a stock was. The only person I knew that had bought a couple stocks in the past was my Dad so when I told him I was interested in buying stock and how much should I buy he said if I'm not sure to just buy a 'block' of 100 shares, well, ok, so I nervously took $1200 out of my meager savings and bought a hundred shares thinking that was the max I could stand to lose and still save face.

I started getting excited when the stock began to slowly go up and there seemed to be more and more talk about Apple and Macs on the news and in the paper. I tried to convince some family members and friends at work to buy a few Apple shares just in case I was right but they all thought I was crazy and none of them did, oh well.

I never sold a share

 

[Bart Kela]

I'm just a regular slob the was walking through a mall back 2006 when I came across a brand new store, an Apple Store...

A couple weeks later I went by that same store and it was filling up with people.

When I got home I started to look into who and what this Apple company is. Then I started to geting the feeling that something was brewing and I might be missing out on some kind of opportunity or something big. I had never invested in anything before, never bought or even knew what a stock was. The only person I knew that had bought a couple stocks in the past was my Dad so when I told him I was interested in buying stock and how much should I buy he said if I'm not sure to just buy a 'block' of 100 shares, well, ok, so I nervously took $1200 out of my meager savings and bought a hundred shares thinking that was the max I could stand to lose and still save face.

This story is fishy.

AAPL had a 2-for-1 split on February 28, 2005. Before the split, it closed at $88.99. Throughout 2006, the share price ranged from about $51 to about $90. You could not have purchased a 100 share block of AAPL in 2006 for $1200. The stock did not split again until 2014 which was a 7-to-1 split.

If you spent $1200 on AAPL shares in 2006, you got anywhere between 13 to 24 shares tops.

The detail about "bought a hundred shares thinking that was the max I could stand to lose and still save face" is particularly bizarre. Only you and your broker knew how many shares you purchased and the commission. There's no way to "lose face" at the moment you buy stocks. The broker wants the commission, he/she doesn't care if you buy in blocks of 100 or not. It's not like a neon sign on your front lawn suddenly alerts your neighbors that "Codeseven just bought an odd-sized lot."

At some point, I bought three shares of GOOG, maybe around $300 per share, nearly the same investment amount, $1000. Eventually, the stock had a 2-for-1 split (or 1 non-voting Class C share for each voting Class A share if I remember that right). Today, both symbols are trading in the $800s and I have a >300% return. Do you really think anyone cares about "saving face" [sic] for buying an odd-sized lot?

What's better? Me having 3 shares of GOOG and 3 shares of GOOGL or having zero of each?

Yeah, I thought so.

I started getting excited when the stock began to slowly go up and there seemed to be more and more talk about Apple and Macs on the news and in the paper. I tried to convince some family members and friends at work to buy a few Apple shares just in case I was right but they all thought I was crazy and none of them did, oh well.

No, AAPL share price fluctuated quite wildly in 2006. I've already provided the general range of closing prices for 2006. If anything, the volatility of the share price alarmed them.

This was still the pre-iPhone era. Apple was still Apple Computer Inc. and they were making Macs and a nifty little media player called the iPod. No one at the time had any clue that the future cash cow of the company's history was in a lab somewhere in Cupertino.

I never sold a share

Your loss.

Even taking into account its recent run-up, AAPL has underperformed all of the major indices over the past two years. Let's see how Apple versus FANG has done over that time.

S&P 500 (^GSPC): +10.85%
Apple (AAPL): +4.27%

Facebook (FB): +77%
Amazon (AMZN): +122%
Netflix (NFLX): +113%
Alphabet (GOOG): +51%

Had you been luckier, you would have sold off part of your AAPL position and put the proceeds into one or more of the FANG stocks. Even if you paid capital gains taxes or higher trade commissions for an odd-sized lot, you would have recuperated that anyhow, even if you invested in a relative FANG dog like GOOG.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Nice trade. Or at least it might be depending what the stock price is when you sell. You've done hard part (buying it cheap). But don't ignore that you need to do the second half of that trade, which is sell it and take that money and buy something you can use. You have to do that part as well for this to actually be a successful investment. Of course you can hold it until you die and then a family member can inherit it. You can count that as success. But the family member then needs to make the decision to sell at the right time. You have to buy and sell to finish an investment and declare it a success.

Of course with 30,000% of increase, I'd say you have a pretty nice margin to choose a good time to sell to actually get some money out of this trade.

I'm an Apple stockholder as well. But I decreased my position by 20% last year. Whoops. That didn't work out for me. But I was taking some "winnings" off the table and was re-balancing my portfolio. Of course this run up has again un-balanced my portfolio. Oh well it is a good problem to have.

Probably I've spoken to most of your points already in my previous post, but just to hammer it home a little more sharply, I don't worry about picking the exact right moment to sell as far as the market is concerned, I do it for my own reasons. I've already parted with about a third of my initial AAPL purchase. Over the last few years, it bought me an airplane, hangar to put it in, and most recently, a new car (they really should all have Apple stickers on them). The rest after paying the taxes goes into the aforementioned ETFs, which whenever I can get myself out of the habit of working, will be set up to pay a monthly income. No family likely to survive me, so whatever I have left when I shuffle off goes to my favorite nonprofits and charities.

 

[anthorumor]

Didn't Tim Cook sell his Apple shares recently?

 

[Bart Kela]

Didn't Tim Cook sell his Apple shares recently?

Some, not all if I recall remembering reading the last articles about such matters.

Most Apple senior executives (and similar level executives at other Fortune 500 companies) periodically sell some of their holdings. Most of their holdings are from performance incentive plans.

Generally speaking, these are prescheduled transactions. It's not like someone says, "I have ten million shares, I want to sell all of them today."

Much of this is done rather routinely to generate cash. It makes more sense for these C-level execs to sign up for performance-based stock incentive plans than to draw a regular salary and be subjected to normal payroll taxes (like Social Security) that will likely return very little benefit later on.

Another motivator is portfolio diversification. You really don't want all of your eggs in one basket. Enron taught this lesson to many.

Ultimately, no one on the outside knows of all of the reasons why someone like Tim Cook will sell or keep n shares of AAPL in his portfolio. Maybe he sees an opportunity for an investment that will have a better ROI than AAPL. Maybe he wants to mitigate risk. Maybe he wants to donate some. Maybe he took a capital gain/loss somewhere else in his trading.

Let's say Cook has 1.2 million shares and sell 500,000 of them. He doesn't have to give a reason why, but as a major insider holder, he is compelled to inform the SEC of the transaction. For sure, if he only sells shares on the days when AAPL sets a new record high, he would quickly fall under suspicion for insider trading. That's why many of this type of transaction by this level of corporate executives are scheduled months in advance.

 

[Steve121178]

In the U.S. everyone I know uses a Mac at home. That is what they spend their own money on.

Meanwhile, well over 92% of the rest of the world is using a PC. It's the same old argument, but Microsoft and the PC will always dominate. It's down to cost and standardisation in the work place.

 

[MH01]

Strongest sign yet that Tim is done as CEO

Ummm you realise Steve ballmer got record profits

He successfully managed to screw Microsoft

 

[Abazigal]

You can only run on fumes for so long.

You can link that video a hundred times. Doesn't make it any more true or relevant.

 

[thettareddast]

that's with a ridiculously small P/E ratio of 16. To put in perspective , Google and Microsoft are at 30 and Amazon is at an unjustifiable 170.

well... yes and no

amazon had been running at high trailing p/e for literally a decade+. they operate virtually flat on margin and promises growth which they deliver year and year again.

 

[MacBH928]

Maybe I don't understand the stock market, but doesn't the share price go higher because of people's demand on the hope they will buy it today to sell it at more tomorrow?

at $700B , how much more can it grow really?

 

[shk718]

well... yes and no

amazon had been running at high trailing p/e for literally a decade+. they operate virtually flat on margin and promises growth which they deliver year and year again.

Apple could easily show growth at the expense of profit. Any company can give it away for "free". If Amazon raised its prices to make some decent profit what would happen to all that growth??? I don't feel their P/E ratio reflects the true value of Amazon, just like I've been saying for years that Wall St is undervaluing Apple's services business. This quarter they started to take notice. I think at some point the street will get tired of Amazons lack of profits.

 

[TallManNY]

Probably I've spoken to most of your points already in my previous post, but just to hammer it home a little more sharply, I don't worry about picking the exact right moment to sell as far as the market is concerned, I do it for my own reasons. I've already parted with about a third of my initial AAPL purchase. Over the last few years, it bought me an airplane, hangar to put it in, and most recently, a new car (they really should all have Apple stickers on them). The rest after paying the taxes goes into the aforementioned ETFs, which whenever I can get myself out of the habit of working, will be set up to pay a monthly income. No family likely to survive me, so whatever I have left when I shuffle off goes to my favorite nonprofits and charities.

Awesome. My post was a bit tongue in cheek. Maybe that didn't come through. My point was just that in the market you can't entirely count your investment a success until you sell it. There are plenty of investors who road Blackberry's stock up to great heights and then back down to a loss.

Here, you obviously haven't done that since you've turned your good fortune into material goods. Seems like you still have a large amount though.

FYI, we are on the same page on investing and market timing. Though personally while I know the research about how even professional investors can't time the market, I probably am a bit guilty of it myself. It is human nature. As for Apple, I sold 20% because I wanted to significantly increase my cash position. I've been a bit unbalanced in part because the stock market and Apple has gone up a lot in the last several years. And I've been doing lots of house repairs, which uses cash. I just felt the need for a bigger buffer. It wasn't that I thought my Apple stock would go down. If I did think that Apple was going down a lot, I would (A) have sold all of it or (B) ignored my own thinking because what the heck do I know. Option B would probably be the better of the two because it would save me a lot of capital gains.
[doublepost=1487076873][/doublepost]

Meanwhile, well over 92% of the rest of the world is using a PC. It's the same old argument, but Microsoft and the PC will always dominate. It's down to cost and standardisation in the work place.

It is definitely cost issues and the workplace. However, there are studies coming out that Enterprise saves significant amounts on IT support by buying Macs over PC. I experience that in my own company. It is shocking the amount of IT it takes to keep PCs working. And that even though we use almost nothing but Office 365 products. And our executives now want Suface Book Pros, so we don't even get a cost savings one the hardware.

One other thing though. I'm not sure where you are getting the 92% number. But I hope you aren't basing it off of market share and units sold. If you are, remember that the lifespan of a Windows PC on average is much shorter than a Mac. Folks are getting 10 years out of a Mac. You can go on eBay and see five year old Macs selling for real money. The same can't be said for PCs. I'd guess as a rule of thumb on average PCs are left in use for 1/2 the time of Macs. If you think that is high, I'm sure it is less than 65% of the time. So marketshare is going to not show actual use since many of those PCs being sold are replacing not very old PCs but not actually increasing the user base.

 

[Steve121178]

It is definitely cost issues and the workplace. However, there are studies coming out that Enterprise saves significant amounts on IT support by buying Macs over PC. I experience that in my own company. It is shocking the amount of IT it takes to keep PCs working. And that even though we use almost nothing but Office 365 products. And our executives now want Suface Book Pros, so we don't even get a cost savings one the hardware.

I don't listen to studies. Studies can come to any conclusion they want. It's never scientific.

Macs are useless in my place of work, that's why we have over 75,000 PC's out there. All centrally managed, deployed & maintened by Microsoft's SCCM.

One other thing though. I'm not sure where you are getting the 92% number. But I hope you aren't basing it off of market share and units sold. If you are, remember that the lifespan of a Windows PC on average is much shorter than a Mac. Folks are getting 10 years out of a Mac. You can go on eBay and see five year old Macs selling for real money. The same can't be said for PCs. I'd guess as a rule of thumb on average PCs are left in use for 1/2 the time of Macs. If you think that is high, I'm sure it is less than 65% of the time. So marketshare is going to not show actual use since many of those PCs being sold are replacing not very old PCs but not actually increasing the user base.

It's a bit of a myth that Macs have a lifespan that is longer than a PC. It was true 15+ years ago, but not today. Plus Apple decide to artificially End of Life certain Macs that are easily capable of running the latest version of macOS. PC's and Macs pretty much have the same guts inside and a decent specced PC can last 8+ years no problem. The good thing about old PC's is that many of them (including laptops) can be upgraded at minimal cost. So a machine that is 4/5 years old can easily get a new lease of life by added a SSD or more memory for example. Good luck trying that with a Mac.

I also would argue that the reselling price of Macs are much lower than they used to be. 6 or 7 years ago you could resell your Mac after 2 years for about 70% of the original cost. You have absolutely no chance of doing that now. The most economical way to run a Mac is buy the base spec (and not spend £200-£1000+ on configurable options), sell it after 2 years and you might be lucky to claw back 50% of the original cost. But who buys a computer to worry about how much it will be worth in a few years time? It's a consumable item, not a car.

Don't get me wrong, I love Macs, but for the average user and in the enterprise, a Mac never made sense for the masses and certainly not in business. The studies that suggest otherwise are wrong.