Steve Jobs: Apple Well Placed To Double Market Share

by , 3:30 PM EDT, May 24th, 2002

In an interview with the BBC, Steve Jobs said that Apple was well placed to double its market share. This marks a new angle for Apple's CEO, who has stayed away from such direct, and aggressive comments.

The comments came in an interview with the BBC while Mr. Jobs was accepting an award from the British Design and Art Direction Awards for the iPod and Apple's Titanium PowerBook G4 (TiBook). Apple's chief industrial designer, Jonathan Ives, is a native of Britain. From the BBC article:

Apple's market share of the home computer market remains small at 5%, but Mr. Jobs said this was still bigger than Mercedes and BMW could boast in the US car market.

"Our market share is small, but by no means small enough to be inconsequential," he said.

He said the firm could be well placed to double its market share.

"The great thing is when you have 5% market share, all you have to do is convince another five out of the other 95% to switch and you have doubled your market share," Mr. Jobs added.

There is additional information in the full article about Apple's history, the economic climate and its impact on the tech industry, its efforts to walk the line between recording labels and fair use rights in regards to the iPod, and more. It's a very good read, and we recommend it.

The Mac Observer Spin:

Steve Jobs does not often say things like this. By "not often," we really mean "never." While Apple has been touting "the other 95%" line for some time, this is a much more specific, and frankly aggressive, kind of talk from Apple. We like it.

Certainly 10% market share is an attainable goal, and as Steve Jobs alluded to in the article, some of that market share will come from PC companies that don't make it in today's hard economic environment. Apple truly has positioned itself far apart from the Wintel hegemony, something acknowledged by UBS Warburg analyst Don Young just this week, and the company could begin to see market share growth.

BBC Article