Filed under: Apple Financial, Apple
Lies, damn lies, and marketshare statistics
There are two conflicting reports on US marketshare out from Gartner and IDC. While both agree that Apple has moved solidly into the #3 slot in US marketshare (behind Dell and HP), they disagree about the actual numbers. Gartner gives Apple 8.1% of the US market with an estimate of 1.3 million Macs shipped, while IDC has our favorite fruit company at 6.3% with 1.1 million Macs shipped. Whatever the exact numbers it's clear that Apple is on the move and Dell is falling. With the Leopard launch right around the corner you've got to think that the bean counters in Cupertino are anticipating fourth quarter sales with glee.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Luigi193 said 3:21PM on 10-18-2007
Wait, even with the gateway/Acer thing?
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Ireland said 3:31PM on 10-18-2007
So we can assume they have a 7.2% share? Go Apple!
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Carl Trimble said 4:02PM on 10-18-2007
I just love to see damn on the homepage at TUAW!
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Rafe H. said 4:06PM on 10-18-2007
I'd like to see the percentage of computers sold to customers buying them for their own use. That is, exclude for the moment all computers purchased by our bosses. Would Apple be #1?
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Dave said 4:13PM on 10-18-2007
I have to ask... is the headline a play off the title of an episode from the first season of The West Wing... if so... kudos on the creativity, if not, it's a weird coincidence.
http://www.tv.com/the-west-wing/lies-damn-lies-and-statistics/episode/808/summary.html?tag=ep_list;title;20
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Scott said 4:16PM on 10-18-2007
...And, of course, these PURCHASE statistics are incorrectly used by some people to make claims over what percentage of computers in use are and aren't Macs. The fact that Macs last longer than PCs and aren't replaced as frequently suggests that the actual user base for Macs may be significantly higher than the percentage of sales in any given period. And also there's the corporate PC/individual PC question. If you exclude large corporations making mass purchases of systems, I wonder how high the Mac market share would be then. If we only had numbers like this, we might have developers more concerned about creating Mac versions of their products, and/or releasing them at the same time as the Windows versions. Even better, we might have web sites using online media less likely to go the Windows-only DRM route. As it is, their excuse is that Macs make up only a tiny fraction of their audience. A figure based on next to nothing, but arrived at through the "3%" and "5%" market share figures that have been going around for so many years.
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Scott said 4:17PM on 10-18-2007
Umm, #5? It's a quote from Mark Twain, I think. Goes back a little farther than "The West Wing".
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Scott said 4:18PM on 10-18-2007
OK, according to Wikipedia, attributed to Benjamin Disraeli and popularized in the U.S. by Mark Twain. I should've checked first.
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Mat Lu said 4:18PM on 10-18-2007
@5: "Lies, damn lies, and statistics" is a famous saying (there's dispute about who originated it--maybe Disraeli). The West Wing episode is also playing off of that same saying.
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klime said 4:20PM on 10-18-2007
Makes sense. Apple clearly has the iPod halo effect working for it. While I love my MacBook/OSX, I can't say it outdistances Vista by miles. (And I have to admit that the trackpad drives me nuts... my Dell laptop has that little pointer thing embedded in the keyboard, like a Thinkpad, much better solution).
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DaiMac79 said 4:29PM on 10-18-2007
Yeah, klime I'm glad that dell nub works for you, give me a real trackpad any day (I have massive hands, that might be part of it).
Also, while I'd agree Vista isn't complete shit, I still prefer XP if I have to use Windows for something, if for no other reason than the UAC BS in Vista drives me nuts.
As to this, yeah I think we'll see a significant surge after leopard, as many PPC-using Mac users will be upgrading after that.
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lamplight said 5:21PM on 10-18-2007
I don't think the number of computers per person is being considered. I myself own four Macs. I bet I'm not alonw. I just hate to part with them!
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geochick said 6:29PM on 10-18-2007
#12 know what you mean I'm about to become one of those PPC-using Mac users who will be upgrading... that would land me at #2. I did vaguely promise a friend of mine that I would pass my old one on but I don't know it would serve as a nice media center in the living room...
What to do What to do...
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basscadet said 3:43AM on 10-19-2007
All those statistics are missing the unnamed giant: custom made cheap grey boxes.
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pDiddy said 5:12AM on 10-19-2007
Now if only Apple could see that the world consists of more than the US. Prices on Apple hardware here in Norway is nearly twice the US. It's simply bloody rip-off. No wonder they have only a marginal market share in the rest of the world.
iPod Touch 16GB
US price: $399
Norwegian price: $612 (NOK 3,290)
iMac (20", 2.4 GHz)
US price: $1,499
Norwegian price: $2,230 (NOK 11,990)
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dave said 9:01AM on 10-19-2007
PC's is mostly rapscallions...
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