Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Retail, Apple Financial
Two-thirds of premium PCs sold at retail are Macs
In the "premium" computer market -- at least, for machines sold in brick and mortar stores -- Apple holds its own as number one. For the first quarter of this year, Macs accounted for 66 percent of computers that retailed for over $1,000, according to eWeek.
That's not all: 70 percent of desktops sold at the same price point (or higher) are made by Apple too.
Even though sales at physical stores represent only a fraction of the overall computer market, what's most impressive for this stat is the year-over-year growth. Apple had 18 percent of the premium market in January 2006. That grew to 57 percent in September 2007, and just six months later rose to 66 percent. In the same eWeek article, Joe Wilcox quotes NPD's Stephen Baker as saying "Windows notebooks had 'zero percent' growth year over year [and] Apple notebooks had '50 to 60 percent growth.'"
Of course, overall, Apple makes 14 percent of computers sold at retail. Compare that to Apple's nadir in the late 90s of around two percent, and you can see how the changes Apple made to its distribution and retail strategy over the last decade have really paid off.
[via Apple 2.0]
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Alex said 1:41PM on 5-19-2008
Ah yes. It's all so clear to me thanks to the diagram.
Reply
J.R. said 1:42PM on 5-19-2008
OM NOM NOM NOM
Reply
Ed said 4:46PM on 5-19-2008
I believe you mean...
WAKA WAKA WAKA WAKA WAKA WAKA
Ryan Trevisol said 1:57PM on 5-19-2008
I can't say this surprises me. If you're going to spend $1k-2k for a desktop for home or power use, you can't do better than the iMac for windows or OSX.
But if you need to spend $500 or less, guess what? The mini is NOT competitive.
We NEED a $600 Mac with DISCRETE GRAPHICS. It's friggin 2008.
Reply
freediverdude said 2:35PM on 5-19-2008
Now, now, calm down, hehe. What you're paying for in the mini is the design anyway. Teeny box with a computer inside. Most of those $500 Dells don't come with a discrete graphics card anyway, do they? Now if you're comparing $700-$900 computers, then yes you get a Dell with graphics card versus a bumped up mini still with integrated graphics, and that price point is where Apple doesn't compete particularly well, IMO.
Ryan Trevisol said 2:46PM on 5-19-2008
Sorry, but that's not true.
For $609 you can get a Dell tower with a ATI HD 2400 PRO 256MB, with a 2.0 GHz C2D, 2GB of Ram, 500GB HDD, Superdrive, and a 19" LCD. And that's not even going for the fantastic deals you can get on refurbs.
Apple isn't competing in the sub-$1200 arena.
Greg said 2:37PM on 5-19-2008
Well, all Macs, other than the mini, are over $1000, so every Mac goes towards that, and only a few PCs go towards it.
Apple needs a better competitor than the mini at the $500 level.
Reply
Sammy said 2:51PM on 5-19-2008
Dyslexic Pac Man = "Mac pan"? Subliminal what?
...probably not though
Reply
badtzmaru said 3:09PM on 5-19-2008
Yeah, when the only Mac that sells below $1000 is the Mini (which I own) of course the statistics will be skewed.
Reply
Ryan Karolak said 4:03PM on 5-19-2008
Are they though? Almost all Macs are over $1000, but people are willing to pay that much. They are still $1000+ machines either way. If people didn't want to pay that much money for a machine, then they wouldn't pay that much. Just because Apple barely has anything under $1000 doesn't mean that skews the data. It just means that most macs are "premium machines." If you were to take the top 40% of highest priced Macs and compared them to the sales of the 40% highest priced PCs, that would be skewed.
Pugho said 3:59PM on 5-19-2008
The Mac Plan
Reply
orefalo said 4:20PM on 5-19-2008
What a ridiculous demonstrations.
Why don't you add the frame color and the screen size ?
Ridiculous, any body can get to anything by using so many criteria.
Reply
Dave T. said 5:17PM on 5-19-2008
As a PC owner going to pick up his recently repaired HP and seriously thinking of going mac I can tell you this: It's the price stupid.
I have an amazingly fast and powerful PC that can play games flawlessly. It cost $600. the price of the base Mac Mini.
If it weren't for a stupid piece of Kodak software not working with Vista and wiping the OS clean, it would be a great system. Oh, and the numerous other problems I've had since I bout it a year ago.
That's why I want to go mac with the next purchase. I have a large screen, snazzy mouse etc. Mini would be great but ONLY because I don't have time for gaming anymore with a newborn. I need better photo, video editing and management for quickly getting out to the family/blogs and perhaps would want a media system for TV, DVD etc. Perhaps the next Mini will be worth that and I can keep my PC for the occasional gaming only.
BTW I'm going to try to go strictly web apps on the newly cleaned PC for everything but music.
Reply
basscadet said 7:08PM on 5-19-2008
I have an iMac and a PC side by side, iMac was given for free for testing purposes (business gift in a way). The PC is a generic beige box running WinXP SP3 (no need for Vista of course). PC almost never crashes and never gives me problems (as well as the iMac) and there's quite a few apps installed on both. So, when I'll need to upgrade there's no reason I should pay for a premium computer be it PC or Mac. It simply is too expensive for something that I'll keep 2 years max and then upgrade...
Reply
Justin said 7:39PM on 5-19-2008
I'd say that the "changes Apple made to its distribution and retail strategy over the last decade" haven't been half the story and if you think that is why they're selling like hotcakes then you've been sleeping for the last 2 years!
Hello Intel Mac, and the "Windows on your Mac" marketing. The fact is that the Mac is the new PC.
Reply
shaden79 said 3:51AM on 5-20-2008
for 800-999 dollars i can build myself a pc with a quad core processor, 4 GB ram and a Nvidia 9800 gtx. please tell me how this isn't a "premium" pc compared to a 1200 dollar, dual core Imac with a measly 1 GB of ram. macs aren't premium products; macs are just ridiculously over priced because they charge a "premium". for instance, a similarly equipped(to the pc) mac pro costs around 3000 dollars.
Reply
Rich said 3:10AM on 5-21-2008
Apologies for being boring, but if a particular class of products are far more concentrated in a particular price bracket, then surely it's just maths that they're going to sell proportionally better within that price bracket than products that are distributed over a greater price range.
Reply