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Analyst: Mac to Gain More Market Share
by , 9:40 AM EDT, April 30th, 2007
The release of Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system may have impacted Mac sales, but Apple's still gained some market share and will likely continue to grow, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. The release of new Macs, Mac OS X 10.5, and other products will help drive that growth.
"Strong Mac sales in Apple's March quarter enabled the company to gain share despite stronger than normal PC sales," Mr. Munster said. "With Apple heading into three quarters of significant product releases (iPhone, Leopard, new iPod) and the education buying season, we expect year-over-year market share gains to continue."
Based on IDC data, the Mac held 2.6 percent of the market in the first calendar quarter of 2007. During the same quarter last year, Apple held 2.1 percent of the market.
Since Apple already has a strong position in the portable computer category, the company has a prime opportunity to gain additional market share as more consumers switch to laptops from desktop systems. The iPod and iTunes are also luring new customers to the Mac platform.
Mr. Munster commented "iPod and iTunes users are increasingly switching to Macs because they offer superior media management. And with iPhone and Apple TV, Apple has carried its lead in music into two new product categories. These products will further expand its footprint in a market with growing demand for simple solutions for digital content management.
Mr. Munster is maintaining his "Outperform" rating and target price of US$140 for Apple stock. Apple is currently trading in the pre-market at $100.15, up 0.23 (0.23%).
If you are interested in Apple's stock, join our forum members in the Apple Finance Boards, a moderated forum for Apple Investors and people who are interested in Apple's financial dealings. For other stories regarding Apple's stock activity, visit our updated Apple Stock Watch Special Report.
Observer Comments
QuoteGuest wrote:
When is Apple going to reclaim 20% market share?
Based on the current growth rate, 2042. That is assuming constant growth without any recessions, as the Mac market share has had in the past. Perhaps a better question as it is more realistic goal is when is Apple going to reclaim 3.5% market share as it had in 2002, or 3.2% as it had in 2003, or the 2.8% it had in 4th Q 2003 (those were the US numbers, not sure what these current nubmers are for domestic or international because the article doesn't state it and contains no links.).
Guest stop acting like a Blu-ray association press person. Your post attempts to imply that Apple's sale are declining, but in fact they are growing faster than the rest of the PC industry. Any reason you didn't mention Apple's 4.1% marketshare from Q3 05 or their 6.1% marketshare from Q3 06?
" When is Apple going to reclaim 20% market share?
Based on the current growth rate, 2042."
I wouldn't assume a straight line; I expect we'll see 20% way before then.
It is great to see Vista struggling. MSFT had to shoehorn 4 months into a quarter in their quarterly report to make Vista sales look good.
QuoteBiff wrote:
Guest stop acting like a Blu-ray association press person. Your post attempts to imply that Apple's sale are declining, but in fact they are growing faster than the rest of the PC industry. Any reason you didn't mention Apple's 4.1% marketshare from Q3 05 or their 6.1% marketshare from Q3 06?
I'm not sure how you read that, I never said sales were declining. Current market share growth rate is what it is. The quarters I mentioned were just what I pulled from an old post on here, but I would think that your numbers listed there show an even greater recent downward trend than the 2002 & 2003 numbers showed. Assuming those numbers are accurate, if they were 6.1% last year and are only 2.6% now, seems like they have lost almost 50% of the market share they used to have. I never tried to imply sales are declining. It is possible for market share to decrease simply because the growth of the market outpaces the growth of the product. In that case, sales go up while market share goes down. So currently, when looking at Q1 2007 vs Q1 2006 Apple's market share grew faster than the rest of the industry. But from 2003 to now, it has not grown faster. The same would be true from 2005 & 2006 if your numbers are accurate. If the market share is now 2.6% and it was 4.1% or 6.1% in the past, Apple's growth would have to have been less than the market's growth.
QuoteGuest wrote:
" When is Apple going to reclaim 20% market share?
Based on the current growth rate, 2042."
I wouldn't assume a straight line; I expect we'll see 20% way before then.
It is great to see Vista struggling. MSFT had to shoehorn 4 months into a quarter in their quarterly report to make Vista sales look good.
Absolutely, a straight line does not make sense, especially when we take into consideration that in the very recent past Apple had a greater market share than it does now. The 2042 date had the qualification that it was "assuming constant growth without any recessions." As we have seen in the numbers from IDC, Apple's market share has gone both up and down in recent years. I'm not sure I enjoy your glee in Vista's "struggle", I can't have an animosity towards an OS like that. But even when excluding "sales" from December, Vista's numbers still exceeded expectations, just not by as much, so I don't think I would characterize Vista as "struggling" exactly, although prior to these numbers Vista did receive almost entirely bad press.
in this article are world wide numbers of market share. The numbers you are quoting are US market share numbers. Sequentially, Apple's worldwide numbers went up from 2.5 to 2.6% even though Vista was introduced and supposedly created a spike in pc sales on the Windows side. It is also not fair to compare it to the march 06 quarter since those numbers were artificially depressed after Apple's Intel switch announcement.
Neal
Quotenealg wrote:
in this article are world wide numbers of market share. The numbers you are quoting are US market share numbers. Sequentially, Apple's worldwide numbers went up from 2.5 to 2.6% even though Vista was introduced and supposedly created a spike in pc sales on the Windows side. It is also not fair to compare it to the march 06 quarter since those numbers were artificially depressed after Apple's Intel switch announcement.
Neal
So how do you know that these are the world wide numbers?
QuoteAnonymous wrote:
When is Apple going to reclaim 20% market share?
Never.
QuoteAnonymous wrote:
Assuming those numbers are accurate, if they were 6.1% last year and are only 2.6% now, seems like they have lost almost 50% of the market share they used to have.
You're mixing worldwide and U.S. market share.
Full CY 2000: 2.9 percent worldwide and 3.9% in the U.S.
Full CY 2003: It slipped to 2 percent worldwide and 3 percent in the U.S.
Full CY 2006: Up again to 2.5 percent worldwide and 4.7 percent in the U.S.
As stated in the article the Mac held 2.6 percent of the worldwide market in the first quarter of 2007 according to IDC, up from 2.1 percent in the the year-ago quarter, and 5 percent in the U.S. according to Gartner, up from 4 percent in the year-ago quarter.
The Mac market share slipped between CY 2001 and CY 2003 when Mac sales failed to grow.
CY 00: 3.840 million Macs (-1.06% YOY growth)
CY 01: 3.174 million Macs (-17.34% YOY growth)
CY 02: 3.098 million Macs (-2.39% YOY growth)
CY 03: 3.098 million Macs (0.00% YOY growth)
CY 04: 3.507 million Macs (13.20% YOY growth)
CY 05: 4.742 million Macs (35.22% YOY growth)
CY 06: 5.655 million Macs (19.25% YOY growth)
Since the fourth calendar quarter of 2004 the Mac is outgrowing the overall PC market and thus the market share is increasing. Last quarter Mac sales increased by 30 percent year-over-year in the U.S., overall PC sales increased by 3 percent…
The U.S. market share is now higher than it was in 2000, the worldwide market share is about the same.
Worldwide share is something Apple needs to think about more. It is good they have more and more ex-US stores opening. I see that in Intel's latest quarterly, Intel is now selling only about 20% of their chips in the Americas, down from twice that 10 years ago. The world market size is growing.
I wonder if Apple can leverage its supposedly superior font/language support in places like China/India/Japan/Israel? Maybe somebody can offer an opinion on this?
QuoteGuest wrote:QuoteGuest wrote:
When is Apple going to reclaim 20% market share?
When is Ferrari going to get 20% market share? Or Mercedes? Or Cadillac?
Apple seems to be making plenty of profit right where it is, barely keeping up with demand now. Does it even WANT 20%? Does it really matter?
Mercedes is owned by Daimler-Chrysler, they want 20% market share. Cadillac is owned by General Motors, they have 25% of the market share. Ferrari is owned by Fiat, they recently started turning a profit allowing them to remain a privately held company instead of going public. I'm sure they'd like more market share too.
Vista's channel stuffing exceeded expectations. Not sales. MS counts licenses shipped, not licenses sold. When it is the only thing being offered to the OEMs of course the numbers will be high.
I know of exactly ONE person that has bought a Vista machine, because their ME machine was so infested is was unusable. Everybody else that I know that has/is buying a new PC are either demanding XP (from Dell, for instance) or loading on their old version of XP.
QuoteGuest wrote:
Vista's channel stuffing exceeded expectations. Not sales. MS counts licenses shipped, not licenses sold. When it is the only thing being offered to the OEMs of course the numbers will be high.
I know of exactly ONE person that has bought a Vista machine, because their ME machine was so infested is was unusable. Everybody else that I know that has/is buying a new PC are either demanding XP (from Dell, for instance) or loading on their old version of XP.
A sale is a sale is a sale. Your anecdotal evidence proves that people are able to get machines with XP instead of Vista. For quite some time, due to the court case, consumers are able to either deny getting a Microsoft OS pre-installed on a new computer, or get a refund from Microsoft. So, a sale is a sale is a sale.
QuoteAnonymous wrote:
A sale is a sale is a sale. Your anecdotal evidence proves that people are able to get machines with XP instead of Vista. For quite some time, due to the court case, consumers are able to either deny getting a Microsoft OS pre-installed on a new computer, or get a refund from Microsoft. So, a sale is a sale is a sale.
Except when it is not. Do you consider a sale of licenses to an OEM a sale of Vista? MS does. I doubt the general public does. Counting the sales to OEMs, even if the product is sitting on the shelves and not in the hands of the consumer is "channel stuffing."
Now, about your point regarding getting a new computer without an MS OS installed, I just tried to do that at www.dell.com (home or home office). There is no option to select "no OS" on the three I tried (an Inspiron laptop and two Dimensions desktops). In fact, the Inspiron wouldn't let me select anything other than some flavor of Vista. So, consumers are expected to go through the process of requesting a refund from MS if they don't want Windows on their machine? Have you ever actually tried to do that? Just curious.
But, even with that request, MS would count that as a sale of Vista.
It's pretty simple, just pick up the phone. You can't customize a Dell on the website as fully as a Dell computer can be customized. I know someone who recently go one without video cards and hard drives and hae them add a parallel port PCI card, but you can't do that on the website. Consumers are *not* expected go through the refund process. The way I suggest people buy a computer from Dell is to spend time researching the various lines on the website and what components are standard on those lines. That's what you see on the website. Then I suggest calling them and speaking with them, they are extremely helpful and will customize your computer any way you like it, with or without Vista, or even Windows at all. I wonder, can I get a discount on a Mac if I don't want Mac OS X?
Interesting. I wonder how many consumers know that they would have to do that, or even if it is an option (no OS, that is)? Dell certainly doesn't make it apparent on their website. I mean one of the supposed benefits of Dell is that you can order the customized computer online and it will be delivered to your door as you ordered it. Kind of a PITA to have to call them to order without an OS (the stuff your friend did goes outside the norms, but ordering without an OS online shouldn't be difficult for Dell). Keep in mind that the average consumer doesn't know what the options are and doesn't know about researching them unless somebody (a friend or the company) tells them.
Nice snarky comment at the end. You almost made it through without it. Almost.
QuoteGuest wrote:
It's pretty simple, just pick up the phone. You can't customize a Dell on the website as fully as a Dell computer can be customized. I know someone who recently go one without video cards and hard drives and hae them add a parallel port PCI card, but you can't do that on the website. Consumers are *not* expected go through the refund process. The way I suggest people buy a computer from Dell is to spend time researching the various lines on the website and what components are standard on those lines. That's what you see on the website. Then I suggest calling them and speaking with them, they are extremely helpful and will customize your computer any way you like it, with or without Vista, or even Windows at all. I wonder, can I get a discount on a Mac if I don't want Mac OS X?
QuoteGuest wrote:
Interesting. I wonder how many consumers know that they would have to do that, or even if it is an option (no OS, that is)? Dell certainly doesn't make it apparent on their website. I mean one of the supposed benefits of Dell is that you can order the customized computer online and it will be delivered to your door as you ordered it. Kind of a PITA to have to call them to order without an OS (the stuff your friend did goes outside the norms, but ordering without an OS online shouldn't be difficult for Dell). Keep in mind that the average consumer doesn't know what the options are and doesn't know about researching them unless somebody (a friend or the company) tells them.
Nice snarky comment at the end. You almost made it through without it. Almost.
Yeah, well, your entire post is just your apple smugness, so the snarky comment is whole-hearted. It is very interesting just how customizable a Dell computer is, and to have it as you wish delivered to your doorstep, preconfigured and ready to go (or not if prefer to do your own mods after). People who want to change operating systems are aware of how to do it, or likely to not buy that low end line of PCs and instead buy one of the lines where you can just click a button and have XP instead of Vista because it IS accessible on the website. It is uncommon to want NO operating system, but for those that want it, you are able to buy a Dell without one, and without the price of it included.
How do I order an Apple computer without OS X on it, and how much does it save me?
http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/cto_xpsdt_710?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
QuoteGuest wrote:QuoteI wonder, can I get a discount on a Mac if I don't want Mac OS X?
Why would anyone want to? Like wanting a Ferrari without the engine!
Because their design is superior? Or no, you think their design is nothing special then, it's equivalent and without OS X, the Ferrari is no better than whatever operating system you choose? Huh.
Wow. Amazing how you equate a genuine question about the Dell website and the difficulty in making a selection like that with "apple smugness". Is everybody who questions something about a PC automatically a smug Apple user? I guess to a PC fanboi like you it would always seem that way.
You really need to check your tin foil supply again.
BTW, I use both systems equally. I've used MS operating systems since the earliest days of DOS (when it was just QDOS warmed over), and every version of Windows except Bob. I'm willing to bet that you cannot honestly say the same.
QuoteGuest wrote:
Wow. Amazing how you equate a genuine question about the Dell website and the difficulty in making a selection like that with "apple smugness".
[quote="Guest"even if it is an option (no OS, that is)? Dell certainly doesn't make it apparent on their website. I mean one of the supposed benefits of Dell is that you can order the customized computer online and it will be delivered to your door as you ordered it. Kind of a PITA to have to call them to order without an OS (the stuff your friend did goes outside the norms, but ordering without an OS online shouldn't be difficult for Dell). Keep in mind that the average consumer doesn't know what the options are and doesn't know about researching them unless somebody (a friend or the company) tells them.
[/quote]
Really? All those sentences, those a questions and not comments? You need to learn how to use a question mark then!
There was only one question in your entire post, and it wasn't about the Dell website, but was about whether or not consumers know they can use a phone to order a computer from Dell.
QuoteGuest wrote:
Interesting. I wonder how many consumers know that they would have to do that, or even if it is an option (no OS, that is)?
There was no other question, but there was lot of smug remarks that ended in periods. As I pointed out, the people who want to customize a computer further than the website will allow them usually have enough initiative to pick up a phone. People trying to spread FUD about Dell don't.
Unbunch your panties. They were not comments on Dell. They were comments on Dell's website, which many on the web (and not just Mac users) have complained is one of the worst out there.
If Dell wanted to make it easy to select "no OS" then they should have made it an option on their website. I personally despise having to talk to salesmen on the phone and would rather be able to make my selections on the website and press "order".
If you take that personally, then I suggest you grow a little skin to cover those exposed nerves. Or just grow up.
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