Apple market share drops slightly in the past year

Chart shows patterns: 1) healthy long-term increase in Market Share 2) An up-surge at Q3 (back to school?) and then an ebb in Q4.

The pattern shifted in the last quarter reported. Contributing factors for this downturn could be: No Netbook; Recession impact (fewer folks buying the Mac, a premium product); Apple loyalists buying iPhones and/or waiting for next big thing in Apple's notebook category.

Azazello said 12:06AM on 4-17-2009

Interesting but misleading. The numbers are representing traditional computing platforms with the more recent inclusion of netbooks. The problem, you see, is that netbooks can hardly do more that 'certain' smartphones. In fact as the Wall Street Journal was reporting in late Fall the surprising demographic anomaly was that folks in the lower income brackets were buying iPhones -- to roll in DSL/cable charges with their cellphone bills...

Where is their an iphone ATT DSL package?

Bah.


Everywhere I look, people around me (former PC users for the most part) are buying their first Mac. They are buying an iPod touch. They are loving them.

OK, the odd person is buying a cheapo netbook from Acer because of the $300 price point. That's not their primary computer.

Fact: The economy is rebounding. Fact: Apple is a strong company with tremendous growth potential, and not of the flash - in - the - pan RIM variety. It has out-performed the NASDAQ since the credit crisis began and it will continue to do so.

With stock at $120 a share today, I'd call it a buy. Of course, that's not financial advice.

Apple's market-share has dropped because of the increasing popularity of netbooks (in a troubled economy) -- that can do _less_ than smartphones -- the stats include only "traditional" computing platforms. The iPhone (and the Blackberry with the other internet accessing gadgets -- XBox anybody?) are not considered. However, with cloud computing on us, we will have to re-think our categories.
I do not see IBM or Sun anywhere in the stats because servers and mainframes are in a different non-consumer category. Believe me, with the explosive growth of server-farms the _number_ of those units sold would dwarf laptop- and netbook sales.

cheers!

Interesting but misleading. The numbers are representing traditional computing platforms with the more recent inclusion of netbooks. The problem, you see, is that netbooks can hardly do more that 'certain' smartphones. In fact as the Wall Street Journal was reporting in late Fall the surprising demographic anomaly was that folks in the lower income brackets were buying iPhones -- to roll in DSL/cable charges with their cellphone bills...
The problem with analytics is often the sampling to begin with...
The problem with journalism is often that the article needs to be stirring...

But in a failing economy even, should marketshare be expected to change? It's more like a ratio, and ratios aren't dependent on how many people are buying computers in general, but rather the relationship between the number of people buying Macs vs. the number of people buying PCs. So in this case, it's safe to say that it's not the economy causing this issue, but perhaps other factors altogether that are convincing people to get PCs more than Macs, or to switch to PC from Mac.

Apple is missing the netbook phenomenon. I don't blame them. I kind of ignored it myself for a while until I realized all the contenders are under $500. Then I woke up and realized something important was going on.

Apple is a long way away from being able to ship a sub-$500 laptop. They're straining to ship a 2-year old model at $1000 right now, and the Air just shows that they bet on portability being a premium feature and missed the boat.

Scramble, adjust, and surprise us, Apple. You've done it before.

When Apple has gone cheap, they have failed. The PM 4400 was a terrible machine for Apple.

Ugh. More rubbish reporting.

1) Look at profit.
2) -1.1% after quarter-upon-quarter growth rates of 40%+.
3) See point 1 and 2.

Basically, the interesting things to note:

1) Acer has pushed Dell down, probably with cheap netbooks.
2) Apple has kept their units shipped pretty much the same throughout the recession, and considering their profit margins, that is amazing.

Besides, let's actually wait for the REAL figures from Apple, which are invariably ALWAYS better than the incorrect analyst figures...

This just in: The Unofficial Weblog posts news well after every other outlet.