Tuesday, April 1,2008 @ 11:25am
Apple's Mac marketshare hits 21% in US
Profit prospects on Apple stock continue to look bright, despite the collapse of much of the American economy, says the research firm Piper Jaffray. Analyst Gene Munster contends that the company is being driven by several factors, among these a growth in its worldwide computer marketshare, which expanded from 2.4 percent in 2006 to 2.9 percent in 2007; notably, enterprise sales actually represented 70 percent of the latter figure, despite minimal effort on Apple's part.
Munster argues that consumer marketshare is especially impressive though, now at 10 percent worldwide, and 21 percent in the United States. This is in face of fierce competition from PC makers such as Dell and HP, and a myriad of smaller companies such as Acer and ASUS. Apple must also fight the popular perception that Macs are 20 to 30 percent more expensive, when the difference is only 16 percent for desktops and 9 percent for notebooks.
Piper is predicting shipments of 2 to 2.1 million Macs for the March quarter, a jump from estimates by The Street of 1.95. Apple should in fact grow faster than its competitors, aided by what Munster expects will be new iMacs and Mac minis in the next three months, and redesigned MacBooks before the next school year.