Submitted by “Apple Inc. surpassed even the most optimistic forecasts for its usually tepid second quarter, delivering an 88 percent increase in profit on strong sales of Macintosh computers and iPod music players,” Laurie J. Flynn reports for The New York Times.” There were 1.52 mil Macs and 10 mil iPods sold in the quarter. Elsewhere, check this article on Macs in the enterprise.
PR: The Mac is Clearly Gaining Market Share
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Ya know, they are far from perfect… but they are moving forward. Slowly, but surely, they not only improve their products, but continue to push the industry… it may not be in an ideal way, but they are pushing forward.
IMHO Jb
When it comes time for me to buy a PC, I’m leaning towards a Mac now. I do not want Vista and XP will no longer move forward. Without buying a Mac Pro ($$) is there a Mac which I could install 2 HDs and do RAID 1?
nope.
you will be limited to external RAID systems from the likes of LaCie and others.
not as an internal option. but you could do it with the internal and an external.
is there a Mac which I could install 2 HDs and do RAID 1?
Aha — now my edit button appears.
No, you’re going to need a MacPro tower. You can have up to 4 hard drives and can do (software) RAID 1 or 0 with a few mouse clicks in the Disk Utility. It can be set up (at least with RAID 0) to be bootable. (http://www.frozennorth.org/C2011481421/E20060221212020/) And if you go to that link, you’ll see how a combination of external/internal can be used to set up bootable RAID 0 on a Mac Mini.
If you have to go for a 3rd party card, those get pretty expensive.
Keep in mind that Mac Pros start at $2500. And by the time you get done with adding in more ram plus hard drives plus possibly a RAID card, it’s going to be more like $3500-4000.
You will, however, have one screamer of a computer.
—
If you want to futz around with internal drives and OS X and RAID for under $2k spring for an MDD PowerMac. You can put up to 4 drives in them. Run OS X 10.3.9
Edited 2007-04-26 21:21
[Redundant comment deleted.]
Edited 2007-04-26 21:22
And before anybody chimes in with market share numbers –
“…88 percent increase in profit…”
That’s all that matters; not marketshare.
This comic also gets the point across:
http://www.myextralife.com/archive.php?date=2007-04-04
“The Mac is clearly gaining market share, with sales growing 36 percent — more than three times the industry growth rate,” Mr. Jobs said.
Apple’s sales in all likelihood haven’t changed their market share standing at all.
I don’t know…I’m hearing a lot more people thinking of buying a Mac instead of a PC as their next computer. Vista has failed to generate the “wow” Microsoft was hoping for.
My parents bought a MacPro recently because they were tired of the problems they kept having with their WinXP machine (they do a lot of image processing and such). They’re amazed at how easy it is to use…I think that MS has lost them as customers. The most incredible part is that I had absolutely nothing to do with their decision!
If your sales are growing at more than 3 times the growth rate of sales in the industry then your market share is absolutely growing.
I think you’re the one that needs to learn some maths?
Edited 2007-04-27 04:45
I wouldn’t agree with that; I’m sure their marketshare is increasing BUT I wonder how much of it is actually due to upgrades within the Apple existing marketplace.
I’ve talked to many G3/G4/G5 owners who have actually held out for the x86 machines, some have waited for the first core, whilst many have waited for the Core 2 to come out.
Its going to be difficult to take into account as to where these gains are actually coming from; Dell is leaking customers, HP, Acer and others are gaining them – how many of these ‘leaked customers’ are purchasing a Mac.
The bigger question, which is more important, is whether these new customers will stay for the long term – once you leave that windows ecosystems, you’ve left not only ‘mainstream’ pc sales, but you’ve also left the Windows community as well.
When I think Windows, I don’t think of “community”… but then again maybe I have been spoiled by the Linux/OSS way of doing things…
Now the Windows “ecosystem”, I would be more likely to agree with. Both Windows, Linux and Mac have their own little eco-system although the boundaries are getting more vague due to technologies such as Wine, virtualisation etc.
Edited 2007-04-27 07:04
Depends on how you define community; for me, Windows has a community; Red Hat and Novell are no more ‘nice corporate community members’ as Microsoft is to the Windows community; all the companies are in to make money. The only people who get harmed are those who are deluded to that reality, thinking that one can be good or evil, when in reality, they’re merely chasing the almight dollar/yen/euro/pound etc.
Mac are different from the point of view that you have to purchase a whole new system to move – in the Windows/Linux world, you can keep the same system, and merely move.
What does this mean for Windows? It means that in the future, winning back the customer who might have defected will be alot easier than with the case of Mac.
With the Mac, it isn’t just a matter of getting a cd, plonking it in there, and voila, the cd boots; you still need MacOS X installed along with Boot Camp – why got to all that pain?
As for me, I wouln’t look at numbers alone; its nice to look at the numbers, but at the same time, Microsoft have had a damn good quarter as well; going by their profits alone, one could spin it to say that a particular other operating system(s) are losing marketshare.
What Apple should make sure is that they don’t become a victim of their own success; and personally, I think that they’re limiting themselves with their ‘only run on our hardware’. If it were me, I’d be selling MacOS X, only support MacOS X on Apple hardware, but remove the restriction to allow it to be installed on generic pc’s at the ‘end users own risk’.
exactly. Those figures could merely be existing users buying new macs or another one. It doesn’t mean they’ve increased their user base at all. Speaking of which why do they insist on doing the us vs. them commercials? Commercials showing what they can do on its own merits are far more interesting to me.
Not a bad article on the whole (the Enterprise one). In particular I like the philosophy of using Boot Camp as a dual boot environment of the user’s choice.
Although it should be pointed out that the author of this piece seems to think Boot Camp is an emulator when it’s not. The hardware is there, it does not need to be emulated. Boot Camp simply “teaches” Windows how to use it. And it’s Intel Mac only, not simply OS X 10.4.5+
“Apple’s sales in all likelihood haven’t changed their market share standing at all.”
I don’t think so either, at least not their desktop OS market share. It seems a good portion of their growth is attributed to iPod sales. Also, I’ve known a few people who have upgraded their Mac computers recently – that equals sales, but not increased user base. Also I think their products have a higher profit margin that other brands, so even a slight increase in sales results in a noticable jump in earnings.
I do think that OS market share could potentially upswing though, over the next couple of years as consumers begin to upgrade their XP machines and have to choose between Mac or Vista. Apple also continues to get good reviews for their laptop products.
-Bob
I think the point though is that user base does not equal market share. Market share is simply how much you’re selling. People have been arguing for years that Macs last for longer and so have a larger user base than market share. You seem to have suddenly, um, tried to make the exact opposite argument!
Market share is how much you’re selling, but how much you’re selling relative to the total number of sales. You can sell 1 million in Q1, 2 million in Q2, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you gained market share. Sales numbers for other manufacturers would have to stay pretty constant, or increase at a smaller rate than yours in order to increase your market-share.
“Also I think their products have a higher profit margin that other brands, so even a slight increase in sales results in a noticable jump in earnings. ”
mmh. But if the jump increase is calculated in percentage, no matter how much high your profit margin were, a 88% increase on profit over the same product with the same margin would mean a 88% in sales. Your reasoning doesn’t work, unless Apple decided to rise their margin for their products in the last year, which would mean more earnings VS less sales, or if their offer got completely mixed up, which would render any sales/earnings comparison usless…. But that’s another story.
In my opinion the macs are one of the best looking computers you can buy. Of course DELL and HP have their designers, too – but Apple is well known for theier good designers.
And I think the computer are just more “complete” than others. You got a really high quality webcam, a good microphone, a in my opinion complete software package that works hand-in-hand togehter.
And I think Mac OS X had technologies in 2004 that Vista has got in 2006. In my opinion, OS X is just clever desigend and easy to use.
But hey, that’s just my opinion.
In my opinion the macs are one of the best looking computers you can buy. Of course DELL and HP have their designers, too – but Apple is well known for theier good designers.
Dell computers are ugly as hell and HP computers aren’t much better. Most Sony computers are decent, Asus is nice, and my personal favorite is the clean and functional design of the Thinkpad.
Asus is nice? You don’t know what are you talking about. Dell is ugly, but its inside is well designed. I prefer buying used Dell now over generic pc. Of course Mac is the best, I love my MBP.
Asus is nice? You don’t know what are you talking about. Dell is ugly, but its inside is well designed. I prefer buying used Dell now over generic pc. Of course Mac is the best, I love my MBP.
You’ve got to be kidding me. Dell notebooks have to be the most hideous, bulky, and crappy notebooks I have ever seen. They used to be a lot better but their products now are chintzy. You know we’re talking about physical design right?
As far as Asus goes what seems to be your problem with their design? They look much better than the garbarge you can buy at Circuit City or Best Buy.
I own a Thinkpad because it is the best combination of internal and external design. It’s sleek on the outside but has active hard drive protection, an alloy/carbon fiber body, and a roll cage on the inside. It’s also relatively simple to take apart, has thick metal hinges, and a scratch resistant surface. An all around winner to me.
Macs look nice but they don’t seem to be very durable. They are still made out of plastic like Dells.
“Dell computers are ugly as hell and HP computers aren’t much better. Most Sony computers are decent, Asus is nice, and my personal favorite is the clean and functional design of the Thinkpad.”
I disagree. My Dell Dimension 5100 tower is a very elegant case. The only thing I dislike about it is the optical drives are held in by this odd spring device instead of being screwed in. The end result is an occassional humming that is really annoying. I’ve considered a few times just getting a regular case and transferring all the parts due to that design.
“The Mac is clearly gaining market share, with sales growing 36 percent — more than three times the industry growth rate,” Mr. Jobs said.”
36% is nothing in real numbers if this is only 3% of market. Clearly gaining?
I don’t blame Jobs for PR though I have heard this one for pretty long time. Evidently not really efficient PR as real gain did not change. 3% of computer market share remains 3% for long time.
If someone has 5x bigger market share then 10% growth is bigger in the real numbers
worldwide its at 2.49 (up from 2.24 a year ago), but in the US it finally hit 5%, so that’s good.
Apple was number 4 in U.S. hardware sales amongst all personal computer companies in the prior quarter. This is not something reported by Apple but by an independent party.
Mac OS X itself is not incredibly strong in sales overall compared to Windows but that’s to be expected when drug stores, discount stores, warehouse stores, and electronics stores all carry Windows machines.
Mac OS X has something slightly over 5 % in U.S. marketshare and slightly over 2 % world wide. This has little to do with installed base. Apple recently reported that there were over 17 million active machines running Mac OS X.
There are also many machines in graphic design still running Mac OS 9, even on 68040 processors. Some of those machines are over 10 years old now.
I’m sorry, but that’s a meaningless statistic.
I like Apple, and dislike msft. But, that statistic is designed to be misleading.
The three companies ahead of apple in hardware sales, all sell the same platform. And there are many other PC makers that all sell the same platform. So the bottom line is msft has about 96% of the desktop market, and apple has about 3%.
Our Company buys used all the time, (avoiding the “drive the car off the lot tax”) and these Mac perform very nicely.
Get one and slap a bunch of drives in, RAID them
http://www.macworld.com/2006/10/features/macprohd/index.php
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/MacPro_HardDrive_DIY.pdf
… then,
/New Jersey accent/
forget about it
/New Jersey accent/
Really you owe it to yourself to give a whirl.
Used Mac Dealers:
http://lowendmac.com/dealers/index.shtml
… why those other vendors generally still haven’t figured out how to make really nice looking hardware and compete with Apple on that field.
Let’s talk laptops because that’s where the growth is.
I see a lot of ugly machines where I work.
Only things I have a weak spot for are those tiny ThinkPads.
Actually, only Sony has been producing a few very nice laptop models that are actually (imho) prettier than the Macbooks. Then there are still only a very few models that have really been *designed*. All the other HP, Dell, Acer, etc. stuff is just hideous and materials are inferior (so are Apple’s plastics but you have to be better to beat them).
It doesn’t help that only Apple pcs can be loaded with Mac OS X either, of course.
But assuming most people can keep up with Windows for the time being, if the other vendors will wake up we will at least see some fresher designs in the sometimes very dull world of computing.
Then I will, isn’t it priceless, tell another secret.
“It’s the models, stupid!”
The competition has, say, four laptop lines with ten possible configurations each. Each and every laptop has annoying pseudo-technical number names such as 6310MT or EV67sfx or whatever. Most sane people get headaches when they try to figure out where the differences are.
Apple, otoh, has a relatively limited number of products, and choice is basically decided by black, white, price, screen size, and the occasional choice between DVD/CD-RW combo or DVD/CD writer (amazing in this day and age, by the way).
It is beyond me that most of the competition haven’t figured out that type of simplicity and good design yet. Given the fact that there’s quite a bit of money to be made.
I guess it’s a matter of time.
Here is what I have observed with my group of friends.
Two years ago: only two had Macs (both are gfx designers).
Today: six of us have Macs (including myself), and none of the switchers are involved in any sort of media design.
I also see Macs being used more in my field of work (web application development). All of the developers at the company that I currently work for have MacBook Pros. Most of the Ruby on Rails community in Toronto use Macs. Even the CTO of my ex-employer (which is an ASP.NET development shop) has switched.
Also, I’ve noticed a change in how people react to Macs … it used to be that techies that I met generally ridiculed people who owned Macs. Now most of them want one.
Apple will probably sell this year around 7 million Macs, half of them (3.5 million) will be switchers from Windows, I believe that Apple is quickly approaching a decisive moment of continues growth.
Edited 2007-04-26 20:28
If there is one mac sold for every 2 general x86 computers sold, and the market continues to increase in numbers of total computers ON the market, then Apple will have to increase sales, just to keep the same market share.
Market share really doesn’t mean much.
Apple will get marketshare gains, because of Vista. They should lower their Mac prices to increase marketshare even more.
Apple doesn’t care for market share.
It does care for margins, revenue, and profit.
If Apple lowers their prices, many customers will start to think there’s something wrong with Apple’s stuff.
That’s what the idea “business model” is all about.
“If Apple lowers their prices, many customers will start to think there’s something wrong with Apple’s stuff.”
They can charge a REASONABLE price, increase marketshare and still make a sizable profit.
“They can charge a REASONABLE price, increase marketshare and still make a sizable profit.”
Define “reasonable”. PC’s are sold at below the cost to make them. The money they make is from upgrades and service. Apple charges a realistic price for their systems because they are built without needing “upgrades” or service and thus they can charge a real price-profit ratio.
“Define “reasonable”. PC’s are sold at below the cost to make them. The money they make is from upgrades and service. Apple charges a realistic price for their systems because they are built without needing “upgrades” or service and thus they can charge a real price-profit ratio.”
Do they really need an 88% profit increase? If they lowered the prices, they could probably get many new customers that are disgusted with Vista. If Apple”s prices were “realistic”, their marketshare would be much higher than it is.
I work at a university with Oracle and Banner. I use an aging G4 there and a Mini at home. It was amazing how quickly the PC or Windozer techs want a Mini or above now. They’re also getting hooked into Linux as well on their PCs.