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Can you estimate number of mac pro user around the world?
- Thread starter Amethyst
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http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MTg1OTB8Q2hpbGRJRD0tMXxUeXBlPTM=&t=1
In 2009 business year Apple sold 3,4 million desktops at an average unit price of 1326$, down 10% from 2008. Mac Pros are likely to provide significantly less than 10% of the desktop numbers. Desktop numbers decreased by 14% while desktop sales volume decreased by 23%. Combined with increasing Mac Pro price it indicates that Mac Pro numbers must have considerably decreased to produce the above mentioned figures. So my personal guess is that Apple sold an average of 200,000 MP units during the years 2006 to 2009. This is way less than 10% of the 10,4 million Macs annually sold last year.
This would result to 800,000 MacPro users world wide if we asume that substantially all units are still operational. I regard this a medium scenario. If you half or double the numbers you see that the reality should be between 400k and 1.2 million MPs users world wide and perhaps one or two on the dark side of the moon for the little green guys who listen to the greatfull dead.
Really hard to work out, I think your numbers are probably not far off gugucom. 600,000 units would put them at 6-7% of the main vendor workstation market during those 3 years. Apple reported over 1 million editors using final cut 18 months ago, which should defiantly have a bearing on the numbers. Really there isn't much to really base things on though as it isn't clear what the professional market are buying and how they transitioned to Intel systems.
I tend to agree with gugucom's numbers given that he's stated the financial reports correctly. I would differ only in that I think Mac Pros make up between 10% and 15% of Apple desktops sold in 09 and not "significantly less than 10%" as he guessed.
Further, I had guessed early that Apple would be losing market-share hand over fist when I saw the new and unprecedented 2009 pricing structure. Of course they lost more than 20% of their MP customers when they overpriced them by as much as they did. I guess the 20% are contained almost 100% inside the SOHO and private single owner, users as no individuals want to feel like they're getting a bunk deal or are getting ripped somehow. And that's just how the 2009 pricing structure makes most discerning folk feel. It's a bit of a shame IMHO.
What I'm wondering is if they will attack this problem in 2010! I'll be the 1st one in line looking at how much is being offered for how much money.
Further, I had guessed early that Apple would be losing market-share hand over fist when I saw the new and unprecedented 2009 pricing structure. Of course they lost more than 20% of their MP customers when they overpriced them by as much as they did. I guess the 20% are contained almost 100% inside the SOHO and private single owner, users as no individuals want to feel like they're getting a bunk deal or are getting ripped somehow. And that's just how the 2009 pricing structure makes most discerning folk feel. It's a bit of a shame IMHO.
What I'm wondering is if they will attack this problem in 2010! I'll be the 1st one in line looking at how much is being offered for how much money.
This is an interesting post. I was always curious as to how many Mac Pros Apple has sold since their introduction in 2006. If there really is more than 400K Mac Pros like Gugucom said then that's a whole lot. 
Keep up the great work 
Keep up the great work
Ok, let me explain the thinking behind my figure of 10 percent. I reckon that the iMac is pretty much average on Apples desktop pricing. Nevertheless it is more attractive than the mini as it provides an integrated quality screen and the mini only recently assumed a role as a home server. So my thinking is that the iMac did not pull down the average price. If there was a 15% Mac Pro share in desktops 2008 and 45% iMacs it means that 40% bought the mini. Now you get a hefty price rise in Mac Pros and the whole product chain drops a step. Let us say Apple ends up with 8% Mac Pros 47% iMac and 45% minis. The modified product mix and the reduced volume could well explain why they lost 9% more revenue than numbers. The imac is still neutral but the loss of high end Mac Pro versus the increase in low end minis is pulling the average down considerably. his would be consistent with the economic crisis where people are spending on reduced budgets.
Another data point is how many ppl hang around the iMac and MP forums here @ Macrumors. On average, I'd say the ratio is 2-3 (in favor if the iMac, ofc). If we assume that both types of users are equally likely to seek advice/share experiences on a popular site like Macrumors, I'd say gugucom's estimate is on a low side. Then again, majority of the iMac users are probably ppl who have never heard of Macrumors, whereas MP crowd tends to be more tech savvy. Unfortunately, I have no way to quantify this metric.
Agree. For sure, I would NEVER guess the Mini has 40%. Maybe it too has 10% to 15%. So I guess it's Mini's < 20%, Pros < 20% and the rest is iMacs.
It's not a big deal either way but it's fun to speculate.
Also I guess there is not a lot of cross-over between Pro buyers and iMac'ers. I think the vast majority (~75%) of folks considering a Pro will turn to a PC or Hackintosh before going for a mini or an iMac if they're discouraged with Pro for whatever reasons (probably price). When I see the number of overall sales decrease I don't think it's economy (yet) but rather going back to a PC or Linux box. In 2010 the weight of the economy will be sinking in tho!
Who got the 0.3 ? Alright! Whoever it is post it up! I need to see what 1/3 of a Mac looks like!
You checked what?
My view is the vast majority of desktop deserters use laptops.
Hi
In the video editing and audio production forums I hang out in I've seen quite a few people purchase '09 Mac Pros, a steady ongoing trickle. That's probably more than I ever saw in the tower G5 or early Mac Pro era.
In the real world of media production no one even considers a hackintosh. The people who (re)turn to Windows are recent switchers to Mac who learnt Windows at a young age and can't give it up (their loss
)What I see everywhere (and I am one of them, a small owner-operated production setup) is G5 tower users still going strong on their old kit....
I have the money for a Mac Pro, but only the mid/top range octocores seem to be future-proof (in the way that my 2GHz/2.5GHz G5s have been) and they are just too expensive to seem like a good buy at this time - effectively double the price of the G5s.
Whatever the figures for G5 usage - it was ~20% a year or two ago, less now - that's 100% made up of power users, small edit shops or design houses, who have effectively ceased (for the while) to be Apple customers
Hi
I have the money for a Mac Pro, but only the mid/top range octocores seem to be future-proof (in the way that my 2GHz/2.5GHz G5s have been) and they are just too expensive to seem like a good buy at this time - effectively double the price of the G5s.
Whatever the figures for G5 usage - it was ~20% a year or two ago, less now - that's 100% made up of power users, small edit shops or design houses, who have effectively ceased (for the while) to be Apple customers
Apple report a different buying behavior of their clients which is more in line with my interpretation.
Apple10-K_report said:
This seems to indicate that Mac Pro sales were replaced by iMac and iMac sales by Mac minis. Also the basic configuration may have been preferred to the BTOs in order to achieve the reported product mix changes. I see no other explanation other than Apple pricing themselves out of the tower business.
Hi
In the video editing and audio production forums I hang out in I've seen quite a few people purchase '09 Mac Pros, a steady ongoing trickle. That's probably more than I ever saw in the tower G5 or early Mac Pro era.
In the real world of media production no one even considers a hackintosh. The people who (re)turn to Windows are recent switchers to Mac who learnt Windows at a young age and can't give it up (their loss
What I see everywhere (and I am one of them, a small owner-operated production setup) is G5 tower users still going strong on their old kit....
Yeah, that's a point too. Machines these days "can do" for longer periods. It used to be that a new wave of machines (usually every 2 years or so) meant almost 2X speed and performance increase and users who didn't upgrade were faced with production disadvantages or even software upgrades that couldn't move. For the past 6 or 8 years upgrades have been in much smaller increments - maybe a 0.3X from machines of THREE years previous and almost all of the software that worked OK when it was new can still work fine on the older machines after upgrading those apps. There are some production disadvantages but they're not nearly as pronounced! How that is affecting the difference between 2008 and 2009 sales numbers I have no idea and and couldn't guess the specifics.
In the video, audio, and CG computing segments of those industries of which I'm a very big part, I however, am not seeing what you describe. Yeah I see the constant trickle you mention, but most people in those areas of production don't choose a platform because it was something they had as a kid. They look at the software environment they need to submerge themselves in (in order to be competitive and make money), consider the price tag, and make the decision. Unfortunately this rationale leads 80% to 90% of all buyers in those industries to choose Windows - and there's no sane argument to the contrary. They need Motion Builder, Digital Fusion, mature Houdini, XSI, etc., and a thousand free support apps all ready to go. With Apple or Linux they have a vastly reduced selection and only one or two (sometimes) free support apps. There's more "support" apps available for free on Linux than there are for mac actually.
In 2006, 2007 and 2008 Apple's factory assembled hardware kits were not over-priced! For all of those offerings I had a hard time beating the prices Apple was asking. The only way I could do so was by cutting corners and buying different parts. The alternative parts contributed every so slightly to instability but nothing deal-breaking. So if one wanted a fine grade system at a very fair price Apple's Mac Pro's were indeed a consideration. And it could run Windows at nearly full speed if needed too.
In 2009 this is no longer the case. Apple has decided to add between $1,300 to $2,200 to the base price of IDENTICAL off-the-shelf parts and to their own previous line-ups. They have additionally retained 2006 specs or actually downgraded components over what is typically offered today in 2009. For what Apple is asking, one can purchase faster RAM, faster motherboards, more HDD and USB connections, more RAM slots, more PCI card slots, and still have money left over to buy 8 or 12 extra gigs of memory and a second monitor over what the Apple comes with. None of these things could be said about the Mac Pro's offered previous to Apple's 2009 line-up.
It would only be logical to assume that the reasoning explained above are the primary factors and drivers that would cause people to (re)turn to Windows or Linux. It's simply no longer a good deal. It's not even a fair deal. Thinking that industry professionals are selecting an OS based on reminisce or familiarity is slightly absurd. Especially when you consider that for most professionals, it only takes a few hours to learn the differences between any of the platforms Windoze, Mac, or Linux. They are after all, primarily concerned with application operation and technique.
Again how this all affects the "desktop" sales records for Apple or the distribution between models which I guess includes the Mini's and iMacs, is entirely unclear to me. I would assume that the computer buyers described here would not consider an iMac or a Mini as an alternative. I would assume the exact same things that have always been the primary issues for professional users: The price
erformance ratio and the required Software environment. In 2009, Apple loses big-time in both departments.