Filed under: Apple Corporate, Apple Financial
Despite slow economy, Mac market share booms
If you've been paying attention to the news lately, then you know that the U.S. economy is in a bit of a slump. Even so, Apple's market share continues to prosper, according to Register Hardware. Their site is reporting that Apple's market share is now 35% if you look at revenue garnered -- largely due to notebook sales. In addition, Windows-based notebook sales are down 1.5% and at the same time, Mac notebook sales are up 35% (by units). In other news, ComputerWorld is reporting that Mac OS X's market share is currently at 8.2%. This means that 8.2% of all the computers accessing over 40,000 websites that are monitored by Net Applications. This is a huge milestone for Apple as this is the first time their market share has gone above 8%. Microsoft still leads the monopoly on the operating system front -- Windows garnered 90.3% of computers accessing websites using Net Applications site monitoring. Windows Vista currently holds 18.3% of the market share.
On the iPhone front, Net Applications reported that 0.3% of the Internet market share was owned by the iPhone -- quite a feat for such a small device. However, it does have the hype machine working for it!
[via ComputerWorld and Register Hardware]

![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)


Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jash Sayani said 8:34AM on 10-02-2008
Cool ! What if Apple releases OS X for all NON-APPLE computers... There would barely be any Windows users left !!
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matthew said 9:51AM on 10-02-2008
Well I use Windows on my Macs for work and games, so I imagine that OS X for PCs would increase the number of OS X users but might not actually decrease Windows users. It might just decrease Mac users, since you could buy a cheap PC instead of Apple hardware.
MadMike said 10:18AM on 10-02-2008
Because a Mac's TCO is lower than Windows despite the "sticker shock" normally associated with the initial purchase price.
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Levi Figueira said 11:03AM on 10-02-2008
@MadMike
Exactly!! Now, the problem is, most company's IT departments push PCs because they know they'll be out of jobs if everyone gets Macs! It's funny to see most IT departments rolling out new PC equipment and users complaining and having major issues with them, while envying those that are fortunate enough to buy Macs on their own... (yes, I experience that everyday around the office - love my MBP :p)
If only people realized that TCO includes headaches, stress, etc... maybe they'd be willing to stop buying cheap computers arguing that Macs are too expensive... Macs are not "too expensive", they just don't have "cheap stuff" (which is WAY different). Most sub-$1000 notebook PCs come with cheap CPUs (eg. Celeron) or low quality components (cheap memory or batteries)!
No wonder why Apple is taking over the notebook market...
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THJ said 3:09PM on 10-03-2008
Guilty as charged. Our IT dept. is about 50% Mac (makes support easier if you can carry 1 laptop with multiple versions of XP and Windows); but we still push Windows out to the rest our the company.
Granted, if someone specifically asks for a Mac, and their manager approves the purchase, we'll get one for them, but we don't offer it right off the bat.
I did enjoy setting up a new mac-only department a few days ago though - had 2 printers on the network and on 10 macs in about 15 minutes (vs the usual 45 min if it had been all windows).
Karen LH said 2:02PM on 10-02-2008
"the U.S. economy is in a bit of a slump..."
(Trying to get my brain around this as a description of the current situation.)
I'm curious what people think will happen with Apple if the economy falls off a cliff. Does it have a strong enough market share to survive a bad recession? Or would its products be seen by too many people as unnecessary luxuries?
Don't get me wrong: I've owned a Mac since my first Mac Plus in 1986, and I love them. But if I were Apple, I'd be a little worried right now.
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Marcos said 3:38PM on 10-02-2008
The article is incorrect. Apple's market share has indeed been above 8%. It actually reached 15% in the early nineties.
http://www.macworld.com/article/50112/2006/03/30moments.html
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Mike said 3:53PM on 10-02-2008
Rich people are the only ones buying computers in these difficult days. I'm sure Ferrari's and other overpriced vehicles are faring better than their more mundane, reasonably priced counterparts as well.
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