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Apple's U.S. Market Share Surges to 8.1 Percent

Apple's U.S. Market Share Surges to 8.1 Percent

by , 1:55 PM EDT, October 18th, 2007

Apple's U.S. market share of total PC sales has surged from 6.2 percent a year ago to 8.1 percent in 3Q07, according to a recent report from Gartner published Wednesday. Apple is now solidly in third place in U.S. sales and is pulling away from Toshiba in 4th. In worldwide sales, Apple remains out of the top five.

According to the report, obtained by TMO, in the United States, mobile PC growth continued to lead the overall growth. "For the first time, mobile PC unit volume exceeded desk-based PC unit volume in the third quarter of 2007. However, both the home and professional markets registered weaker-than-expected growth," the report noted.

"Economic uncertainty around the subprime mortgage lending and lower consumer confidence may have played a role in challenges vendors faced in the U.S. market," said Ms. Mikako Kitagawa, Gartner analyst. "The third quarter is typically a consumer quarter, driven by back-to-school sales. However, the preliminary results show that back-to-school sales were softer than expected in the U.S. market."

The charts below are for total PC sales in thousands of units.


U.S. PC vendor shipments -- Source: Gartner

Worldwide, numbers were not published for Apple, and HP continued to hold the lead. Other estimates place Apple's worldwide market share at less than 3 percent.


Worldwide PC vendor shipments -- Source: Gartner

Notable is Apple's U.S. market share growth, 37 percent, far more than the year-over-year growth of the other PC vendors.

Gartner noted that the results are preliminary and final statistics will be available to clients of Gartner's PC Quarterly Statistics Worldwide by Region program.

Observer Comments

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Close Name:Guest
Subject: The more interesting number would be....

the market share of Apple in the "Home" market. We all know that corporations buy HP's and Dell's by the truckload, usually because they are locked into a corporate "standard". Besides, the Mac's strong suit IS the home market (though it could do "corporate" very well).

My casual observation of family, friends and co-workers is that the vast majority, even people who wouldn't have considered buying Apple two years ago, have either bought one, or are planning to buy one for Xmas.

Close Name:Sir Harry Flashman Posts: 792 Joined: 08 Feb 2007
Subject: Switchers

Quote
Guest wrote:
My casual observation of family, friends and co-workers is that the vast majority, even people who wouldn't have considered buying Apple two years ago, have either bought one, or are planning to buy one for Xmas.


I have had a number of friends recently switch to Macs. Usually when you ask them how they like the Mac you hear something along the lines of "I should have done this years ago."

Security is often the switch factor, they are getting tired of routing out the malware. Also as much as I dislike Word having it available on the Mac helps people switch.

Close Name:gslusher Posts: 2088 Joined: 13 Nov 2002
Subject: Numbers are probably not correct

See the discussion in the Apple Finance Board forum about the Gartner numbers. (Do a text search on "Gartner" to find the reference quickly, then read the next few messages, continuing on to the next page.) They are always low.

Quote
muckraker wrote:
Gartner statistics one year ago for 3rd quarter of 2006:
Apple 975K units US. Worldwide - not enough to show on the table.

Real numbers?

Apple ships Record 1.61 Million Macs (worldwide).

Taking that number and extrapolating at 37% gives us Tommo's 2.2 million units (more or less) above.


It may be that Gartner's numbers, like IDC's don't count all sales. I don't know if they count sales at the Apple Stores, for example--Apple generally doesn't release such data.

Close Name:Fairly Posts: 25 Joined: 02 Aug 2007
Subject: Nuthin' is Nuthin'

"Notable is Apple's U.S. market share growth, 37 percent"

37% of diddley is still diddley, John. And it's not going to get much better as long as everyone wants the Whole Banana. I don't get it: people here would burn down houses with boxen running Mac OS X on anything but a Mac but they still want market growth. You can't have your banana and eat it.

Close Name:gslusher Posts: 2088 Joined: 13 Nov 2002
Subject: Re: Nuthin' is Nuthin'

Quote
Fairly wrote:
"Notable is Apple's U.S. market share growth, 37 percent"

37% of diddley is still diddley, John. And it's not going to get much better as long as everyone wants the Whole Banana. I don't get it: people here would burn down houses with boxen running Mac OS X on anything but a Mac but they still want market growth. You can't have your banana and eat it.


Actually, it's not "diddly." (No e.) It's the third-largest share of any computer manufacturer in the US, behind HP and Dell--and Dell has been slipping.

What the heck is "the Whole Banana"? The last two sentences don't make much sense.

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