Well, it depends on how you calculate that.
I downloaded my inveestment quotes into Quicken today, I noticed the little newspaper icon beside Apple’s name in the list. The icon indicates a news story for the company. I clicked the icon and found the headine “Apple Corners 5% of U.S. PC Market” with a link to the article on Yahoo! Finance. Here’s the intro:
Fueled by a 30 percent year-over-year growth rate, Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL) shipments hit 741,000 units in the first quarter, up from 570,000 units from a year ago.
And according to Gartner, that tally equates to 5 percent market share in the U.S. PC market, up a percentage point from this time a year ago.
The article includes a table that tallies up the units sold and percentages, making Apple look like it’s ready to overtake Toshiba in the never-ending race for market share. But before you start celebrating, take a moment to think about what the table really represents: First Quarter 2007 units sold. Not total units in the hands of computer users.
I’ve been using a Mac long enough to remember the days when Apple had a 23% of the personal computer market. And then 15%. And then 8%. Heck, I remember the numbers getting as dismal as an estimate less than 3%. So when I saw the 5% figure in the article headline, I had to check it out. Needless to say, I’m slightly disappointed.
The fact that new Macs are being sold at higher rates than before is great. But there’s a long way to go before “market share” celebrations can begin.
I have the champagne on ice, waiting.
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4 responses so far ↓
1 Martin Hill // Apr 20, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Actually, the Mac never had 23% of the market - the Apple II managed 15% in 1984 while the Mac only ever captured a maximum of 11% (in 1991).
http://www.pegasus3d.com/total_share.html
Just remember the market is far larger now with every cash register running Windows being included. If you just take US retail laptop sales for example, you discover Apple has around 12% of the market.
Considering Apple is worth more on the stock market than Dell and Gateway combined and has revenue levels heading closer to that of Microsoft every year, I wouldn’t be turning my nose up at Apple’s very profitable 5% share of the market. :-)
-Mart
2 jbelkin // Apr 20, 2007 at 8:34 pm
You have to look at each industry carefully - Dell bought market share by dropping customer service & quality - now it’s coming back to haunt them - can they recover or become another Gateway - lurching from year to year.
Also, what’s key is the computer industry of 2007 is nothing like the computer industry of 1987. In 1987, it was a high margin, high return industry for everyone but highly dependent on corporate sales and desktop software. Now, 20 years, it’s a commodity market with consumers driving innovation AND the internet essentially leveling the playing field. Other than utilities and hardware control software (burning DVD’s, etc), you can literally do everything else online - apps written in flash, java, html, etc that are essentially the same across platforms … so market share is irrelevant because as long as you can log into the internet, you’re equal … AND if you consider that only Apple is growing at a 30% rate AND has the highest margins of any personal computer manufacturer … is usually ranked highest in customer service and clearly an innvovator, you can see market share is a much smaller component of value.
3 As I see it // Apr 21, 2007 at 3:16 am
“…making Apple look like it’s ready to overtake Toshiba in the never-ending race for market share”
http://reports.idctracker.org/webdownloads/P0004/pressreleases/IDC_2006_Q4_PC_Press_Release.pdf
I hear this everytime, but look at the last table, in the U.S. for the full year 2006 Apple was ahead of Toshiba and it was already the case in 2005. Apple is the 4th U.S. manufacturer.
http://idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS20134906
In the first quarter Toshiba sold 805K and Apple 741K, same as last year when Toshiba sold 65,000 more than Apple in Q1, yet by year’s end Apple was on top.
http://gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=503816
Apple is not the only manufacturer outpacing the industry average, this quarter Hewlett-Packard’s PC shipment growth in the U.S. was 25.8 percent. Same for Toshiba with shipment growth of 26.8 percent. On a worldwide basis, Hewlett-Packard PC sales grew by 28.7 percent, Acer took the third spot with a year-over-year growth of 46.1 percent.
http://www.currentanalysis.com/news/detail.asp?id=100438
Brands like Acer or Gateway are really aggressive on price, but Toshiba or HP have a more balanced approach, they are also selling high-end systems. This is even more true for Sony. Apple is doing good, like jbelkin said, because they’re growing unit sales AND revenue. Apple is not desperate about market share, the company is not cutting prices aggressively if at all, there is no sub-$800 Mac (except for the mini, but it’s sold without a monitor, a keyboard and even a mouse and the components are rather old). They’re not in a hurry to refresh the line-up to drive demand, either. And despite all this, Mac sales are still growing at a 30 percent YOY rate. Apple will report its earnings next week, the worldwide growth should be in the 30 percent ballpark too.
4 Maria Langer // Apr 21, 2007 at 5:03 am
Wow! Three great, informed and documented comments! Thanks very much for setting me (and other readers) straight. Maybe I should pop that champagne cork already?
I think that after watching Apple’s decline from its heyday to Amelio years, I’ve had a very depressing outlook about Apple’s future. Good news is nice to hear, but I always feel that I shouldn’t get my hopes up too high for the future.
Also, I tend to look at the picture like the commercials do: Mac vs. PC. So Apple’s performance compared to a single PC manufacturer isn’t what interests me as much as Mac sales compared to all PC sales.
There’s nothing I’d like to see more than Macs on 30% or 40% of people’s desktops (and laptops). I think there’s still a very long way to go to see that — if we ever do.
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