toggle

AAPL Stock: 570.56 ( + 13.59 )

MacNN News

BW: Apple Stores are not growing Mac market share

updated 09:20 am EDT, Wed April 7, 2004

Apple Stores review

BusinessWeek says that the Apple Stores are not : "Still, the proof is in the number of new Apple users, and that remains discouraging. In tech tracker International Data Corp.'s latest tally of computer market share, Apple's piece of the U.S computer pie slid from 3.5% in 2002 to 3.2% in 2003. The decline also speaks volumes about Apple's campaign to woo switchers -- if they were coming over in any significant numbers, then Apple would be growing faster than the broad PC market."

by MacNN Staff

(22)

TAGS :

Apple

Share the Article

Facebook Twitter Delious Slash Dot Digg

toggle

Comments

riverfreak
Mac Enthusiast

Joined: Aug 2001

0

04/07, 09:35am | report spam | close Reply |
This is a percentage!

Do business people actually understand statistics? How fast did the computer sector grow?

rok
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 1999

0

04/07, 09:42am | report spam | close Reply |
Dear Business Week

yes, when a company replaces 97 windows-based computers at the same time apple converts three home users to mac, that totals three percent.

but my company has two users who must use windows-based pc's at work because the software they work in is only available for windows (and too big to run in virtual pc), and the IT dept. will not support macs (h***, they hate the two of us who use them now, and we ask them for help once every couple of MONTHS). but those users are still happily using macs at home.

i swear, apple needs some friggin' huge company to replace their pc's with macs ONCE, and you'll see a significant spike in "market share", even though i doubt many of those people will run otu and get a mac for home.

statistics are c***.

Zaren
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

0

04/07, 09:44am | report spam | close Reply |
This has been explained..

repeatedly in the past:

Market share, while great to quote when it's big, it's a totally relevant statistic.

If the market is growing at a faster rate than a product's rate of adoption, their market share WILL shrink. For example, If the market is 100 widgets, and FruitCo sells 10 widgets to that market, their market share is 10%. If the market increases to 100 widgets, and FruitCo sells 5 more widgets to that market, their sales INCREASE by 50%, while their market share DECREASES to 7.5% of the market.

Apple could have sold (based on totally arbitrary numbers) 1 million more computers last year, but if the market expanded by 10 million from a base of 500 million, it wouldn't have had a positive effect on market share. It would have had an awesome effect on the installed user base, though.

(Mind you, I'm a geek by trade, and not a business major, but that all seems to be accurate.)

Zaren
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

0

04/07, 09:46am | report spam | close Reply |
Oops

"a totally relevant statistic"

That should have been "a totally IRrelevant statistic"

Zaren
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

0

04/07, 09:48am | report spam | close Reply |
dambit

"If the market increases to 100 widgets..."

should also be increases BY 100 widgets.

(This'll teach me not to proodread before posting...)

beeble
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2004

0

04/07, 09:56am | report spam | close Reply |
Proodread!

LOL

Zaren
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

0

04/07, 10:29am | report spam | close Reply |
okay, I'm done

no more comments from me ANYWHERE today :p

leperkuhn
Senior User

Joined: Feb 2000

0

04/07, 11:30am | report spam | close Reply |
If there was a problem

There would be a real problem if the actual user base was shrinking, IE if people were throwing their macs away in disgust and buying windows pcs. But we really would have no way of knowing that....

macimmortal
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

0

04/07, 11:46am | report spam | close Reply |
Buy a helmet...

...the sky is falling again today.

ValkRaider
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

0

04/07, 12:00pm | report spam | close Reply |
Market share = sales.

One thing that annoys me is that these numbers take into consideration only sales of the hardware.

Apple hardware has a longer usable life - and Apple users typically use hardware for longer than Windows users. I know that when I was a Wintel user I had to replace my PC once or so every three years. Apple products are more along the 4 to 5 year cycle. So the number of *Users* is different than the number of market share.

Also, PCs can be sold for several different OSs - which market share doesn't account for either. So is a PC buyer running Linux the same as one running WindowsXP? When it comes to market share - yes. When it comes to real world statistics, probably not.

And finally - many PC purchases are not for *users* in the traditional sense. Maybe a shared computer for a Library or Lab. Maybe a computer for a media center or car... So while they do sell hardware for these types of things, it again is not an actual 1 to 1 comparison of users.

So in reality I think that Apple has a larger percentage of the USER BASE than their MARKET SHARE would imply...

And of course all the other good stuff people have been commenting on...

koolkid1976
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: May 2003

0

04/07, 12:06pm | report spam | close Reply |
re: Dear Business Week

"i swear, apple needs some friggin' huge company to replace their pc's with macs ONCE, and you'll see a significant spike in "market share","

The entire United States Navy and Marine Corps are standardzing on one network, and one hardware vendor--DELL. This alone accounts why Apple marketshare keeps going down, and DELL's keeps going up.

vander
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2000

0

04/07, 12:22pm | report spam | close Reply |
Yikes

If it's true the Navy and Marines are standardizing on Dell, I'm afraid for not only the safety of the troops, I'm afraid for the public's safety as well.

klinux
Senior User

Joined: Jul 2002

0

04/07, 12:23pm | report spam | close Reply |
Myth myth myth

So statistics is irrelavent, eh? Maybe you should tell that to prefessors of statistics and the quant folks working in my company?

Also, Apple HW doe snot have a longer usable life. That's a myth. It is used longer and has a higher resale value but the user cannot afford to replace it and it cost more to begin with. More often than not, people replace their PC because they can not because they need to (who needs more than 1 ghz when surfing the web?) but because they want to, they can afford to, and they simply can.

Lastly, every single frigging idiots out there know what marketshare mean - # of HW shipped. The fact that Apple is shipping less %, although it may be shipping more units (Zaren - very eloquent), is not great news. Apple wants to ship more HW AND also have a higher % of shipped Apple HW compared to the industry too.

Deal
Mac Enthusiast

Joined: Apr 2001

0

04/07, 12:30pm | report spam | close Reply |
Won't last long

Dells military account will not last long.

Their failure rate is too high.

However it will take somebody to come in and match them price wise as the government has such short sighted spending goals.

It's not easy for a competitor who makes quality products to match the shoddy product price of Packard Dell.

z10n
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Oct 2003

0

04/07, 12:53pm | report spam | close Reply |
blah blah blah

It's been said many times already. Apple doesn't care about market share growth. If they did, there are obvious steps they could take to improve their situation. Get macs in standard computer stores. Advertize OS X more. Make a cheap, upgradable mac computer. Sell macs to large businesses. Since Apple refuses to do any of these things, my guess is they're just happy with being the 2%, "BMW" computer company.

Now why they are happy with the status quo, I don't have a clue. I guess it lets them get a woody from creating outragous designs and influencing the rest of the industry. Since the mac is "irrelvant", it doesn't matter to them if their designs tank because few people will be affected (and most mac zellots will ignore the tanks anyway.)

That's not to say apple's design is bad. Often times it's extremely cool. But since apple is so focused on design, just like art, there's a possiblity that someone won't like it. Businesses typically WANT the bland, politically correct computer, which is not the kind of computer apple makes.

Big Mac
Clinically Insane

Joined: Oct 2000

0

04/07, 02:38pm | report spam | close Reply |
Share Does Matter

Marketshare most assuredly does matter. As we slip below certain percentages each year, the third party support our platform must receive shrinks, and at a certain point it will shrink past the point of viability. In response to marketshare concerns many (even SJ) cite the BMW analogy, which is, unfortunately, spurious in this context. BMW doesn't require special tires, or special gasoline, or proprietary roads.

Apple cannot look upon its marketshare in relation to Dell or Gateways; rather, it must look at its marketshare in comparison to the aggregate PC market. Apple is competing against all PC hardware providers, Apple is the sole provided of a proprietary platform, and third parties will abandon that platform if trends continue.

BUT, Business Week is doing Apple now service by declaring the retail stores have failed this early in game. They haven't had the time to noticeably impact marketshare, and we won't know their true impact for several years more. It's funny that Gateway closes all its stores and is allowed to spin the news positively, yet Apple's effort is derided despite the fact it continues to expand. That's the way tech pundits have always treated the company. Their ingrained bias shouldn't blind us to the fact that marketshare is important, however. Apple needs to be more aggressive if it wishes to stem the tide.

HeatherEcsedi
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Oct 2001

0

04/07, 02:39pm | report spam | close Reply |
Gee !

You guys complain again about how statistics can be (mis)interpreted or how the users base should be taken into consideration. I don't see how you guys can rejoice about a 3 percent market share. I guess you guys all jumped at what Michael Dell has said about how Apple products were overpriced and would sure pay more simply because you think of yourselves as better people simply because you own a Mac. Yeah right. Don't tell me Macnn is not any more Mac biased than C|Net and ZDNet are Wintel biased. You know what ? Apple should clearly have its market share shrink (like it wasn't) so you guys feel even better.

dfemi
Registered User

Joined: Apr 2004

0

04/07, 03:48pm | report spam | close Reply |
Analogies(re:Sharematters

>In response to marketshare concerns many (even SJ) cite the BMW >analogy, which is, unfortunately, spurious in this context. BMW >doesn't require special tires, or special gasoline, or proprietary roads.

But BMW does require specialised dealer and service networks as well as special car parts, so why doesn't lack of market share threaten their viability? Using your gas, tires and road analogy - the most common elements that all computer users need - electricity and internet access (in a year these can account easily for half of the cost of a computer) are platform-neutral. So there. Bottomline is that you can always construct an analogy to support your argument. Back in reality land, the key questions should be whether the installed user base justifies the development support (in lalanalogy-land, service centers and parts for all BMWs on the road, not just new sales); whether the Apple stores are paying for themselves (or delivering Apple's required return on invested capital, if you don't believe in the intangible mindshare benefit); and whether Apple is growing healthily on an absolute, not relative, basis.

testudo
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

0

04/07, 04:08pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: analogies

>In response to marketshare concerns many (even SJ) cite the BMW >analogy, which is, unfortunately, spurious in this context. BMW >doesn't require special tires, or special gasoline, or proprietary roads.

Actually, most high-end cars require high-octane fuel (while not 'proprietary', it certainly costs more as they gouge the price on that more than the other), and most do require special tires. Friends of mine have a Lexus, and they tried calling around to various shops for new tires and ended up going to the dealer, for they were the only ones with them.

klinux
Senior User

Joined: Jul 2002

0

04/07, 07:50pm | report spam | close Reply |
another automotive analog

Not again...

Back to marketshare, Steve and everyone else not (except on some folks on Macnn) care about both units shipped AND how it compare to the industry. If Apple shipped 10% more this quarter and everybody shipped 25%, surely some on this board would be cheering and Steve would put on a smiling face, but would I? No. I want Apple to ship more absolutely and more relatively. Marketshare matters.

John Dwight
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jul 1999

0

04/07, 09:09pm | report spam | close Reply |
OMG

OMG, I'd better get a PC pronto! ;)

MacNN Poster
Registered User

Joined: Apr 2004

0

04/07, 10:12pm | report spam | close Reply |
Wooing PC Users to Mac

Apple argues that Mac is the Mercedes of computers that's why they're not too concerned about its computers' high prices.
Do you really think that if Mercedes decides to run a campaign based on Apple's strategy that they would be able to convince Toyota owners to switch to Mercedes and expect it to succeed big time?
In fact, there are more Apple hardware issues now than ever before, chief among them is the fan noise.
Apple's real big success is that it's chief CEO, Mr. Jobs, is now a billionnaire. All else remain pretty much in the same level as it was, more or less.
If Apple wants to move forward QUICKLY and get converts in hordes, drop down the prices to a more affordable level.

Show More Comments

Login Here

toggle

Network Headlines

05/23	Google launches redesigned Search app...
05/23	IBM blocking iPhone's Siri on internal...
05/22	Leaked next-gen iPod touch part hints...
05/22	Hulu Plus updates with iPad Retina...
05/22	TiVo Stream to push TV to iPhones,...

Show All

05/23	Google launches redesigned Search app...
05/23	IBM blocking iPhone's Siri on internal...
05/22	Leaked next-gen iPod touch part hints...
05/22	TiVo Stream to push TV to iPhones,...
05/22	With iPad included, Apple leads mobile...

Show All

05/23	Google launches redesigned Search app...
05/22	Leaked next-gen iPod touch part hints...
05/22	Hulu Plus updates with iPad Retina...
05/22	TiVo Stream to push TV to iPhones,...
05/22	Hands on: TouchType case for iPad,...

Show All

03/02	Save $330 on refurb. 15.4-inch, 2.4GHz...
03/01	Pre-owned 8GB iPod touch 2G, drops...
02/29	$150 off Nikon Coolpix S80 Compact...
02/28	Plantronics BackBeat 903 Bluetooth...
02/27	Refurb. Seagate 1.5TB GoFlex Portable...

Show All

toggle

BW: Apple Stores are not growing Mac market share

updated 09:20 am EDT, Wed April 7, 2004

Apple Stores review

This is a percentage!

Dear Business Week

This has been explained..

Oops

dambit

Proodread!

okay, I'm done

If there was a problem

Buy a helmet...

Market share = sales.

re: Dear Business Week

Yikes

Myth myth myth

Won't last long

blah blah blah

Share Does Matter

Gee !

Analogies(re:Sharematters

Re: analogies

another automotive analog

OMG

Wooing PC Users to Mac

Login Here

Register for our weekly email newsletter:

Connect tools:

Subscribe

to our RSS

Follow us

on Twitter

10 Most Read

10 Most Discussed

MacNN Marketplace

BW: Apple Stores are not growing Mac market share

updated 09:20 am EDT, Wed April 7, 2004

Apple Stores review

Related Articles

Recent Articles

This is a percentage!

Dear Business Week

This has been explained..

Oops

dambit

Proodread!

okay, I'm done

If there was a problem

Buy a helmet...

Market share = sales.

re: Dear Business Week

Yikes

Myth myth myth

Won't last long

blah blah blah

Share Does Matter

Gee !

Analogies(re:Sharematters

Re: analogies

another automotive analog

OMG

Wooing PC Users to Mac

Login Here

Register for our weekly email newsletter:

Connect tools:

Subscribe

to our RSS

Follow us

on Twitter

10 Most Read

10 Most Discussed

MacNN Marketplace