Macs Not As Popular As Fans Believe?

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Despite a whopping 67% increase in fourth quarter profits and increased sales, Apple still has a relatively small percentage of the overall PC market.

According to IDC, Apple's market share is considerably higher, reaching 6.3% at the end of the third quarter of 2007. That's compared to a 5.7% market share at the end of the same quarter last year, a 15.9% gain. Still, that's a tiny sliver of Dell's 28% market share an HP's market share of 24.3%. Either way you slice it, even though in the echo chamber of the blogosphere it seems like Apple is dominating, Macs are still a relatively minor player when it comes to market share.
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I would imagine the profit increase came from their new iPhone and their popular iPod lines.
 
Steve... Don't be a tool.

Nobody anywhere is claiming that the Mac is dominating or even close to it. But 6.3% is still a 50% increase in market share in just the past year or two. And that's significant, any way you slice it.
 
Centauri said:
Steve... Don't be a tool.

Nobody anywhere is claiming that the Mac is dominating or even close to it. But 6.3% is still a 50% increase in market share in just the past year or two. And that's significant, any way you slice it.
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Whoa nelly, calm yourself.

He's being an objective reporter. He's not saying that the profit isn't significant. All he's saying is Macintoshes are still where it was in popularity as before.
 
NPR this morning said it was 8% if I recall correctly, mainly due to the appeal of the iPhone and iPods encouraging people to then buy a Mac.

Whatever the percentage is, good for Apple I guess.
 
Mac laptops are crazy popular among college kids. Which is beyond me, as theres no way I can afford one... and I'm a college kid.
 
There is a website that tells me macs are not as popular as PC's

NO WAI! :eek:
 
Maybe I'm alone in the boat, but maintaining this PC/Mac distinction is getting really lame. They're both personal computing machines. Dumb things never die though. Look at TXT lingo, derived from the primitive chatroom lingo invented by the juvenile minds of the early AOL days. :D
 
The question also remains: are these gains an artifact of a new product line, or a true increase in consumer base?
 
mdameron said:
Mac laptops are crazy popular among college kids. Which is beyond me, as theres no way I can afford one... and I'm a college kid.
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You are right. We sold TONS of them at the University owned computer store I worked at for a while. A surprising majority of them were $2000+ MacBook Pro models.

The truth is that none of these kids can afford a computer like that…. But their rich parents can!!
The fact that Macs are more expensive than a Dell (the dell laptops we sold were typically around the $800 mark) actually helps Apple with the college student market share.

Having a MacBook Pro is a status symbol just as much as fancy clothes or a BMW. Only poor kids get stuck with a Dell. ;) (BTW, i love my 5 year old Dell laptop).
 
Any article that has the word "Fanboys" in the title doesn't even warrant my attention...
 
I've said it a million times, and until it's fixed it warrants saying again: PRICE, PRICE, PRICE!!! People can NOT afford to spend $1000+ on a computer. The cheapest Mac is $600, and you'll also spend $400 on peripherals and a monitor; a REAL Mac (iMac, MacBook, etc.) is even more expensive than the Mac-wanna-be-Mini. I don't know if Apple simply thinks they are "better than" the people in that price point or whatever, but hardware is cheap and they have a low software overhead compared to big OEMs since they develop everything internally. Until Apple can get an all-in-one Mac down to the price of the $299 all-in-one HP deal at Wally World, they are doomed to <10% market share. No amount of OS superiority can justify a $700 cost difference to the average user.

Disclaimer: I use a Mac desktop for 75% of my computing and a Windows laptop for the other 25% - I'll take MacOS over Windows any day of the week. ;)
 
lol,that's hilarious. Status with a notebook?
Perhaps I should just mod my Dell to be completely white and paint a pineapple on it to differentiate it from others!!!
 
That 6.3% is only the U.S. market. That is also just computers shipped, so it doesn't even take into account home builders. When you look at the worldwide market share, they seem as insignificant as ever.
Apple's market share constitutes a mere 3.2% of the worldwide PC market.
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Deliximus said:
lol,that's hilarious. Status with a notebook?
Perhaps I should just mod my Dell to be completely white and paint a pineapple on it to differentiate it from others!!!
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Yes, it is ridiculous I know, but having a Macbook is a huge status symbol of some kind. And not just a Macbook - a Macbook Pro.

Personally, I just look at my Dell D820 and silently laugh at how much they paid for those stupidly overpriced MacBook Pros. Seriously Apple, what's with the ridiculous price gap between the MacBook and the Pro, all for an extra 1.5" on the screen size?
 
stonedwaldo420 said:
You are right. We sold TONS of them at the University owned computer store I worked at for a while. A surprising majority of them were $2000+ MacBook Pro models.

The truth is that none of these kids can afford a computer like that…. But their rich parents can!!
The fact that Macs are more expensive than a Dell (the dell laptops we sold were typically around the $800 mark) actually helps Apple with the college student market share.

Having a MacBook Pro is a status symbol just as much as fancy clothes or a BMW. Only poor kids get stuck with a Dell. ;) (BTW, i love my 5 year old Dell laptop).
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Good point. I am at a High School which has a Laptop program, that gives us Adobe CS3, Office 2007, etc... Our grade was the first to get them (we are seniors now) and we got Dell Latitudes loaded with apps.

Some students have gotten their parents to go get them MacBooks, "Because they break less and are better, because the school machines never work..." The school image is great, and the "problems" the kid had with PC are still there on their Mac... I am that guy who knows about Computers in most of my classes, and these whiny girls don't get why they can't print to network printers from THEIR Mac (domain registration is the real issue), why M$ outlook doesn't work on their Apple, etc...

There are 6 brats who have gotten "their own" laptops because the $2500 school one never worked... (they work, but the school administration is not so fond of limewire, gaming (they get low end intel gfx on purpose), torrents, youtube; so the kiddies complain...) 3 Girls got Mac's, 1 Male got a Mac, 1 female (an Oreck, you know, the vacuum cleaners) got a Gateway, and one female who NEVER USED HER LAPTOP - EVER! (by her own admission she did not open it but 3 times freshman and sophomore year) got a business HP.

A number of younger females are getting their parents to buy them Mac's, and in a school of 100 per grade, that is a bit outrageous. Some of the Senior's Dells have hardware issues, (I can't play morrowind or GW anymore, but so what?) and I can understand getting a new one that will be used in college, but for Sophomores/Juniors?!?! Outrageous.

Mac's have become a status symbol... true.

I want to see the Market split for Status symbol laptops between Sony/Apple/Toshiba.

Personally, I think that the Vaio or the Portege tablet are much better than the overprices Apple.

OT: could we start abbreviating Apple as A$, they really do charge way to much $ for their products... the A$ $ price is huge... (just wanted to type A$$ and have it mean apple, Mac Fans are like the obnoxious College Football Fans of the Computer world... you just want to punch them eventually.
 
The only status buying an MBP gains you is with someone who is an Apple fan. People pay attention to big, shiny screens that are well maintained (Dell Inspiron e1705).

All you have to do is have a shiny screen, a clean desktop with a sweet background image and you have all the "status" you need/need. Spending $2500+ for it is retarded as shit.

People ooh and ahh all the time at my system and all I want is for them to go the fuck away. Little children wanting shiny toys. Christ.
 
At my college, a mac means you're either an art major, or dumb (i.e. a PC is to complicated for some reason).
 
Well, back on the news at hand of Apple having greater profits than expected and much more so even compared to last years 3Q and all without having a significant market share (those two things are of course unrelated - the profit rise and actual marketshare).

I do however wonder how large the marketshare of Apple is in the actual "personal" computer world - that is the non-business/school/state owned!

I feel like I see a lot more of MacBooks than any other individual brand when out and about - leading me to believe that at least individuals in the mobile market are a greater marketshare for Apple than those numbers quoted here (not to say that those quoted are wrong)

P.S. I'd like a MacBook Pro myself, just don't really have the use for it so I won't go and buy one - but it's not as any sort of status symbol - for me the fact that it has a decent sized screen and still just 1" thin is a big pull
Also both sides of the thing are "clean" looking and while that may be a bit vein and have nothing to do with computing (is surfing and social-networking any closer to computing !), I think it's a positive thing the other manufacturers ought to think of since a laptop is always with the owner and so a part of their looks !
 
the only reason apple is still in business is due to the ipod. perhaps they have sold a few more computers due to the ipods popularity but its certainly not from having superior hardware or software or bang for ones buck. they are a trend and just like any trend they will fade away in time.
 
I use a Dell Latitude D600 I saved from disposal; I couldn't have afforded a laptop on my own then anyways. Years later, the thing still works like a champ; its outclassed in hardware by MacBooks easily, but for doing general schoolwork, coding work, and circuit simulation, it easily pwns them. (AFAIK, Macs have damn near NOTHING in terms of usefulness in the field of EE (I'd say CE also, but sometimes you get lucky and you can run some *nix tools)).

Dunno, it probably isn't healthy, but young (college/high-school aged) people I see with a MB/MBP automatically give me a horrible, horrible first impression.

Then again, I can just imagine like some other posters, that the iPhone/iPods have unfortunately drawn some people into the Mac trap, thus increasing market share.
 
Personally I would question any article that has an attack as part of the title. (fanboys are wrong) :rolleyes:

Here is a more realistic review of the data. 30% increase in market share in the US market with the third largest maker of PC's is not something to snease at.

Dell staunches the market share bleeding while Apple sees big growth

They are above Gateway and Toshiba. Also note that these computers are often used far longer so the market share as in number of users is higher than would be assumed from a quick peek at the stats.
 
Ah dammit I can't edit...just wanted to add, that to me, the only redeeming quality of MBPs that MAY help offset its pricing is that you can Boot Camp Windows, which is one thing I'd be thankful for...
 
mdameron said:
Mac laptops are crazy popular among college kids. Which is beyond me, as theres no way I can afford one... and I'm a college kid.
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I only see them used by the liberal arts crowd at my school. Everyone that actually needs a decent laptop (engineers, maths, sciences) and all using PCs.

Macs are the shiny rims of the computer world. They serve no purpose other then to entertain those that like shiny objects.
 
Nemesis999 said:
I only see them used by the liberal arts crowd at my school. Everyone that actually needs a decent laptop (engineers, maths, sciences) and all using PCs.

Macs are the shiny rims of the computer world. They serve no purpose other then to entertain those that like shiny objects.
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I wouldn't say that. A Mac is great for people who want a simple computer that works without the quirks Windows has and is snappy. OS X offers that, which is why I use it at home. When I go to browse the internet or sync my iPod, I don't want to deal with the headace of Windows and its oddities.

Work and school though, PC all the way. As has already been said, EEs have no other choice. I laugh when I see people in the freshman engineering classes with their new MacBook, thinking to myself "If only you knew...:p"
 
You don't have quirks if you know WTF you're doing. At least, that's been my experience.

It's always my porn-addicted friends and those that don't know what a driver is that pissing and moaning about how their pc doesn't work.
 
Why does it really matter when you can just install vista on macs now..... Mac = PC however PC != MAC without hacking.

Crazy world.. lol
 
Vashypooh said:
Why does it really matter when you can just install vista on macs now..... Mac = PC however PC != MAC without hacking.

Crazy world.. lol
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Depends on how far you look into things. You can call putting an x86 processor in a Mac "hacking" in order to get Vista on it, wheras PC computers need no hardware changes to run MacOS.

OTOH, x86 Macs don't need software hacks, while the PC does.

Then the question becomes "what for?" PC can already do anything Macs can, and for the most part, visa versa. The only thing Mac lacks is software support. Once they get that squared away, then things might get really interesting.
 
Nemesis999 said:
Macs are the shiny rims of the computer world. They serve no purpose other then to entertain those that like shiny objects.
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Firstly, that was freakin hilarious, hahaha
Vashypooh said:
Mac = PC however PC != MAC without hacking.
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And a PC has absolutely 0 reason to want to run anything from a Apple computer. An Apple computer has that option for the simple reason that you can't do a whole bunch of shit on it normally.

Non-Apple PC users can run Windows, Linux, Unix or whatever the hell they want. There is no need to look to Apple for anything.
 
^^^
No Final Cut Pro, which can be a big issue for some people as it's incredible easy yet powerful compared to the PC offerings.

And some people will pay more to avoid spyware and viruses. It's the biggest reason I want my parents to dump their PC and get a mac, so I don't have to reformat their computer every three months thanks to my mother opening every damn email she gets.
 
Vashypooh said:
Mac = PC however PC != MAC without hacking.
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Did you think that through? A Mac equals a personal computer, but a personal computer does not equal a Mac? How does that make any sense? A personal computer is personal. A Mac is personal; the majority of Macs you come across aren't networked in some middle school computer lab anymore. The operation system does not define the machine. The PC acronym is generic nowadays. Consider them Mac PCs if you need baby steps. ;)

Regarding spyware, well, it's pretty dumb to sell a computer because you don't want spyware. All it takes is an easy software solution and a little education and spyware shouldn't be a problem. Unless cookies scare you too much, I s'pose. If your parents are too stubborn to learn Firefox over IE (would learning a Mac be easier?), or update Sypwareblaster once in awhile, then sure, sell their computer for a Mac.
 
GJSNeptune said:
Did you think that through? A Mac equals a personal computer, but a personal computer does not equal a Mac? How does that make any sense? A personal computer is personal. A Mac is personal; the majority of Macs you come across aren't networked in some middle school computer lab anymore. The operation system does not define the machine. The PC acronym is generic nowadays. Consider them Mac PCs if you need baby steps. ;)

Regarding spyware, well, it's pretty dumb to sell a computer because you don't want spyware. All it takes is an easy software solution and a little education and spyware shouldn't be a problem. Unless cookies scare you too much, I s'pose. If your parents are too stubborn to learn Firefox over IE (would learning a Mac be easier?), or update Sypwareblaster once in awhile, then sure, sell their computer for a Mac.
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I thought it through very well. A Mac can do everything the regular PC can do. A PC is the "generic" term coined by apple to describe everyone but them.
 
GJSNeptune said:
Did you think that through? A Mac equals a personal computer, but a personal computer does not equal a Mac? How does that make any sense? A personal computer is personal. A Mac is personal; the majority of Macs you come across aren't networked in some middle school computer lab anymore. The operation system does not define the machine. The PC acronym is generic nowadays. Consider them Mac PCs if you need baby steps. ;)

Regarding spyware, well, it's pretty dumb to sell a computer because you don't want spyware. All it takes is an easy software solution and a little education and spyware shouldn't be a problem. Unless cookies scare you too much, I s'pose. If your parents are too stubborn to learn Firefox over IE (would learning a Mac be easier?), or update Sypwareblaster once in awhile, then sure, sell their computer for a Mac.
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I read it more as Mac can be used as a "PC" (Install Windows) easily, while a "PC" (Windows) can not be turned into a Mac (Can't install OS X easily).
 
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