The Mac Observer

Skip navigational links

You're viewing an article in TMO's historic archive vault. Here, we've preserved the comments and how the site looked along with the article. Use this link to view the article on our current site:
Despite Apple's Popularity, Survey Says Holiday PC Sales to be Lackluster

First on TMO - Despite Apple's Popularity, Survey Says Holiday PC Sales to be Lackluster

by , 7:00 AM EDT, October 12th, 2004

A new poll finds a little less than a quarter of Americans will find a personal computer under their Christmas tree this December as consumers appear to be tightening their spending going into the holiday buying season. That could spell trouble for Apple Computer and a number of other PC makers who count on Christmas sales for almost one-third of their annual business.

The Investors Business Daily/TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics (IBD/TIPP) Home Computer Purchase Outlook Index for September shows of 1,017 people polled, only 24% said they were likely to buy a personal computer for home use before Christmas.

"This might spell trouble for Christmas," said Constantine Kambanis, an analyst for TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence. "I was surprised (by the results). I was expecting at least somewhat of an increase until December."

The all-important holiday season accounts for nearly one-quarter (22.83%) of the United States' annual retail sales.

Only 19% of those polled said they were "very likely" or "somewhat likely" to buy a new PC in the next six months. That's down 23% from August numbers. 72% said they would buy in four to six months. The intent to buy a PC in the September poll fell 25% among people ages 18 to 24, 21% among those 45 to 64 and 7% among people 25 to 44. It rose among senior citizens.

More bad news: PC demand among households earning more than US$75,000 a year fell to its lowest point since the poll was started. The index for that income level was down 37% from August.

Apple popularity high

Despite lackluster optimism among consumers to buy a PC this holiday season, Apple Computer remains one of the top three preferred brands in September.

44% who were asked named Dell as the brand they would mostly likely buy when ready to purchase, followed by Hewlett-Packard with 7%. Tied for third was Apple and Gateway (minus its recently acquired eMachines brand) with 5%. Apple had a 3% preferred brand ranking in August.

As for laptops, Apple placed second in a tie with Toshiba with 7% in terms of popularity. Dell was far out in front as the preferred laptop brand to buy with 42%.

Among likely PC buyers, 67% say they will buy a desktop model, 27% thinking a laptop and 6% were not sure.

Apple's Xmas estimates of real interest

High among the interest of investor analysts will be estimates by Apple executives of desktop and laptop Mac fiscal fourth quarter sales to be made this Wednesday. It is then that Apple will announce its fiscal fourth quarter results and discuss its holiday predictions in a conference call to be broadcast live via QuickTime at 5pm EDT. As always, The Mac Observer will provide in-depth coverage.

Analysts polled by Thomson First Call currently expect Apple to earn 18 cents a share, on $2.1 billion in revenue, for its just-ending fiscal fourth quarter. During the same period a year ago, Apple earned 8 cents a share on revenue of $1.71 billion.

Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:Aphelion Posts: 77 Joined: 14 Jun 2001
Subject: Failing PC sales = bump in Apple's marketshare!

The reason for Apple's falling marketshare is not that they sold less computers, but that Windows based PC's sold more, percentage wise, than Apple did.

Dissatisfaction with the Windows Platform, and it's associated ills of virus, trojan, and worm attacks (not to mention Adware) has reached a tipping point resulting in a fall off in sales.

As tomorrow's quarterly results will begin to show, Apple will start to take advantage of this dissatisfaction with Windows based systems by selling all the iMacs they can make. A large impact will not be apparent until a full quarter of iMac sales is available.

This will be a very good Christmas season for Apple, and the trend in marketshare will be obvious to all when the results come in.

Close Name:Biff Posts: 1479 Joined: 08 Apr 2004
Subject: Is IBM getting their act together yet?

Quote
Aphelion wrote:
As tomorrow's quarterly results will begin to show, Apple will start to take advantage of this dissatisfaction with Windows based systems by selling all the iMacs they can make.
So.. what like 10?

Close Name:mahuti -   TMO Staff Posts: 377 Joined: 09 Jan 2003
Subject: Dude.

Dude, you're gettin a dell.... um, I'm sorry dude.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Rather than buy a Dell..

Build your own screamer, choose your own components, save a bundle of money, and your Mac have a new buddy to talk to.

Close Name:metavurt Posts: 163 Joined: 16 Jun 2003
Subject: Re: rather than buy a Dell

wow, guest, last time i checked the demographics of mac-heads, um, we don't friggin' waste time in the "garage". we like using our computers, not tinkering on them.

wakey wakey widdle wost pc user.....

Close Name:John@was Posts: 15 Joined: 24 Jun 2004
Subject: re: Build your own screamer

I'll bet the girls just go wild over your kit-car, too.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Prices to blame...

Apple will not sell many computers over christmas because they don't know the meaning of the word "Sale". Their prices already dwarf the $399 computers sold at Circuit city. Your average computer user sees that and gets the idea that you can have a good computer for under $500. Then they hear that apple computers are better but the cheapest imac is $1200 and they think "I'm not spending that much on anyone." I would love to get a mac for Christmas. If I could get a decently loaded machine for under $1500 I might consider it. But because i can't, I'm going to wait until I can really afford it, rather than making an impulse purchase to have it now. Selling an ipod mini for $244 when the suggested retail is $249 is not a sale, it's a joke. Apple will never make a serious dent until they cut their profit margins at opportune times, like say, the holidays.

Close Name:Biff Posts: 1479 Joined: 08 Apr 2004
Subject: Take a chill pill!

Quote
metavurt wrote:
wow, guest, last time i checked the demographics of mac-heads, um, we don't friggin' waste time in the "garage". we like using our computers, not tinkering on them.

wakey wakey widdle wost pc user.....


Quote
John@was wrote:
I'll bet the girls just go wild over your kit-car, too.
Wow geez guys it's not like he said build your own PC and ditch your Mac. I use my Mac as my primary, but the PC's that I do have I built myself. I control the brand (and thus quality) of each component and make sure I get the best price. Are we supposed to trust Dell to do that? Boy we sure are dumb! And you guys obviously have very little clue what you are talking about in the first place. I mean what do you think we're sitting in workshops with soldering irons or something? There are standards. These things just plug together.

Close Name:Guest
Subject:

Quote
John@was wrote:
I'll bet the girls just go wild over your kit-car, too.
Wow geez guys it's not like he said build your own PC and ditch your Mac. I use my Mac as my primary, but the PC's that I do have I built myself. I control the brand (and thus quality) of each component and make sure I get the best price. Are we supposed to trust Dell to do that? Boy we sure are dumb! And you guys obviously have very little clue what you are talking about in the first place. I mean what do you think we're sitting in workshops with soldering irons or something? There are standards. These things just plug together.[/quote]

Yeah I have a diehard Linux PC building friend who enjoys talking Mac with me. His wife keeps budding him for an Apple laptop. I think I'm wearing him down, he'll give in sooner or later. If I ever wanted a PC I'd have him build it before going to the likes of Dell.

Close Name:jacrav Posts: 268 Joined: 04 Jul 2001
Subject: Polls and stats …

Before crying or partying, let’s wait for the actual figures to be in !
Do they give any inkling as to what their sample was ? How do they go about picking their targets ?
20 % of the US population is what, about 56-58 million ? 5 % of that is 2.8-2.9 million: I doubt Apple can build that many desktops in a quarter. As a shareholder, I would definitely LOVE to be wrong … about $3-4 billion in desktops alone would be sweet indeed …
Just because of this good news, I’m placing an order for 500 shares …

Close Name:Aphelion Posts: 77 Joined: 14 Jun 2001
Subject: VALUE vs, PRICE

Well I dropped over $4K on my Powerbook (and accessories) when I bought it earlier this year. The fact that I could have bought a Dell for less than half of that didn't faze me at all, I got great VALUE for that price.

Windows is an abomination. People call me to bail them out after their Windows computers are owned by all the malware that is out there feasting on their systems. I charge $100 just to show them how to purge their systems of spyware and adware, Add another $100 to reformat and reload their systems, if I have to go that far.

Of course that is only a temporary fix. In six months they call me again. I always tell them to take their Windows system out to the curb on trash day and get an Apple to stop bothering me with their Windows problems. It usually takes three visits before they take my advice. The only time I hear from them after that is to tell me how happy they are with OSX.

Comment on this Article


You cannot edit your comments.   You cannot delete your comments.

Comments are currently closed. Please email the author instead.


Recent Headlines - Updated November 22nd

Fri, 7:07 PM
Games - Soccer Sim Championship Manager 2010 Released for Mac
6:47 PM
Games - EA Publishes Original Monopoly for iPhone
6:15 PM
News - Original Apple I on Ebay for $50K, w/Letter from Steve Jobs
6:11 PM
Games - New iPhone Games: Secret of the Lost Cavern Ep 1, New DJ Nights, More
5:47 PM
Games - Star Trek D-A-C Game Headed to the Mac Next Month
4:57 PM
Product News - TidBITS Releases “Take Control of Syncing Data in Snow Leopard”
4:26 PM
John Martellaro's Blog - Particle Debris (week ending 11/20) Stationery Pads Go Poof
2:59 PM
Free on iTunes - Musée du Louvre, Art Lite, SketchBook Mobile X and More.
1:50 PM
Deal Brothers - Acer P215H bmid 21.5” Widescreen LCD Monitor:  $139.99
11:24 AM
TMO Appearances - Jeff Gamet Shares More Holiday Gift Ideas on MacJury
10:43 AM
Product News - Cocktail 4.5 for Leopard Adds QuickLook Cache Clearing
10:06 AM
News - Hack Enables Mac OS X 10.6.2 on Netbooks

The Mac Observer Reader Specials

  • __________
  • Buy Stuff, Support TMO!
  • Podcast: Mac Geek Gab
  • Podcast: Apple Weekly Report
  • TMO on Twitter!