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124 Comments
- longofest, on 10/12/2007, -4/+31Yeah, the guy's site is called switchtoamac.com, but he is just pointing out that everyone is doing a bang-up job (in the negative sense) reporting on the recent MarketShare.com numbers.
Digg user 'ajkdajkd' summed up the discrepancy well... The MarketShare numbers are separating the PPC and x86 versions of the MacOS, so you have to combine them to get the accurate number.
One last thing though... The share didn't increase 24% year over year in wholistic terms... it increased 24% of what it was. It's not like Mac now has 24% market share. That could throw some people for a loop... - omaryak, on 10/12/2007, -3/+23If you think a 24% year-over-year increase means that Apple's market share is now at 24 percent, you have problems.
- picaman, on 10/12/2007, -6/+23The name of the website (switchtoamac.com) notwithstanding, the article is an exhaustive and unbiased examination of the FUD that goes into maintaining the illusion that Mac market share is static or declining.
Splitting the reporting into two sets of numbers for G4 and Intel Macs, and then basing conclusions on one set of numbers to the exclusion of the balance, is clearly intentionally deceptive. - ajkdajkd, on 10/12/2007, -8/+25Read the article and you'll see the breakdown of data. It's not made up. What people have missed is that Apple's market share is now broken up into Mac OS and MacIntel. When the two are added together, it shows Apple's market share is rising.
- cgreer00, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13I am an IT professor and a lot of my campus is switching to Apple. Just in the past year we have had 5 professors in my department switch to Apple, and I have personally seen several of my students replace their aging Dells with the new Macbooks.
- babakshirazi, on 10/12/2007, -9/+20
This ought to be obvious for anyone who's ever visited an Apple store. They are always packed. - mikaelc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Mac Market share for August 2006 is 3.71%(MacOS) + 0.62%(MacIntel) = 4.33%
Mac Market share for December 2005 is 4.35%.
This is the reason people (IMO correctly) claim the curve has flattened out.
What the author points out is that as compared to August 2005 (3.48%) there has been a (relative) 24% increase.
As a sidenote, the current Mac Market share almost exactly matches the market share for Microsofts unsupported OS'es (95,98,ME,NT): 4.36% - Quix, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13"from a purely business standpoint all I can do is shake my head"
Yes, Mike, I can see why you would shake your head, since Apple is one of the few computer makers ACTUALLY MAKING MONEY (yes, much of which comes from iPod), they keep reporting record profits, they're building new retail stores all over the map (and store sales are booming), and with their tiny marketshare the possibilities are tremendous. Dell WISHES it could see a market share increase of 24% in today's PC market. Apple could easily TRIPLE its market share over the next few years. And the stock has performed fantastically over the past few years compared to share-price flatliners like Dell and Microsoft. Sounds like a pretty good position to be in from my perspective.
Your "business standpoint" needs a reorientation. - steveoa3d, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14Yeah I have to agree with that, we have one Apple Store in Wisconsin and I'll go in and let my 4 year old play with the iMacs that have games on them for the kids and watch the steady line of custommers leaving with MacBooks and iMacs (and some iPods too). When that store opened two years ago they had some people in store but now it's getting more and more packed every time I'm in there. You NEVER see that many people at a CompUSA or BestBuy. Every Apple Expert (or whatever they call them) is helping someone at all times.
Quite amazing growth from the look of it to me ! - Quix, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Allow me to be the first to officially welcome lakawak to the "Official Nonsense-Spewing Apple Haters on Digg Club." Make sure you contact flag564 for your club t-shirt and decoder ring.
- bigbeefe, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Knoxville just opened a store this summer and I know a couple guys that work there. They are selling computers like crazy. They also said most of them are first time apple buyers. That's here in Knoxville though I have no idea what its like elsewhere.
- xoineg, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13Apple is getting more market share, just go to a college campus and see what all the kids are using...most of them have apple laptops. I see them in the subway, the bus, and on the parks. And remember since they have such a low market share an increased of 1 or 2 % is huge for them cause they make a lot of profits. Maybe in the near future they will increase to somewhere like 20%. While i like them a lot, some people can afford macs that easily as a PC and apple won't create a crappy mac so cheap and affordable is very hard for them (apple). the 24% is over their old market share.
- weareglass, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9What's important to take note also is that this is GLOBAL. Apple has a much higher percentage of the U.S. markets and certain others, while it's barely used at all in other parts of the world. We see lots of people buying new Macs here in the U.S., but what percentage of the global share are we? We must be down lower than 50% of wired households by now eh?
- orbz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8My University is overflowing with mac laptops. not literally.. but i see one of them, and they tend to be sparkling new intel ones, for say every 3 pc laptops around...
- VolsFan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Yeah, any time I go to the Knoxville store, I see way more people walking out with computers than with iPods. Especially during the tax-free weekend a month or so ago. :) But even since then, that store is selling a lot of Macs.
- liangdliang, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8How can people take the position that the article is inaccurate. Just look at the data and do the math. If you can't figure it out, google the equations for percent increase and percent decrease. It's basis math. The article is ACCURATE.
Have any of you ever read financial statements or analyzed a public company's earnings? Wall Street ALWAYS looks at year-over-year and quarter-to-quarter comparisons to guage how a company is performing. The article at switch to a mac does just that. - etherbob, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I've noticed the same thing at the University where I work in the central IT dept. We just bought around 30 MacBook Pro's for just our department. Don't know how representative this is of the "real world" but I seem them all over the place on campus.
- Quix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"And hey, I can make up lies too. I have 35 friends who were huge Mac fans, but they all switched..not only to Windows, but to Dell!" So my 35 friends beats your 3 and 5. Hence, their market share decreased."
You can make up whatever lamer horsecrap you want, lakawak, I can only speak from my ACTUAL EXPERIENCE.
P.S. Are you really flag564? - zang74, on 10/12/2007, -2/+64.4% of overall computer sales is not a small number when one factors in that a good portion of windows-based computers are being sold for corporate uses like work terminals, servers, etc. I'm willing to bet that in terms of sales of computers for the home, Apple would be up around 15-20% now. I know many many people who want to, will be or have bought brand new Apple machines in the last year. Many of whom were holdouts who said they'd never buy a Mac.
- liangdliang, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Are you people able to read?
Neither the article nor the headline states that Apple has 24% market share. What is says and explans is that their market share grew by 24%. It's a rate of growth you idiots.
Go back to school and re-learn reading comprehension. - Quix, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6"How much of that 24% is actually NEW marketshare? Is this from users switching from a PC, or simply Apple consumers finally getting a decent upgrade out of Apple."
As I posted in my comment on the digg yesterday that showed Apple's numbers stagnant or decreasing (the Apple haters were giddy with delight), I can only speak from my own experience. Three people among my close relatives/friends have recently (within the last year) switched to Mac and others plan to. So in my circle, there are now 4 Mac users where before there was one. And no one I know that uses a Mac has switched to Windows. I'm sure other Mac users could share similar stories.
And I have ditched my PC at home once and for all. I thought I'd rely on BootCamp or Parallels to meet my Windows needs, but I haven't even had to do that (yet).
Per Apple, half the people buying Macs at their retail stores are users switching from the Windows platform.
So no matter how the numbers are spun, the Mac user base is growing, at the expense of Windows. I don't know how fast or far it will go, but there's definitely an upward trend.
I hope it stays small enough to avoid the virus/malware plague that infests Windows (the primary factor that chased some of my "switcher" acquaintances to Mac), but gets large enough to ensure a healthy developer base, new innovation, and solid profits for Apple.
I'm definitely holding my AAPL. - philonous, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6But, that's why Apple stock is doing well. For Microsoft to go from 95% market share to 97% is pretty damn difficult, but Apple's share can realistically rise from 4.5% to 7%, and this means a huge rise in profits.
Plus, Apple will be stealing more users from the *nix side of the user base. At least, I know far too many *nix gurus who are all too happy to give up a little bit of the unix features to gain Apple's interface. - heyitsme23, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4agreed. And I read a while back a survey at a few colleges that came out with students haveing about 75-80% macs, and mostly laptops. Who cares about market share, that takes into account millions of businesses that have data and call centers with endless rows of dells?
- torklup, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6The market share is still really small, though... circa 4.5%... :-/
- tnwake, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7They may have had a 24% increase over the number of users from 1 year ago. But that doesn't mean their "market share" increased 24% or that it even increased at all. Your total number of users can increase while your overall market share decreases if your competitors add a lot more users than you. Title is misleading at best, marked as inaccurate.
- FelixdaaHack, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Apple's stock is all over the place. Easy to show both increasing & decreasing value.
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickchart.asp?symb=AAPL&sid=609&o_symb=AAPL&freq=1&time=8 - colincornaby, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4No, the article says quite clearly it's a %24 jump in market share, not user base.
- tinygibbles, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4How could a great, secure, fun to use OS coupled with sexy, stylish harware with the brand identity of intel and the ability to run mac and windows applications at killer prices possibly gain market share? Does the public have a brain or something??
- cgseller, on 10/12/2007, -1/+425% increase when you have 3% is hardly measurable. These changes are probably largely impacted by sampling error. Without big brother tracking, usage is simply random sample questionnaire or non-random sampled queries or browser stats. The stats are highly unscientific and would get thrown out I'm sure by any peer review.
It would be nice to know how they picked their sample size, how they feel their sample size accurately represents a cross section of all users, etc.... - FelixdaaHack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3not with $50!!!! swings
- Stopher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Just to put this in perspective, if you had a 1% market share and you went up to 3% you've increased 200%
Is a 24% increase of 3% of the market that exciting? What's that a .75% increase? - lumbergh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Dude, quit it. You're making us happy, intelligent Mac fans look bad. Represent.
- heyitsme23, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3growth rate is different, its not a percentage based on 100, its like if you went and bought 6 pencils and you had 1, your growth rate is about 600%, but out of 100 you end up with a 7% share.
- 16x9, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4> MyKungFu wrote: "Reported as inaccurate."
And it's inaccurate because... - tnwake, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Nice logic, are you really that stupid and closed minded?! Using that line of thinking the Atlanta Braves must have 95% of the baseball fans market share since that's the team that 95% of the people I see here support. Conoco must have 0% of the gas station market share since there aren't any here. Apply that logic to any situation and it sounds just as stupid as your original statement.
- EtherGnat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Any data based exclusively off of web traffic reports is suspect--even if there are 40,000 sites participating in the research. I'm sure Apple has seen an increase in marketshare but their absolute and relative numbers cannot be determined from this information.
It remains to be seen whether this in a one-time increase due to pent up demand for new hardware or it is sustainable growth. It should also be pointed out that if Microsoft's total market share were to grow 1% with the release of Vista--capturing an additional 0.95% of the total market--it would be enough to offset Apple's "24%" growth (0.84% increase of total market share).
If you assume the numbers in this article are representative (possible) and Apple can continue this growth rate indefinitely (highly unlikely) they would overtake Windows in about 11 years. - nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3It's a small percentage, but the market is pretty huge.
- Kazrog, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Great, sober, unbiased article.
- FishPoisonCon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Apple's Mac OS Market Share Rises 24 Percent Year Over Year"
"Apple's Mac OS Market Share Rises to 24 Percent Year Over Year"
there is a big difference between these two statements. some of us get it, some of us obviously don't. - 16x9, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3> lakawak replied: "inaccurate because it is an obviously biased website basically saying "Ignore all the sites that have their own facts to say Apple is losing market share. Only pay attention to ours!""
And assuming for the moment that the "Switch to a Mac" people aren't lying or intentionally misleading (and I have no reason to think they are), then what would you have them say? Are you suggesting that they simply ignore their own results because they contradict what another group is claiming?
By the way, contrary to the wording in your comment ("all the sites"), to my knowledge it is ONLY one reputable organization that is claiming that there is a tiny drop in Mac OS adoption.
Furthermore (and I hope someone corrects me if I am mistaken about this), for reasons I can't quite understand, this group has split up Mac OS into separate PPC and Intel camps. These are BOTH types of Apple Macintosh OS X machines and while the hardware under the hood is different, there is NO difference in user experience. - daron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's no suprise that the same people here who prefer windows over OSX can't seem to distinguish between 24% growth in marketshare vs 24 % total marketshare.
I guess that inability to think straight but still have a fixed opinion is the reason why they bought Windows boxes in the first place
Sad :-( - DelMonte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"And hey, I can make up lies too".
Usually, Mac haters leave that part out and just flat out lie:
"My hand caught on fire while operating my MacBook in fire for the second time!"
The funny thing is that Mac haters believe that Mac fans make up stuff because they do it themselves. They justify their own lies because they just can't believe what Mac users say. The reality is that Mac users don't need to make stuff up.
I got many friends and people I know that hated the Mac before and now are seriously considering one, especially since the move to intel. The change is obvious to any Mac user, the attitude of the masses toward Macs have changed dramatically over the last few years. - zang74, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4What exactly do you have against Apple gaining market share? Has your PC suddenly stopped functioning because of it? Has MS been run out of business because of it? No. SO WHY DO YOU CARE? Arguing about Apple's share growing or shrinking only serves to show it bothers you, for whatever inane reason, when in reality it doesn't affect you one single bit.
- ziadoz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Apple isn't going to storm the market all of sudden. Welcome to reality, enjoy your stay!
- cgreer00, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Not lying whatsoever, why would I need to?
- Quix, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4"Apple does not have anywhere near 24% of the market share on anything except probably portable music devices. That's why it's being marked as inaccurate."
tnwake, it's your reading that's inaccurate. The article doesn't claim Apple has 24% market share. It says its market share has INCREASED 24%. - lumbergh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Do all the ***** like you that are posting on this thread just do it as a knee-jerk reaction to a fresh burst of apple fandom, or are you really just stupidly being in favor of a lack of competition for the wintel hegemony, which is in dire need of it, and which would apparently benefit you in the long term? Or do you just need to get laid? Which is it.
- EtherGnat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@KillerX
God I hope you intended your post to be ironic. - TimSee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I can't find one mention in the article of whether the numbers quoted were for US or worldwide marketshare but I'm guessing it's WW.
I can believe Apple grew units 24%. This is still a VERY small overall marketshare. Looking at the Q2 IDC data, Apple isn't in the Top 5 for WW marketshare and is #4 in US marketshare with 760K units. Dell is #1 with 5,437K units.
To put that in perspective, Dell's 6.4% growth in the US for Q2 was 326K actual units whereas Apple's 16% growth was 105K units. It also looks like Apple didn't take share from anyone ahead of them, just from the "Other" category - also *not* a good sign they are making any real traction.
So, yes, the growth is good. It's on a really small base...and not at the expense of any competitors. - monkeyrun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Apple's Mac OS Market Share Rises _by_ 24 Percent Year Over Year"
I Think this is the correct heading -
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