By SN
Tuesday May 20, 2008
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Apple Watch – May 16, 2008:
Consider this: Apple’s retail market share is 14 percent, and two-thirds for PCs costing $1,000 or more.
Should I repeat those numbers? The share data is for first-quarter brick-and-mortar stores, as tabulated by the NPD Group. Apple’s market share is but one measure of success. Sales growth is way up, while Windows desktop PC sales are way down.
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“In notebooks they’re growing two times the market,” said Stephen Baker, NPD’s vice president of industry analysis. “Windows notebooks are pretty much flat right now.”
For the first quarter, Windows notebooks had “zero percent” growth year over year, Stephen said. By comparison, Apple notebooks had “50 to 60 percent growth.”
On the desktop, “They’re up 45 percent,” he continued. “The [overall] market is down 20 percent. Windows desktops would be down 25 percent.” The figures are also for first quarter.
I spoke with Stephen earlier this afternoon. He remarked: “iMacs are growing and the Windows desktop ain’t. No matter how you look at it, Apple is outperforming Windows.”
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Microsoft never shoulda released Vista. I know a number of people who are either putting off getting a new PC or going the Mac route (or using Linux) rather than be saddled with the headaches of Vista.
Big mistake, Ball-man.
makes sense. new buyers are probably young, old, media types, hobbyists or showing them off at starbucks. and the corporate pc wheel just keep-on-turnin
If you rephrase it comes out
“Apple sells 2/3s of the overpriced computers.”
This can’t be true, I’ve been reading comments here that Apple would be out of business by the end of the year. Could the apple haters be wrong.
I read not to long ago that IBM bought 2000 Macs to evaluate os x in the corporate workplace. hmmm
Abandon ship!!
Hey, where did everybody go…
Excellent products. Excellent marketing. Excellent engineering. The exact opposite of Microsoft. What a concept.
What’s is scary is the what if’s. What if Microsoft doesn’t pull Vista? What if this trend of Macs outselling PCs continues for the next five years? What if Windows 7 is nothing more than Vista 2? What if OS X 10.6 is ANOTHER step forward? What if the next Macs continue their tradition of being the coolest, easiest, and most reliable computers around? It’s down to 2 Steves now, and I for one am putting my money on Jobs. Ballmer is an idiot.
I really don’t think MS cares about operating systems going forward. It seems that they are looking to cloud computing for their future. Apps to run on anything from phones and computers to televisions and Xboxes all paid for by advertising.
Microsoft only has this marketshare BECAUSE of corporate businesses buying HUGE volumes of Windows OS for the past +15 years (more so with DOS).
But the world is focused on internet and web apps that ANY computer can run on. And the business who already have windows machines, realize they have no need upgrade anything beyond Windows XP.
Anyone buying a new personal computer aren’t gamers, so they get Mac laptops. What’s so hard to figure out here?
NPD does not track sales at Wal-Mart or any Online vendor. They try to make a guess at those numbers using fuzzy math.
That said what idiot does not expect Apple to be growing? Back in 2005 on TWIT when John and Leo were talking about iPods and the switch to Intel processors this trend was already obvious. Why is this news? John you should be embarrassed that this is posted on you blog.
Yes, but how many computer models does Apple have that sell for less than $1000? Exactly, just the Mac mini that nobody buys.
Now answer how many good, fast Windows-based PCs are available for less than $1000? LOTS!!
>>Now answer how many good, fast Windows-based
>>PCs are available for less than $1000? LOTS!!
And how many are running Vista? NONE!
How many of these purchases enable an Apple only household? Not many I would guess. In my experience these new Mac owners already have two or more PC’s/laptops running Windows. For them, Mac is a novelty. Indeed the desire to own something new and Apple is compelling. Whether that pronounces a sea change in computing platform is tbd.
I have one. It works great.
ya what WmDE said…
you know there really isn’t anything wrong with vista. i run in on my (this) laptop it works great. if the machine is powerful enough to handle it then no problems. xp had the same problem years ago. the difference is now the competition is in a better position to market the problems.
i like mac. i really want a mac. i really am not going to pay 2000 dollars for one.
I hate to say it, but I’m calling “Something Fishy” here.
The numbers, something is wrong with the numbers…
Here is what I mean. According to NPD, Apple currently sell 66% of all pc’s > $1000, but has only 14% of the market share.
Given these numbers, using basic math we determine that the total pc market for all desktops and notebooks > $1000 is only 21.2%
This says that 78.8% of all pc’s sold sell for < $1000.
Does this sound right? That means roughly every 4 out of 5 pc’s sell for less than $1000.
The only way I can see this being even remotely correct is if the corporate buyers are included in this survey.
And we know that most corporate buyers have delayed their purchases because of Vista, which would skew these numbers enormously. Therefore the quote “The vast majority of consumers don’t care [about the installed operating system]” is correct only if corporations are not taken into account. But for these numbers to work, corporations MUST be taken into account.
And since the article stresses Brick and Mortar stores, which corporations don’t use, then who were they surveying and how did they come up with these numbers?
Oh, and watch these figures change as the corporations buy with Win 7, which I guarantee you will be more corporate friendly.
Now you didn’t thing Microsoft was rushing Win 7 because they care about the individual users, did you?
The last computer I bought was a Mac Pro in 2006. Why? Because it also runs Windows and I can do a lot of safe surfing in the OSX side. Plus Apple gives a nice discount to members of the Military as well as many other Federal and State employees (not just teachers and students). Then came Parallels and made it even better. Wow!
A very reliable OSX on one side to do my general computing and a Vista on Bootcamp to play PC games. Plus, with Parallels (or VMWare Fusion) I can run Windows programs from within OSX without ever having to reboot into Bootcamp. Can’t beat that.
Now, how many times have I had to re-install Vista in the last year because of whatever problems in this MacPro? Like 6 times. Problems because missing DLLs, viruses, etc. How many times have I had to re-install OSX because of whatever problems? None. OSX partition is also very stable when it comes to hard drive space while Vista partition makes space disappear bit by bit. I still like Vista though, don’t get me wrong, but I would never buy a PC at this time. Most of the computing I need to do I can do from within OSX and I’m protected and can run stable. Vista alone is scary.
True, I paid $2,700.00 for my Mac Pro and have since spent a pretty penny to get it up to 11gigs of RAM, 1tb of HDD, and upgrade the video card but guess what? The 2 year old machine runs all the games and programs I can throw at it reliably in Windows and really well too. The only thing that stinks is that Vista 32 will not see past 2 gigs of RAM. I tried Vista 64 and that was just not fast enough on the games and other programs had problems in the 64bit environment. Is it Microsoft’s fault? I don’t think so but OSX sees all 11gis and runs all programs in OSX really smooth.
With a Mac like mine, why buy another PC or Mac even for the next couple of years? PC definitely not. Mac perhaps. Might not be good for Apple if their computers are so good and reliable. I plan to upgrade it once my Apple Care runs out end of next year, if I even need to, that is.
I also bought my wife a MacBook in 2006 and she loves it. Only install I had to do was Leopard upgrade when it came out last year. No problems since and all she does is visit Myspace and other crappy websites like that. No problems at all.
As for the Leopard upgrade? It cost me $108.00 with my Military discount. Compare that to Vista Ultimate upgrade — and yes, I would think the closest Vista to OSX would have to be Ultimate. But even if it’s Home Ultimate, the upgrade price is above $108 for that. Here’s the killer Ballmer, OSX did not ask me anything when I upgraded both Macs with the same OSX disc. Simple as that. Now try that with Vista. True, it’s not legal what I did but people in the know will know what I’m talking about. I don’t think XP used to be such a dick when it came to installs like Vista is. That alone discourages people I would think.
Of the 6 times I had to re-install Vista in my MacPro, I had to call Microsoft for permission to re-install my legal copy of Vista 4 times. True, the Indian guy just asked me how many computers I was running it in of which I said one (really, I would never even think of installing that on my wife’s Macbook) and I was given a number to unlock my Vista. What a pain in the arse that was. It was like 20 of my cellular minutes spent each time. Again, why do this MS?
Here’s another thing about Apple as a company. When I bought my Mac Pro, I bought the ATI Radeon X1900XT at the same time. Earlier this year I noticed some artifcats on games in Windows some times. I called Apple Care (great 18% discount to the cost of Apple Care for Military too) and they sent me a brand new, version 2, of that card with a return shipping box for me to mail back my replacemnet. That simple. Another thing: I bought the new Nvidia GeForce 8800GT last month when it came out for first gen Mac Pros. I noticed that if I re-boot my Mac with the 10.5.1 version of OSX disc in it, the computer will give me a Kernel Panic (aka BSD in Windows world). I reported this as well to Apple Care. I received a ticket number which will entitle me to a free copy of OSX install disc when version 10.5.2 hits the duplicators. Free of charge. No need to return the 10.5.1 disc I bought. I get a call from Apple Care once a week to let me know that they’re still waiting on the disc and to re-assure me that they will send it to me once it becomes available to them. All of this great service for $250.00 (not discounted price mind you). They pick up the phone right away when you call. They’re very friendly. They’re not condescending. They’re very patient. So I can see why Apple is making headway on Market Share.
What will MS have to do to regain control? I don’t know. Take a look at how WinMo phones are losing out to the iPhone too. It’s as if MS gets too comfortable and becomes complaisant. Now imagine if Apple ever decided to sell an entry level desktop that falls between an iMac and a MacPro? Or even a beefier entry level desktop that falls between a Mac Mini and an iMac. All Hell would break lose in the PC Market. That’s when I’ll finally buy some Apple stock. And to think that I never bought Apple stock when I heard the same TWIT podcast in 2005 mentioned earlier.
Anyway, my two cents.
>>you know there really isn’t anything
>>wrong with vista.
Uh, then how come nobody buys it (unless they get it shoved down their throats with a new PC)?? How come everyone (including tech journalists) dismiss it as an abortion? How come virtually no corporate buyers have signed on? Hmmm? Inquiring minds want to know.
Welcome to the misinformation superhighway! Apple’s sales are up for one reason, and one reason only – a very effective marketing strategy. Apple has been waging a misinformation campaign against Vista from the start. Their ads for Mac Vs PC are funny, and effective, the iPod campaign invokes thoughts of a high energy happy lifestyle where everything is just appleriffic!
Steve Jobs creates buzz about Apple products with his keynotes, he whips the consumers into a frenzy of, uh, consumerism, and waits for the bucks to roll in.
On the MS front, they don’t have the same kind of marketing push, they don’t have a huge show at a convention center to release Vista, and talk about .Net 3.5 etc.
Anybody who is convinced that Apple produces a “superior” computer is just a consumer who has fallen under Steve Jobs spell. Vista is certainly not harder to learn or use than OS X is, at least for anybody not drinking too much kool-aid.
Still, choose what you want. Vote with your $$ as you, um, seem to be doing, just do it because you really want to, and not because of the pretty colours in the commercials.
skl
#18
> Vista 32 will not see past 2 gigs of RAM
Huh? It is a 32-bit OS. It can address up to 4 GB of RAM. My work machine is Vista32 and it has 4 GB of RAM and has no problem using all of it.
@ Mister Mustard because people are sheep who believe every thing they are told. true if i hadn’t bought a new laptop i would not have upgraded to vista. just because there is nothing wrong with xp (now) and people don’t feel the need to upgrade doesn’t mean that vista is somehow broken.
the only problem i have had out of this laptop is the nvidia driver likes to crash. that isn’t vista’s fault and i am not going to try to blame it on microsoft. the blame lies with nvidia and hp.
>>Vista is certainly not harder to learn or
>>use than OS X
It’s not hard to learn or use, it’s just hard to sit there for 45 seconds while it performs some action that XP would have done in the blink of an eye.
The point isn’t that it’s a totally worthless OS (although some might make that argument), it’s that it provides exactly NOTHING over an above XP (or at least nothing that couldn’t have been included in XP SP3).
Much ado about nothing. And it’s SLOOOOOW as molasses, unless you have one a them thar >$1000 computers (more like >$3000) where Apple is sweeping the market.
#21
You give me hope then. I’ll need to dig around to find out how to get my Vista 32 install to see at least the 4 gig max then. I have 11gigs and the only RAM seen by Task Manager is 2048. It reports 11.0 GB in the System Profile (Win Key + Pause) but my programs only seem to have 2 gigs available as physical memory according to Task Manager. Well, that plus the huge ass page file.
#23
I like Vista actually. I prefer it over XP. But then again, my Mac Pro is a perfect platform for Vista Ultimate. I see no need to run XP in Bootcamp when Vista runs just fine. I’ve actually now had Vista running for about 2 days straight without going to OSX as I tend to spend a lot of time on MS Flight Sim X 🙂
I’ve thought of uninstalling Vista and replacing it with XP but I haven’t had a compelling reason yet.
Will MS improve Vista? Do you think? It would be a shame for Vista to go the way of Millennium.
I just checked Apple’s web-site. They only sell one computer for less than $1,000: The Mac mini – $599 gets you a 1.8Ghz PC with 1GB and 80GB hard drive. Compare that with what you can get on sale at Best Buy: $379 gets you a Compaq Dual Core, with 1 GB and 320GB hard drive.
Yes, the Mac mini is better, and comes in a nice tiny package. But most people won’t look much further than the price.
And all other Macs are > $1,000.
On the other hand, I was looking at an iMac with 20″ screen, 2GB/320GB and it looked amazing. OSX just looks so much better.
Vista looks like the guy who designed it got through art & design school by copying from the guy next to him.
# 19 Mister Mustard
“Uh, then how come nobody buys it”
Do you mean nobody bought those 140 million licenses? How many illegal licenses are being used?
# 21 Thomas
“My work machine is Vista32 and it has 4 GB of RAM and has no problem using all of it.”
But 2 Gig is isolated for the OS just like XP.
I’ve been telling my clients to avoid Vista, although I’m stuck with it on two machines. One’s been pretty good, but the other is a constant fight. It’s a very good candidate for a copy of XP that’s laying around here….
I lucked out and only had to occasionally work with ME, unfortunately, I’ve now managed to buy two copies of XP-ME….
Talk about shooting oneself in the foot.
I can’t go to Linux or Apple – my clients won’t…. AARGH….
Regards,
Stu.
I do most of my Windows development on a Mac Powerbook. I know lots of MS MVP’s running Macs. Microsoft employees at Redmond run Macs. About the 1/2 the geologists (rock and oil) I know runs Macs.
Word of advice from a Microsoft developer doing a presentation of Mac: “The keyboard layouts on Macs suck for windows development. Using a Vi key bindings (ViEmu, ViWord, etc) makes it way better.”
It just cracks me up.
Just bought a Macbook Pro last November just for the hell of it. I also own 2 PC laptops.
If you’re a 15 year old girl, checking her MySpace page and occasional email, or a musician that’s scared of technology and likes the warm fuzzy feeling that Apple sells as it’s special designer lifestyle (which after all, is what they are really selling), the are great computers.
If you are a serious computer poweruser, you will find them quite lacking in abilities, to say the least. I can see why Apple is constantly obsessed with how fast their computers are, to the point of almost being sued a few times over false advertisement. You need a supercomputer to run the damned OS. It’s the most sluggish OS I have ever had to deal with, when dealing with anything other than the simplest file management tasks. This is why you will NEVER see Macs in mission critical work situations. They can’t handle it properly.
It shocks me to no end, that they actually edit most CDs and movies on Macs. They completely suck in dealing with large quantities and sizes of files. Again, they find their place in these industries because most “artists” are scared to death of technology and they were hoodwinked, by dishonest Apple PR, into thinking that they are easier to use and more stable. They are NOT, by any stretch of the imagination.
Again, they are good machines for the common user, but frustrating if our a more advanced at suing computers.
Thank god for Boot Camp.
As for the hardware, the Macbook looks great, but has the worst screen, the worst sound card and the worst WiFi of ANY other recent laptop that I’ve owned. For $2,500.00, I was expecting a bit more quality.
Oh well.