66% Apple Market Share For Sales of High-End PCs

An anonymous reader lets us know about a recent analysis of retail computer sales numbers that shines a spotlight on Apple's sales growth as the PC market has flattened. In the lucrative >$1,000 PC segment, in the first quarter of 2008, Apple's retail market share was 66%. This includes a 64% market share for laptops and a market share for desktops of 70%. The article attributes the bulk of this success to Apple's stores. Fortune picked up this report and pointed out the somewhat obvious fact that the >$1,000 PC segment is Apple's by default, since Dell, HP, and Lenovo sell the bulk of their machines in the $500-$750 range, and Apple has only one model selling for less than $1,000. As the analyst said, "If you don't give people a choice [in the Apple stores], people will spend more."

masturbation in 3,2,1

fanboys GO

Re:masturbation in 3,2,1

anti-fanboys post in . . . doh!

Re:masturbation in 3,2,1

I like Macs, but didn't anyone else think, "Gee, all Macs except one cost over $1000. How could Apple have *any* growth in the sub-$1000 market?" Captain Obvious, to the rescue!

There is no judo chop.

It's all about pinning your opponent and cutting off their air supply.

How long will all the other laptop makers be able to hide the losses their "premium" laptops must be suffering because no one wants Vista? While they "race to the bottom" Apple is selling exactly the same hardware for twice as much. The only difference is software. The blackout will come soon.

Re:Style is money

If you buy a pair of ripped jeans which cost you $5 you are cheap and have no style.

If you buy a pair of ripped jeans for $50 that look like they cost $5, though, then it's a fashion statement.

$1,000 market dominance...

is exactly why I don't own an Apple. I'd love to have a Macbook Pro, but I just can't justify paying that much for yet another computer. I really think Apple would increase their market share of all systems if they lowered their prices or at least had models that started at lower prices.

Re:$1,000 market dominance...

But then they would lose their luxury lustre. The Apple brand is built around the idea that it's a luxury good that only trendy people use - the elaborate Apple stores with the people who fix your computer so you don't have to, the industrial design that looks better than the standard Dell, and the high-end specs and price. Apple makes its money because it can afford, through ruthless and effective positioning, to call itself a luxury good, and price accordingly.

Prada doesn't make cheap sunnies for the punters. Apple doesn't make cheap laptops for the punters. If either tried, they'd ruin their luxury reputation and they wouldn't be able to afford to put all that effort into making a nice-looking product.

Re:$1,000 market dominance...

The Burberry brand has been ruined in the UK by 'chavs' (that's what they call white trailer trash (minus the trailers) in the UK) all of a sudden discovering it. Even though the price of it hasn't changed (expensive stuff), the people will just buy it, no matter what. The moral of the story: no matter how hard you try to be a luxury brand, you have to always be prepared to be catapulted to where you don't want to be because of the market's whims. In that light, it helps if you have more sticks in the fire.

Re:$1,000 market dominance...

To be fair, chavs didn't just discover it. Burberry was carelessly selling to them and lapping up the extra sales and profits until they realised the damage that the -synonymous with chavs- Burberry print baseball caps were doing to their image.

It was nothing to do with chavs suddenly starting wearing the same Burberry jackets that everyone was familiar with; instead, Burberry bizarrely brought out a range of clothes that only chavs would wear.

Your example is one that perfectly points out the dangers that Apple would face if they went toe-to-toe with Dell for $500 laptops and grey boxes.

It's mis-leading anyway

Personally I think the claim is mis-leading anyway. The category is narrowly defined as not only over 1000, but also bought retail. So it's crafted to exclude all the expensive workstations and servers bought by corporations, since they don't usually just drive a truck to WalMart to buy them retail.

It's a bit like saying that Joe is the world leader in selling over-$1000 cats by Ebay and air mail. Sure, he only sold one on Ebay, but he's the only guy who sedated the cat and sent it by air mail. The rest of the people bought their cats face to face, or had them delivered by courier in a few cases. Narrow it down to Ebay and air mail, and, bam, Joe has 100% of that market.

Better invest in Joe. In fact, this year he found two stray kittens in his backyard, and plans to sell them both on Ebay by air mail. That's 100% year-on-year growth, baby. At this rate, in 20 year, Joe will ship over 1 million cats yearly. As a savvy investor, you don't want to miss _that_ boat.

In other words, it's just a PR masturbation exercise.

Re:It's mis-leading anyway

Personally I think the claim is mis-leading anyway. The category is narrowly defined as not only over 1000, but also bought retail. So it's crafted to exclude all the expensive workstations and servers bought by corporations, since they don't usually just drive a truck to WalMart to buy them retail.

I think that's a good way to define high end computers sold to average consumers. You intentionally want to exclude corporations if you are looking at the consumer purchases.

Yes, but it's still misleading

Yes, but the intersection is still mis-leading. Percentage of retail _or_ percentage of over-1000 computers could say something. (If you do understand that you are talking about a particular niche, not about the company's overall profitability or market share.) But the intersection is just a narrowly crafted niche, for PR masturbation reasons.

It's like saying that Moraelin's Fairies won the most games played on a rainy Tuesday under artificial lighting. They have a whole two games won under those conditions, while everyone else has at best one win that's on a rainy day _and_ tuesday _and_ played at night. It's trivia, at best. It doesn't make it the best team in any actual category that matters, it just crafts an artificial niche to make my team look good.

And probably more importantly, a tell-tale sign of a PR masturbation exercise, is that even that niche doesn't really support the conclusion they try to feed you. ""If you don't give people a choice [in the Apple stores], people will spend more."" Really? Exactly which part of that percentage supports that conclusion? Did they compare before and after a price hike, or what? Did Apple try to have cheap computers too, and people were going for those instead?

But even that wouldn't be visible, if you only look at the over-1000 segment. You need an entirely different sample to make that point.

No, it's very likely just a PR exercise masquerading as news.

Re:$1,000 market dominance...

"I really think Apple would increase their market share of all systems if they lowered their prices or at least had models that started at lower prices."

Companies aim to maximise profits, not market share. More sales doesn't necessarily mean more profits if those sales are achieved by lowering margins to a point where they need to sell 20 items to make the same as they currently do from one (meaning they _have_ to sell 20x as many, and also cope with 20x the support calls, carry 20x the inventory, etc.) or in the case of a company with a reputation for quality, by cutting corners in ways that result in an inferior product.

The fact that Apple are making lots and lots of money while others with significantly larger market shares are struggling means that the company obviously isn't being run by idiots who aren't capable of working out the price point for each product that allows them to maximise their profits while maintaining their very high customer satisfaction ratings.

Re:$1,000 market dominance...

Your mum would leave a dent in Panasonic Toughbook.

Re:$1,000 market dominance...

See this is what I really don't understand. $1000 is approximately £500. I earn that in one day. From here it looks like the US economy must be really going down the pan if $1000 is too much for a high end computer.

According to the British government, the median wage in the UK, as of April 2007 was £457 per -week- for full time employees. Even at the 90th percentile one would only be making £1,019/week. So you are claiming to be what? In top 1% of the income scale? Go figure such a person could afford a computer easily.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=285 [statistics.gov.uk]

Meanwhile in the US, the median wage is currently ~$35,000/year, which is ~$675/wk. Which works out to about £100 less than in Britain...

Of course, gas at even at record levels is still half the price of europe, and housing is cheaper in the US, the tax situation is different, etc... so one can't really speculate who is really further ahead based on wage alone. but a $1000 PC is FAR more than a day's pay for well over 90% of the population in either country.

Oh... according to the HDI index, the standard of living in the US is higher than UK. US is ranked 12th, UK is ranked 16th. You can draw your own conclusions from that.

But I'd have thought Britain would have scored better than that... what with everyone apparently making in a day nearly what an american makes in a week?!

Re:Free Apple!

If you have a recent box, just download and install kalyway or leo4all. Free mac for your PC.

If by "free" you mean illegal, then sure. You can say the same thing about any piece of software, but most people have at least some reservation about stealing.

When I was in high school, and even college, I pirated software. But as an adult with a job, I either buy the software or I don't use it. People can make the case for buying a copy of OS X and then using one of the hacked kernels off the internet to get it to boot on non-Apple hardware, but let's face it -- most people who download these iso images are not doing that -- they're criminals.

For U.S. Retail sales only.

These numbers don't really represent that much. They are for U.S. Retail sales. Since Apple is very dominant in the (tiny) retail computer sales industry, its not a shocker that they have high market share in a slice of that market.

If you were to count BTO computers sold over phone or internet in the U.S. Apple's market share would drop. Add the rest of the world and Apple's market share shrinks even more.

That said, Apple is gaining speed and is only going to be selling more computers for the foreseeable future.

Note to commenters

Just a friendly note to all other commenters posting in this and any other thread:

Don't be a jackass. Seriously, If you have an opinion, express it thoughtfully but avoid assigning labels to those with different opinions.

For example:
"Apple fanboys are so stupid--they'll pay too much money for a computer they can't upgrade or build for themselves."

This is how an immature person makes an argument. I know I'm asking a lot here on slashdot, but it would be great to see the above opinion expressed in the following way:

"I'm not sure it's wise to spend one's money on a computer that can't be upgraded or one that can't be assembled from parts you pick for yourself. For me, the convenience tax and premium prices for Apple hardware are way too high to be justified."

Macintosh users should note that taking the former flamebait only reinforces the baiting behavior. You paid a pretty penny for the computer you're using to respond so try to use more than just the "CFCKYUO" keys in your response. As much as you might try, it's futile to explain the subjective nature of the "Mac experience" to the kind of person who types flamebait anyways.

Just say no to flamebait.

Re:You get...

Of course! Only the prettiest and the healthiest Core 2 Duo's are hand picked by the Intel engineers in bunny suits and lovingly put down on the MacBook motherboards.

This, of course, is in contrast to the Core 2 Duo's that goes into the Dell laptop - they're from the bottom of the barrel and they are shoveled into the sockets by some off-shored child labor getting paid 25 cents an hour, not getting that TLC that the Apple counterparts get. No wonder the Core 2 Duo's in Dells are so dysfunctional!

Re:You get...

Apple notebooks are manufactured by Quanta, the same company that makes many Dell boxes. They use the same Intel CPUs, graphics, and chipsets as Dell boxes. They use Seagate and Hitachi hard drives, like many Dell boxes.

So, where's the difference?

Re:Correction

You're joking right? It took me a few months to finally figure out how to get a RAID card in my debian box to work (Had to recompile the kernel with support for that card).

Oh and with 2.6.24 they completely changed away things were. Apparently there's IT821X kernel drivers, then there's libata. So magically when upgraded my kernel all my hd* drives are now sd* drives. But wait, with libata (or was it the IT drivers) it didn't support UDMA. So I was stuck transferring at a whopping 3-4 MB/s. Recompile again. Shit, now grub thinks my hda is sdi. Reboot again and change grub menu. Ahh, finally... no wait. I have to put a noraid=1 at the grub so that the drive doesn't enable RAID. A short 8 hours after doing a simple kernel recompile I'm back up and running.

Don't get my wrong, I love my linux home server. But in no way does even Ubuntu come close to having everything integrated and 'just working'.

There's a reason my MacBookPro is my main machine, because some days I don't want to tinker with all of that. My grandma finally wants to get online. My parent asked me what I suggested and honestly an old G4 in simple finder with a few applications: iPhoto, Safari, Mail (if that). SSH will be enabled and I'll have an account for fixing most things.

Re:Correction

Keep in mind that the Mach microkernel is not unix, it came from CMU. Some userland stuff came from the *BSD lineage, but calling OS X a "true UNIX" rings about as true as calling windows + cygwin the same.

What's your next guess?

In OS X, Mac schedules threads and allocates memory. That's about it. The rest of the kernel services in OS X either came from BSD, or were written in-house at Apple.

Mac OS X is UNIX. Read and learn. [apple.com]

-jcr

Re:Industrial design does matter

No flashing logos? On the MacBook I'm using right now there's a giant glowing Apple logo on the back of the screen. I also get the spinning disk quite a bit. =D Or how about when something happens in an application that's out of context and the Dock tells you about...by bouncing the icon until you switch over. I think that counts as a flashing logo. =D

As for not "moving my hand from one place" try moving between open files in Xcode within the same window pane without using a mouse or the touchpad. Its <option><command><left arrow> or <option><command><right arrow>. I don't mind having to use two modifiers but I do mind having to use two hands. Or how about page-up and page-down? Again, on my MacBook, for aesthetic sake, page up and down were left off. So, I have to use two hands (<fn><arrow up> to page up. Or Home and End. Is it <command><left arrow> or <fn><left arrow>. I've found it depends on the application. Will it take me to the end of the line or the end of the text? And will the cursor come with it? Or Delete. Again, depends on the application.

Yes, no stupid buttons on a MacBook (or Apple keyboard) Instead, Apple decided to appropriate the functions keys. Who needs those right? I do: Parallels or VMWare is worthless without re-assigning all the Expose and Spaces keys. <Command><F12> here I come!

Also, on my 4 year old eMachines I can click, right click, scroll and middle click without having to move my hand off the trackpad either. And, there are trackpads out there that pan too. Sure, it doesn't do it with two fingers like the Mac trackpad, but at least I get two real buttons which can then simulate a third (for true Unix goodness)

Look, my primary machine is my MacBook and I love it. Further, I do Visualization research on a Quad core Mac pro. But OS X and Apple are not the end all be all of of good design. I love the MacBook keyboard but guess what? Showed up on the Vaio first. And the matte grey finish for the hand rests? Mine are kind of scummy and discolored. I've had a bunch of Dell laptops (D610, D620, Inspiron 3200, 700m) and I've never had the hand rests of them go all scummy. And don't get me started on the Dock...

P.S. I think the m1330 is actually a pretty nice piece of kit. Its designed well and its got discrete graphics and can be had for cheaper than a MacBook if you wait for a sale (which happen about every other day).

Re:Price != High End

FACT Apples have always been about the same OR BETTER priced compared to equal PC's

Exactly. I once wanted to order a HDD which failed. I opened up the case and have seen an ordinary Hitachi 250GB drive with SATA. Apple wanted about 3 times the price, because they say they "test them very thoroughly and this is not such crap that other PC customers get". Yeah right... do I look that naive? As if they got special HDDs with blessings from Buddha personally.

FACT Apple has always been at the top of the list for quality and customer service

Exactly. I waited 2 weeks for the HDD replacement in my Xserve RAID system. This was an expensive "applecare" contract. This contract said, someone would come and replace the drive. Instead the HDD was shipped. They also wanted the failed disk back.

FACT one of the reasons Apple is doing so well right now is Redmond fanboys are buying Macs to run Vista on...even the PC mags agree that MacBooks are the best windows machines out there.

No. People buy Macs, because they feel somehow better. They want to have a moment of pride. Well, after short time, all the attention to the Mac is over, because everyone has to do their fucking work. Now, as you mention it. There are 2 colleagues here that have Macbooks Pro. So what? They still use MS-Windows XP on them.

I have a simple FreeBSD notebook here and can do my work without MS-Windows.

FACT sub $1000 PCs are crap..thats why most people that go to Dell's site to buy one of those $500 PCs leave spending around $1500

Who the hell buys complete PCs? I recently upgraded my old PC for just $300. It is over twice as fast as my last PC. And btw, I can construct an entire PC, part by part, and it runs without any problems for just $200 more. And it has a very decent quality, it is not comparable with any PC that companies like Dell sell (I have not single no-name component). Go and buy 1GB RAM more in Apple shop. They charge you about 10x as much. My PC parts are carefully chosen. They are not crap at all. I simply choose good quality prodcuts and try to find out which have a decent price at the moment according to their speed and power requirements. You won't have this choice with Apples.

Re:Price != High End

your graphics designers are tards...video cards have almost no effect on 2d graphic programs. oh and MacBooks with 3D cards are called MacBook Pros ...and no sorry they don't have battery sucking video cards designed for gaming...Apple builds computers for grown-ups

For your interest, there are also 3D graphics designers. While I have to agree that laptops aren't the best platform for rendering these graphics, Apple just doesn't offer any viable products for this special task.

FACT Apples have always been about the same OR BETTER priced compared to equal PC's

I don't know why I spend my time on an obvious fanboy, but this is just ridiculous. Do 800+ bucks RAM-upgrades ring a bell?
And the rest of your FACTs sound just as plausible as Microsoft's 'Get The Facts'