Apple market share climbs to 6.8% in Europe

I hope Apple isn't counting on their market share growing in Central Europe anytime soon. In Poland it is quite difficult to buy a Mac, their resellers are incompetent, the service is abysmal. And the prices are WAY higher than pretty much anywhere else.

It will be difficult for Macs to make significant inroads in many parts of Europe where people's income level is very low. Here, even a used, cobbled-together Win PC at $150 can be a major purchase for a family. There are places in Spain, for example, where most people have never even heard of a Mac. I am sure that this is changing, but still the price remains an issue.

In 2006, most the the people I met in an average town had never even heard of an iPod, though many had cheaper MP3 players in the $25 range.

Is it wrong that I would not like to see this continued growth? I made the switch in late 2007 and will not look back. In short, the Mac does just work and I love my three machines. However, I can't help but think that the small market share gives me an advantage as a Mac OS X user. As such, I do not have to worry about the security issues that a Windows user does. As market share grows this advantage starts to diminish, however quite slowly. I'm just fine living in one of the smallest minorities in OS land, except Linux.

Comparative table of share values Apple vs. Microsoft, Google and HP:

http://www.applenext.com/2010/05/apple-es-la-2ª-compania-mas-grande-de-ee-uu/

I think Apple is looking at a steady growth in the UK and internationally as a whole. I think we will always be behind the USA, because the USA has yet to benefit from the the increased iPad results in their numbers too!

Despite the transition from PC to Mac being almost irrelevant these days, I think its still a fear factor for those that have only ever known Windows. The explosion of smart-phones and other mobile devices giving people access to the internet, email etc will help these people realise a transition might not be so bad after-all (even if its subconsciously).

Perhaps the recent publicity that Apple has become the no.1 tech company in the USA above Microsoft might also make a lot of people realise it can't be that hard to break the Windows shackles. I think that will shock some people too, because Apple has never really advertised Mac's & OSX much at all outside of the USA & Canada!

We have had plenty of iPod & iPhone adverts here in the UK, but I don't think a single ad of the "Get a Mac" campaign (which I loved) made it over to these shores, which might surprise you guy's in the USA. Also, Apple probably has more stores in NYC than we have in the whole of the UK!
Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration, but there are not many!

Why are you including iPhone OS but not include Windows Phone OS?

Wonder if they will start counting iPad's in these stats anytime soon? That should up those numbers quite a bit. I definitely consider my iPad as a computer. I use it so much more now for browsing the web and email then my iMac it's not even funny. My iMac is basically now just used for encoding Blurays and video games.