I'm confused by the phrase, "decline in unit growth." This would seem to mean that unit growth exists (i.e., more units were sold this year than last) but that the growth is slower (i.e., the percentage increase from 2002-2003 was greater than 2003-2004). In other words, sales are increasing, but the increase is decelerating. See where my confusion lies?

Or was this supposed to read, "decline in unit sales"?

Less than 2% market share proves once and for all that the scheme to sell a proprietary OS locked into proprietary hardware is a sure loser.

When is Bryan Chaffin going to pay up on The Bet? Bryan was convinced that the G5 and Apple stores were going to boost market share. Bryan couldn't have been more wrong. Why doesn't he have the simple decency to pay up on his bet with John Kheit?

http://www.macobserver.com/columns/devilsadvocate/2003/20030620.shtml

in a previous thread, we'll see apple share drop to like, 1% within the next year or two. just watch... and it won't matter how many macs are sold either, or how many are still out there grinding out graphic page templates, or any of that. nope - we'll just look at sales. of all kinds. commercial AND consumer. cause you know, that's how we count these days.

:: goes back into alter-reality of smart people world ::

-+vurt

if i ever so much as smell your presence in the REAL world, i will smack some mathematical sense into your precious dimwitted head.

Quit wasting our planet's oxygen with your pathetic statements

This number can't be right. When I go to public places where people use laptops, usually a third to half of them are Macs. When I read online comics, half of those artists use macs.

Is it possible that the reason that Apple's numbers are so low is that businesses are buying PCs for non "personal computing" tasks like assembly line control or embedded devices?

I know that Radio Shack uses PCs as cash registers. These boxes run a DOS-like program for checkout and IE to browse Radio Shack's catalog. That's it. I'm sure you'd be fired for putting any other software or hardware on these boxes.

The only reason that "market share" is important is that it controls how much third party support the units get. But PCs used as cash registers or dumb terminals will never buy any third party device for the life of the unit - so why are they counted? It would be like counting iPods as being Macs or X-Boxes as PCs. (I assume the figure doesn't include X-Boxes, does it?)

The last quarter drop in unit sales of Mac is expected because of supply contraints of iMac.

As the growth of PC market is driven mostly by the enterprise segment (comprises 70% of the total market), I expect Apple's market share to continue to drop since Apple plays mostly in the consumer and professional market. The only pure enterprise product is the Xserve.

For Apple's market share to move up, gaining share in the consumer/creative/education/server segment is not enough. It only slows down the decline in market share. Apple needs a compelling product/a sound strategy to sell in the client-side of the enterprise segment. So far, Apple has not come up with one and I also feel is not the right focus for Apple too. Apple is better off concentrating on iPod.

The Mac marketshare drops for two reasons.

Apple's advertising about Macs and OS X Simply sucks! Nothing less.

Second,every PC sold counts as marketshare regardless of use. Go walk in any bank or enterprise situation with lots of PC's. How many have someone in front of them actually using them? Certainly not all that were bought including the ones on the shelf, needed if something breaks. Some of the PC marketshare is invisible if you look hard, but it's counted. I'd bet a larger share of Macs in the world are actually used.

Sales Marketshare numbers can be misleading. We need a better yardstick, one that included installed base, perhaps.

... comparing it to the year-ago quarter, that is.

But if you compare it to the previous quarter, Apple's market share has actually increased.

Market share indicates sales during a particular quarter... not the total number of Macs in use as compared to PCs.

To understand market share you must accept the fact that install base can grow while market share decreases. This happens when a company sells more products than it did previously though not as fast as its competitors did.

For this reason market share is a totally useless statistic for gauging the total number of systems in use (which is what most people think market share is)

you can't scream this point loud enough. Apple's sales are way up...again. Their cash intake is way up...again.

And you know what...who gives a FLIP about this anyway? As long as I have my Mac to work on and they keep making the OS better and stronger, all the PC morons like RC can just SUFFER in their world of poison. I don't ever have to see CTRL-ALT-DELETE or Windows has suffered an unrecoverable error. The program will be shut down.

EVER.

Supply on demand continues to be Apples main archillies heel. Its a pity because the demand for Apples product is out there.

The reality is we now live in an 'instant on' world. I personally know that the immediate unavailability of Apples product has caused both business and consumers to look elsewhere. The difference between Macs and PCs is simple - PCs are out there and available in any config, right now. Consumers just dont want to wait and business are reluctant to invest in a product that has no guaranteed delivery date.

We decided to just cancel our 6x2.5 G5s and reordered 2Ghz models and respeced the GPUs. In my country, after 3 months plus our design studio cant afford to wait any longer.

I just don't care. If I am made to use a PC I will give up any form of a digital lifestyle. I don't see why I should have to take second best. Hell, tenth best. I want a Mac, and nothing else.

The surging volume of sales of PCs lies behind these, dare I say, skewed results.

A boom in PC sales has been predicted for about this time due to a number of causes, among them the end-of-life cycle for huge numbers of PCs that were bought just prior to year 2000, for reasons that shouldn't need to be explained.

Apple is still selling Macs, although not as many as last year; the company is still cashed up and enjoying beefy sales of the iPod and Apple isn't about to go out of business any time soon.

A market share of less than two per cent is alarming, certainly, but should be kept in perspective.

As a computer consultant, I can easily see the value of Macs in small to medium businesses. The problem is, Apple does not make a business targeted computer.

What Apple needs to do is make a low end, sub $600 computer without iLife or any of the other wonderful programs they usually include. Just the hardware, OS, and the programs that come by default (such as Mail and Safari).

The computer needs to be a desktop, preferably small, that has Apple's unique styling. No monitor should be included, it should be stand alone. It should use a G4 processor, have 256 MB of RAM. Something that can be used as an end user workstation in offices and libraries.

Now, I know that people will argue the eMac fills this role. It does not. The eMac starts at $800, and includes a CRT monitor built in, along with speakers and a number of other accessories not needed on a workstation system. Additionally, most businesses are moving to LCD monitors and the eMac takes up too much space on a desk.

If Apple created such a machine, they could offer the small/medium business market a secure, reliable, virus-free machine that is easy to network and easy to use. There is a huge market for something like this.

Right now, they just can't compete.

Besides, once one uses a Mac in the office, realizes how easy and user friendly it is, they will be compelled to switch at home, generating even more sales of iMacs and the like.

I do not work for anyone involved with the numbers stated on these pages. I do, however, feel that I have knowledge and insight into their way of thinking.

It is their belief that the Pc market is a constantly expanding market, where each and every PC ever made is still in use and capable of running the most recent version of the OS and the most processor intensive applications. Apple Computer's Macintosh line of computers, no matter when they were made or sold (whether 3 years ago or just last month) are no longer in use, and cannot even boot-up. Therefore, they have decided in their greater knowledge of all things rediculously stupid and almost scientific that only those Macintosh units which are currently being rung up by Radio Shack employees in the stock room and those sold by small Vietnamese women in the rice patties of the Sea of Tears on the moon shall be counted as actual viable units to be included in the worldwide cimputer market share.

See? Simple.

For more realistic information, please see http://www.apple.com .

Market share has to be the stupidest statistic ever invented. It assumes that all competitors sell the same functional type of product to the same types of customers for the same use for about the same amount of money per unit and the product will last about the same amount of time. It might work for bars of soap, but not for computers.

Also, since growth is normally the first time derivative of an amount, then a change in growth is the second time derivative. So a decline in growth should be a deceleration in the amount present. Who knows what these numbers really mean?

BTW-

Just so you know where my slant is coming from, I am the webmaster and president of the local MUG, so I may be a little biased. I appologize if I sounded a little irritated in that response.

On second thought, no I'm not. Every bit of sarcasm was meant.

http://www.sumtermug.org

Market share in your amrket is what count. If you are selling to the high end portion of the market then just consider the high end portion when establishing market share.

In a previous job we where selling to most expensive product in our market. We basically own that market. If you factor the total market we didn't own it but everyone else was fighting for the middle to low end...while we look at that price war form above....


think of it for a second doesn't it seems like Apple? Was not the same market but the same ecomomics apply to it... Be the best in your market and make money... let the competition fight for every 0.01% of the market....

There are so many things with IDC's and Gartner's "Market Share' that it's pathetic. I can't believe anyone actually uses this.

And for a supposedly Mac centric site to use these figures without qualifications is even worse.

Yes, I fully agree, 1) so called MarketShare is including Cash Registers, Dumb Terminals, or NON-PERSONAL COMPUTERS! This wasn't the case 5-10 years ago, since PCs were still too expensive to put into these low level positions, now they are, but the MarketShare benchmark hasn't been updated to reflect this.

2nd) MUCH of the Blame should be put on IBM. The chip shortage doesn't allow Apple to sell faster and faster machines, OR them in Quantity... which leads too...

3rd) QUANTITY! When is the LAST time you saw a National Commercial for an Apple Computer??? The G5? a year or more ago? Yep... Apple or is it IBM screwing this up? I see 2-3 iPod commercials every day... ZERO for over a year for a Mac.

4th) Distribution, the iPod is sold in a HUGE variety of outlets... but not the Mac... Hum... Is it availablity? Is it cost? Eitherway, until Apple broadens its distribution you will see these number continue to go down.

5th) Lastly, OSX isn't quite ready for prime time. Sure it runs great! but the Apps aren't quite there... Safari is only 60% complete. AppleWorks for OSX? Where is it? Apple Mail is pretty weak, etc... HOPEFULLY TIGER is the final piece of the puzzle before Apple can start selling Macs to a larger audience. But until then... Apple will be locked into having the TOP 2% of the PC Market.

There's something very fishy about these numbers that these morons are spitting out. I'm sure, in another year, they will say "Mac Market Share Is Now at Zero!" and all of us are still here. You still see the same number of powerbooks in coffee houses, the same magazines are still designed using Macs. All these numbers being touted is just a ploy to discourage the Mac market and demoralize support. I dont trust these people at all. For all you know, these companies are paid by Microsoft to spew out these numbers.

I wonder what Porche's, or Ferrari's, or Lamborghini's world wide market share is...

Does market share even matter as long as there are people willing to buy quality over mass-market.

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Eric24601 wrote:
There's something very fishy about these numbers that these morons are spitting out.

I agree.

The same thing happened with the Software Publishers Association. They used to report sales by platform until it became painfully obvious that their continual reporting of declining market share of Mac software was bogus. The SPA's data collection and analysis methods were publically thoroughly debunked and subsequently ridiculed.

Instead of reforming its process, the SPA gave up and no longer reports sales by platform.

I see the same nonsense here regarding hardware market share. Others in this thread have pointed out just some of the problems with Gartner's et al methods.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
[Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881), British statesman, author. Quoted by Mark Twain in his Autobiography, ch. 29, Mark Twain (1924)]

I wish someone would do some research on the resale price of various computers after 2,3, and 4 years.

I think market share reports are kind of like exit polls...???

I would love to see the methodology behind the research. For example, Jupiter Research has reported that Macs are in 14% of US corporations grossing more than $50 million in annual revenues. So the penetration is there - it just remains niche oriented. I do not think any Mac users object to that. Nor do we want 80% market share - and the massive supply chain and security headaches that go along with it.

So long as Apple remains profitable, makes growth moves in the markets they identify as opportunities and in general innovates - who cares what the tally is overall...??

How much money per Windows machine does it cost a business each year to support it, patch, and deal with all of the inherent problems associated with it. I would argue that the new 17" iMac is cheaper to own each year by a large amount. More than the initial extra cost for the machine with it's included speakers and iApps. Big business can't seem to figure it out. We figured it out at our high end construction company with 95 networked OS X Macs. No problems. Incredible productivity. Most consumers and business men make the wrong decision every day. Windows success proves it.

How much money per Windows machine does it cost a business each year to support it, patch, and deal with all of the inherent problems associated with it. I would argue that the new 17" iMac is cheaper to own each year by a large amount. More than the initial extra cost for the machine with it's included speakers and iApps. Big business can't seem to figure it out. We figured it out at our high end construction company with 95 networked OS X Macs. No problems. Incredible productivity. Most consumers and business men make the wrong decision every day. Windows success proves it.

My macs work fine and Apple sales seem to be going fine and certainly they are a vigorous company. I agree with Tiger who gives a FLIP ? Those who use and say they prefer the PC can have the headaches.

I just saw a headline in a tech magazine that Daimler Chrysler has been/is buying 160,000 PCs (not sure if it includes servers). Multiply this by a few businesses and you can see how the IDC/Gartner PC numbers can be huge. Especially since they include servers.

Almost all the PC buying has been driven by big business, not consumers or education. Given that the creative arts portion of business is very small, you can see why Apple would not experience any of that "replacement" market.

My belief based on some numbers I've been researching is that Apple still has about 5% of new purchases in the US consumer market.

There are 110 million US households (est. from Consumer Electronics Association); and 75 million US households currently own 135 million PCs. At the beginning of 2004, CEA projected that 26.4 million PCs (laptops and desktops) will be sold to US consumers with 9.3 million going to first-time PC purchasers in 2004. The consumer market has been disappointing so I'm not sure if their projection will be reached. (For comparison, Gartner and IDC project worldwide total 2004 sales of PCs and Servers at about 183 million. You can see the difference.)

Apple is on course to sell about 1.8 million Macs in the Americas in 2004. If we say 33% go to businesses and K-12 schools and the non-US portion of the Americas, that leaves 1.2 million, which is almost 5%.

It's bizarre - half of the laptops I see are iBooks or PowerBooks! Apple seems to be doing fantastically in this market, so what is going on?

Is it just that 98% of the market is sub-$600 desktops where Apple isn't trying to compete?

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Anonymous wrote:
...MarketShare is including Cash Registers, Dumb Terminals, or NON-PERSONAL COMPUTERS!...

If this is true then we can totally ignore what IDC and Gartner published. A PC market should not include those and platforms like Xbox and server.

IMHO, Apple's market share in the notebook market is the most pertinent measure of Mac's health as a platform. Notebook refers to both iBook and Powerbook. Anyone has this figure?

What is TMO's obsession with this topic? More importantly, why is TMO obsessed with presenting this topic but never putting it into any sort of context? Are we talking about the number of Macs sold relative to EVERY OTHER sort of machine sold, regardless of the operating system, or what????
What is the TOTAL NUMBER OF MACS in use today? What is the TOTAL NUMBER of Macs being sold today? How about some useful numbers?
For example, the total number of cars being sold in the world today could be expanding at X rate. However, the number of Porsches sold could be expanding at X-y rate, i.e., the number of Porsches sold is increasing, but not at the same rate as the total number of cars. It wouldn't mean tha Porsche is in danger of going out of business. It wouldn't mean that the Porsche market is insignificant. It, frankly, wouldn't mean a whole heck of a lot.
My impression is that TMO has little else to offer and needs to drive traffic with this sort of non-story. Put into context, TMO! Or, please, shut up.

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Guest wrote:
What is TMO's obsession with this topic? More importantly, why is TMO obsessed with presenting this topic but never putting it into any sort of context?

I agree wholeheartedly.TMO should be presenting these reports with a degree of investigation, analysis, and context or not at all.

I have serious doubts whether these surveys are even reasonably accurate statistically, let alone useful for their intended target, i.e. third-party hardware and software providers.

Its interesting that the reported sales for Q3 (apple fiscal Q4) 2003 in this article exceed those in the month ago article by ~80,000. This leads to the conclusion that apple had a year-over-year decline in sales wheras last months article (and the apple SEC filings) have apple with a year-to-year increase. If the error is on IDC's part, this demands clarification - if it is on TMO's part it demands admission of error

at some point ipods will become evolved enough that they are considered sub-compact laptops. the day that happens, market share will skyrocket. after all, it has an input device, an output display, a hard drive, a processor, ram, maybe even wireless connectivity before too long. like turning a light switch, one day market share will jump from 1% to 10%. just like that.

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Guest wrote:
Its interesting that the reported sales for Q3 (apple fiscal Q4) 2003 in this article exceed those in the month ago article by ~80,000. This leads to the conclusion that apple had a year-over-year decline in sales wheras last months article (and the apple SEC filings) have apple with a year-to-year increase.

Ha! Good catch.

TMO, readers have pointed out a lot of problems here. I hope you're planning a follow-up article.

In any case, it's more of the same. All that matters is that unit sales grow and that Apple stays profitable. Market share figures belie Apple's fantastic financial condition, its mindshare, and its revenue growth.

And heck, since I just made 411 posts..."and that's the 411."

Year 2010, Apple market share falls to 0, Microsoft claims the great god Jobs is dead. Yet Apple reports giga bucks in the bank from continued steady sales of their product lines? The only conclusion that I can come to is that most analyst are full of it, along with journalist who print their drivel.

I just don't understand why Apple does not see this logic...make a small business/library/university/school $600 monitorless Mac with its inherent easy networking and decreased viral load, and you are introducing huge numbers of consumers to the strengths of OS X. Really, it has the same effect as the Retail Store strategy and the iPod campaign. I don't see any downside. Hellooooo Apple...?

As above.

I'm surprised that TMO would chose to print such rubbish - Mac Users deserve better stories than figures touting the decline of the platform. A study into marketshare in areas where Apple does actually compete would make a lot more sense. We all know that Macs aren't used in a plethora of areas where the generic PC is king. We also know that Macs have a far longer useful life than PCs. It stands to reason that if PC replaces his computer every year because it has slowed down to the point of uselessness, and Mac replaces his computer maybe in three to five years because he finally thinks it's getting long in the tooth compared to whizz bang new models, that the figures for PC will show greater marketshare regardless of the fact that PC is still using only one computer - he's just bought it 3 times in three years! The fact that market analysis firms can spout this kind of drivel and get it reprinted worldwide is a serious cause for concern.

... of installed base is web statistics, and these put the Mac share at 2.5 to 3.5%.

That said, it would obviously be better to see Apple's market share go up rather than down.

However the platform can survive if Mac sales keep increasing (even if it's slower than the overall industry) and developers continue to support it.

Another school of thought is that Mac and Windows are two totally different platforms and shouldn't be compared...

"I agree wholeheartedly.TMO should be presenting these reports with a degree of investigation, analysis, and context or not at all."

Translation: "If the figures look bad for Apple, TMO should either lie about it and work in a pro-Apple angle, or keep quiet"

Nice slant on journalism, there

As long as Apple keeps making a profit and products like the iMac G5 (which I own) and the iPod (Which to date I do not own)

"Each day I wake asking and expecting NOTHING from life and every single day I am pleasantly surprised by what I get"

Pagan jim

These points have been raised in previous posts, but here they are, (somewhat) succinctly, in one place:

- PC market share measures the "Windows XP ready" boxes you see as point-of-sale workstations in Home Depot, Radio Shack, etc., many of which never run anything more than a character-based terminal emulator. These are commodity boxes, and Apple doesn't want to be in this market, anyway.

- More and more corporate desktop machines are glorified terminals running browsers to consume web applications over an intranet. A "personal computer" is overkill for this role, and if and when someone produces a "web terminal" that IT departments can support, traditional PC sales into this space will drop. It's not a healthy market in the long term.

- Even a lot of home computers are no more than internet terminals. My father-in-law has had a computer for two years, and he doesn't understand what a "browser" is because it's the only thing his computer runs. This market will also eventually be overrun by reduced-functionality boxes produced at razor-thin margins.

- The turnover rate on Mac's is substantially slower than Wintel boxes. I have machines from 1996, 1998, and 2001 all running the current version of OS X sufficiently well for daily use. Slow turnover fewer less annual sales (i.e. market share) to maintain the same user base.

- Standards-wise, the worm has turned. Much more of what people want to do is internet based, where Internet Explorer's stranglehold on standards is all but gone; people still use it, but non-IE users are no longer locked out. Linux is emerging, and the Mac is much more at home in a *nix world than Windows.

- For applications requiring non-commodity hardware (multimedia, creativity, high-performing laptops), where the margins are, Apple competes well.

- Apple can serve its current market "niche" for the foreseeable future and remain financially strong, and it is hardly at risk of losing its loyal customer base to the current alternatives.

I own Apple stock, and I'm holding, and based on the performance, I don't appear to be alone.

First of all I AM looking at purchasing a PowerBook sometime in the near future or whenever Apple provides a real update to their line. So don't give me this PC zealot BS. I want to root for Apple but I’m a realist.

Market share DOES matter. No matter any which way you cut it. Those who say otherwise are delusional and once again are making excuses for Apple.
-To an enterprise environment: No way in hell are they going to go with a vendor that has 1.blah%.
-To the software developer: They are going to create their wares on the platform that can potentially make the most sales and the reality is 90% vs +/- 2% its a no brainer.
-Even the average user market share == stable long term viable platform. I can't tell you how many user in the office I work (IT Admin) who I've sent to the Apple store at the Mall of America ask about the market share question. It a viable question and one I don't have an answer for. Is Microsoft going to tank overnight with a 90% market share and what? 40 BILLION in the bank not including physical assets. Microsoft isn't going anywhere. So shooing people over to the Apple store can sometimes be difficult.

Like it or not market share matters and no matter how you play the numbers Apple's market share in regards to OS X is NOT good and will never be good unless they find better ways to mass product their products and create a bottom of the barrel system that doesn't suck, sorry but the eMac sucks compared to low end PC's from E-Machine and the like. Apple is being eaten alive in market share with the low end and rightly so. They have a crappy low-end solution that no one other then the ignorant masses will touch. iMacs are another matter but at best those devices start off in the 1500 range with Apple care that is a necessity no matter what device you get. (Tell me again about Apple quality?)

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Guest wrote:
Translation: "If the figures look bad for Apple, TMO should either lie about it and work in a pro-Apple angle, or keep quiet"

Nice slant on journalism, there

You appear to be missing the point: I believe the gist of "guest's" argument is that these so-called market share analyses are seriously flawed and misleading and should therefore not be presented as mere factual reports.

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Guest wrote:
To the software developer: They are going to create their wares on the platform that can potentially make the most sales and the reality is 90% vs +/- 2% its a no brainer...

One would think so. Yet strangely, the daily developement activity as shown, for example, on versiontracker is just as high (if not higher) for Mac OS X as it is for Windows. Go figure.

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Guest wrote:
...]Is Microsoft going to tank overnight with a 90% market share and what? 40 BILLION in the bank not including physical assets. Microsoft isn't going anywhere....

That's what people used to say about Internet Explorer. If it's happening to part, it can happen to all.

BTW, Apple has $5.5 billion in the bank. Relatively speaking, it's even more cash rich than Microsoft so I don't think it's "going anywhere" either...

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Guest wrote:
....the eMac sucks compared to low end PC's from E-Machine and the like....iMacs are another matter but at best those devices start off in the 1500 range with Apple care that is a necessity no matter what device you get. (Tell me again about Apple quality?)

That's a bold evaluation of the eMac! Care to explain?

BTW, iMacs start at $1300, not $1500. And your aspersions about Apple quality are ridiculous. Twelve years of providing technical support for Macs in commercial settings plus our personal experience with ten Macs here (acquired since 1992) without a single hardware problem tell me so.

We've never purchased AppleCare.

Steve Jobs is a real genius. He's managed to run Apple down to the #10 computer manufacturer. Macs must really be great machines.

Mac idolators it's time to face the facts, Mac's high prices, slow processors, limited software, web compatibility problems, buggy OS updates, and hardware problems are sending Macs down for the final count. It won't be long before you Mac zealots will be putting your Mac next to your Amiga and Betamax. Maybe you could start a museum of failed technologies.