Filed under: Apple Financial, Surveys and Polls
Apple's market share falls/rises, depending on who you ask
AppleInsider writes about a new Gartner report that states overall Mac market share has decreased in the first quarter of this year compared to the same quarter last year. However these findings conflict with an earlier news article by ZDNet based on earlier research by Gartner which suggested that worldwide Mac market share had actually increased slightly. MacRumors.com puts the numbers together:U.S. Mac Market Share
1Q 2005: 3.8%
1Q 2006 (ZDNet): 3.5%
1Q 2006 (AI): 3.6%
Worldwide Mac Market Share
1Q 2005: 2.2%
1Q 2006 (ZDNet): 2.3%
1Q 2006 (AI): 2.0%
So depending on which report you believe, Apple could have gained or lost overall marketshare across the world. Both articles state that Apple has lost market share in the U.S. The only thing that's really clear is that Mac sales have obviously been lackluster in the first quarter when compared to the rest of the industry.
That's not entirely surprising considering that only Intel Mac that was available throughout the first quarter was the Intel iMac. The MacBook Pro didn't ship until mid-February, the Intel Mac mini wasn't released until late February and the MacBook was released just under three weeks ago. It's remarkable that the Mac market share has managed to stay as high as it is considering that half the Apple line-up hadn't made the transisition to Intel CPUs for much of the quarter. We've got to ask though, where did that 6.6% U.S. Mac marketshare that was reported last year go?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Brian Allen said 9:01AM on 6-02-2006
I enjoyed the "People that like Pies" category.
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Brendan said 9:44AM on 6-02-2006
Apple's market share is very small in Ireland. They also have no stores here!! I'm beginning to see a pattern form :(
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Brian said 9:51AM on 6-02-2006
So, is this Apple's share of NEW computer sales? Because that's not necessarily a determinant of how much of the market is using a computer brand. Consider that Macs tend to last longer and be replaced less often. It'd be interesting also to see some stats from further back than the last year or two.
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superberg said 10:10AM on 6-02-2006
Pac Man!!!
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Scott H said 11:06AM on 6-02-2006
Brian points out something that always bugs me about these "market share" stories: they're always about NEW purchases, not the actual proportions of people who own computers, and what kind of system they own. Why doesn't one of those companies do that kind of survey? I'll bet they find the actual market share of Macs out of computers in use today is higher than the sales numbers, for the reasons Brian specified above.
I know sales numbers matter for accountants and investors, but first-time Mac BUYERS are more interested in knowing how the number of Mac users vs. PC users. In other words, are they diving into a very shallow pool, or are there enough other users that their investment will be a good one, and they'll continue to see software and accessories developed for Macs.
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B. Minich, PI said 11:11AM on 6-02-2006
I agree with number 4. This graph looks suspiciously like Pac-Man. It even has two eyes at the 90% category.
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Rob Labatt said 11:30AM on 6-02-2006
I agree with the new vs. "in use" comments above. A quick look at the site analytics for my company, ezboard.com and Yuku.com indicates that our mac user base is about 4.3% of all users (Linux is
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Craig said 11:48AM on 6-02-2006
So which bit do I go in?
I use a PC at home, a Mac at school and eat pies.
You can't beat a good apple pie! (or Mac!)
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tom barta said 12:16PM on 6-02-2006
So why would expect AAPL's ist quarter numbers to be good? They were in the midst of the INTEL transition. I expect numbers going forward to reflect rising marketshare. After all-- why by a pricey DELL POS, when you can buy a well-made Mac that can dual-boot into XP when required for that that nasty little Windows-only spreadsheet program that some geek kludged in Visual Basic and your boss makes you use?
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derek said 1:27PM on 6-02-2006
It looks like PacMan! That is why I came to comment! Seems I am not the only crazy one :)
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vink said 1:30PM on 6-02-2006
I'm always mystified by the Apple share number. Of all the people I know or work with I would say only 4% of those don't use macs.
Who are all these pc people I hear so much about...?
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John said 1:42PM on 6-02-2006
In addition to the comments about "still in use," one should also note that "Macs vs. PCs" is a misleading dichotomy. Is this about hardware or software? If you made a chare of new sales of OSX vs. XP (including OEM versions, of course) it might look about like the one above (though I think the "people that like pies" number seems remarkably low, perhaps this post is just an anti-pie troll?) but if this was about hardware sales, then the pie should be split up into a lot more little slices (e.g., Dell, HP, Gateway, whoever else makes Windows boxes), some of which would be smaller than Apple's. I don't know the exact statistics, but I seem to recall hearing somewhere that Apple is actually reasonably competitive as a hardware company in terms of market share. I imagine that if you further divide the sales up and look at home computers or even home and education, you'd see the percentage grow even more.
Sincerely,
Hard-Core Pie Fanboi
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john said 1:55PM on 6-02-2006
The numbers don't mean much.
I have a website and I can tell you from anecdotal evidence that the Mac's installed base is on the increase.
At the beginning of 2005, the Mac share on my site (a sampling of about 200,000 users) was about 4.1%. At the beginning of 2006 it had reached 4.55% and since January it has reached 4.82% now.
My site is not a technology site and does not cater one way or another to any specific platform. So personally, I think those numbers are plain wrong.
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www.vistatosh.com said 2:23PM on 6-02-2006
Boys... wait till Vista kicks in (I'm developing on it now). Apples market share will really take a hit. LOTS of people are holding out on PC purchases for Fall when the business edition ships or January for consumer.
Apple had better grab this "Window" of opportunity or Microsoft will grab up their remaining market.
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tom barta said 3:08PM on 6-02-2006
Boys... wait till Vista kicks in (I'm developing on it now). MSFT's market share will really take a hit....
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Liquidmark said 3:36PM on 6-02-2006
Dang, Now, where do I start?
1) A large amount of PC users will probably have to buy a new machine to run Vista.
2) Have you forgotten about Leopard? How much you want to bet that Apple will trump Vista before it hits the shelves?
Frankly, What I've seen from Vista is OK. But I've been using the very same type of OS for quite some time. On my Macintosh. To claim that Microsoft will take 100% of the market is a wild boast to say the least. I bought Macs during the 90's (When the company was being run by folks that didn't understand the industry) why would I stop now that the company is fighting back for the Mac?
You see those Applestores raising up all over the place? Those prices that are normalizing? Those throngs of switchers? That's not for show, It's not an illusion, that is a little something called a comeback.
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F'in Librul said 3:37PM on 6-02-2006
Waka waka! That's a beautiful chart. Please send a picture to me at:
Ms. P. Man
Power Pellet Corner
Maze, USA
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Kate Winston said 3:55PM on 6-02-2006
Well until Apple gets the serious business apps no business is going to rely on them. Plus what business would rely on only one hardware vendor.
In the large architectural firm I work at all our product designers use autocad which is not even available on the Mac. I'd venture to say the Mac itself is designed using autocad.
tom barta you are deluding yourself if you think only "a nasty little Windows-only spreadsheet program that some geek kludged in Visual Basic " is all businesses need on the PC.
Wke up folks Mac hasn't made any ground because it lacks the business critical apps.
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pete said 4:09PM on 6-02-2006
I think that is the bottom line Kate - It doesn't matter how nice the OS is... Users don't need computers for the OS, it is all about applications. If the Mac is lacking critical apps it will certainly fail.
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Dave said 4:57PM on 6-02-2006
I work with PCs and they have been very good to me. The method around here is to buy the cheapest thing you can slap together in China and let Dave fix it when it breaks or gets a virus. Overtime is very nice.
I think Apple really has something with the intel machines. The guy who loves the safer surfing of a modern OS can buy a macbook pro and still run autocad by booting in windows. The macbooks have been benchmarking very well with XP. Hey, who knows how good virtualization might get? The intel macs will be able to run anything and everything. Sometimes I wish windows would start fresh and build a modern os, but I would probably miss out on some of that overtime.
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