Apple's Market Share Dips Below 2% According To Merrill Lynch

by , 11:00 AM EST, February 26th, 2004

Forbes has published a short piece on Q4 2003 market share that says Apple's worldwide market share dipped below 2% for the first time last quarter. The numbers come from Merrill Lynch, and put Apple in 9th place in the global market.

Dell and HP have once again changed places, with HP claiming 15.3% of the world's market in the #1 spot, and Dell taking #2 with 14.5%.

Apple's market share has been trending downward for years, and global market share has hovered between 2% and 3% for the last couple of years. This, despite enormous success for Apple with its iPod and the iTunes Music Store (iTMS). Forbes quotes an unnamed Merrill Lynch analyst as saying, "We expect iPod success eventually to spill over into Mac purchases."

You can find the full article at Forbes' Web site. For more information on Apple's market share, see our recent article "TMO Reports - 'The Real Deal' On Mac vs. Linux Market Share; Is It Accurate?"

The Mac Observer Spin:

First of all, it would seem that TMO columnist John Kheit is going to win The Bet. We'll deal with that more fully at another time, but it bears being stated for the record in light of this news.

Apple is going to have to do something to address the issue of market share at some point. When one tries something over and over again, and it doesn't work despite your best efforts, one has to change what one is doing. This is true for everyone -- individuals, companies, everyone -- though it is often hard to recognize by those who can't figure out what they are doing wrong.

What Apple has been doing for the last, say, five years is not working. Making great machines, only marketing the brand, and not the product or the OS, relying on the Apple Stores...Something has got to be changed, or added, to what Apple is doing.