“Apple’s consumer hit, the iPod music player, has not budged sales of the company’s core Mac computer line, according to analyst IDC. The Mac has lost market share even as resellers talked up the ‘halo-effect’ of pull-through sales from the music player, it says. With iPod sales soaring and PC users crowding Apple retailers in search of the player, market research shows the Mac brand has slipped,” Simon Hayes writes for Australian IT.
MacDailyNews Take: No, market research most certainly does not show the Mac brand has slipped. Market share can go down while Mac sales increase. A very basic concept totally missed by Hayes, it seems.
“The news comes as Apple faces a groundswell of opposition from its channel over controversial price-matching policies that position its own online store to undercut its retailers. The channel is also concerned about the ever-present threat of Apple opening its own stores. According to IDC, Apple’s share of units shipped in Australia fell from 3.3 per cent in 2003 to 3.1 per cent in 2004. Its revenue share fell from 4.7 per cent to 4.4 per cent. IDC’s figures include forecast numbers for the fourth quarter of 2004. IDC estimated the total desktop and notebook market at three million units in 2004, up from 2.5 million in 2003. Apple corporate affairs manager Martha Raupp contests the IDC figures, however. ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ she said. ‘We just reported the highest quarterly revenue and net income in Apple’s history.’ Worldwide sales and operations executive vice-president Tim Cook ‘called the results from Australia stunning,’ Ms Raupp said,” Hayes writes.
Hayes writes, “IDC analyst Michael Sager said Apple, focused on the home sector, had missed last year’s upswing in business upgrades. Total Recall Solutions [Apple Reseller] managing director Adam Connor said the mini was a tough financial proposition, however. ‘It’s difficult for us to enjoy selling cheap things,’ he said. ‘We have, however, had lots of interest from large customers who just want a cheap desktop.'” Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: In full Groucho voice: And you’ll soon have lots of interest from cheap customers who just want a tiny desktop.
An iTunes Music Store for Australia would also probably help things along, too. The headline for Hayes article, “Apple’s music boom not moving Macs,” is totally misleading. It’s not only too soon to measure whether iPod’s Halo Effect is shining down under, there’s no explanation of what exactly IDC is measuring. Any old Wintel box assembler could ship 100 Windows-based cash registers, and Apple could have sold 10 Macs to Windows iPod owners in one quarter and the next quarter, the Wintel box assembler ships 200 Windows-based cash registers while Apple increases Mac sales to Windows iPod owners to 15 Macs. The market share for Apple would go down, while the ‘iPod Halo Effect’ sales went up, but were never seen in the market share numbers. We need to revisit Apple Mac market share a few quarters or next year this time to see if we can see any meaningful information. The best measurement, it seems to us, are total Mac units sales per quarter and year over year. Market share really cannot measure the iPod Halo Effect. And we do know that Apple sold 1.05 million Macs in the just completed holiday quarter, compared with just over 800,000 in the previous quarter.
This article from Hayes is a rehash of something we’ve already covered last week: IDC VP Roger Kay sees no evidence of Apple ‘iPod Halo Effect’ based on ‘Apple’s desktop share’. Our “Take” to that article works for this one, too.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple execs now see ‘iPod Halo Effect’ clearly paying off with higher Macintosh sales – January 13, 2005
Australia has no iTunes Music Store, and thus iPod owners does not yet know how easy Apple stuff is. Therefore the halo effect is alot smaller. Once Australia gets a iTunes Music Store, then the halo effect will raise.
MDN write: “No, market research most certainly does not show the Mac brand has slipped. Market share can go down while Mac sales increase. A very basic concept totally missed by Hayes, it seems.”
If the water rises 26″ and your rowboat only rises 10″ then your boat will sink.
That said traffic to my website shows that Mac traffic is fairly consistent at 7%. I just want to know if that correlates well the the Mac’s share of the U.S. Market and in what countries does the Mac have no presence.
marketshare schmarket schmare!
These people just don’t get it. It’s like they repeat whatever they heard from someone else the day before and write it down for their editor without verifying the facts!! If I did my job as poorly and publicly as most of the reporters/journalists that I’ve read lately, I would seriously hope that I had another career lined up!
My magic word is “running”… I think I’m running out of patience with all of the bandwagonites that don’t realize that MicroSlouch is crumbling from it’s bloated weight on a critically flawed foundation!!
Whilst I agree with MDN’s take, its unfortunate from my point of view that Apple’s profile in Australia is still marginal. There is little mainstream press coverage, and the few Mac columnists in the daily papers tend to get buried in the back of the IT sections. Rarely are there any screen shots and product pictures to accompany the articles which might attract a readers attention. I am appalled by the constantly weak Mac coverage. At best I have to content myself with readers letters espousing the virtues of being a Mac owner. Thank god for the internet and the small, but vocal Mac community.
Sydney papers are consumed with covering PC drivel and when they do try to write-up Apple products invariably they are assessed by PC journo’s whose judgements and critisisms are poorly formulated at best, or down-right wrong at worst. Conspiracy or manufactured ignorance? Im not sure. I suppose they who butters their paymasters bread.
Over the last quarter Apple resellers in Australia were screaming that they couldn’t get enough product from Apple in the US to fill existing orders. If there are no Macs on the shelves, how are people supposed to buy them?
Apple really needs to buck it’s ideas up when it comes to the supply chain if it is serious about lifting both sales and market share.
Two different matters: (1) A question: what transpired at the Apple Press event that was scheduled for a couple hours after Jobs presentation at MWSF on JAN 11th? I missed hearing about the Aussie event, what with all the excitement about Steve’s announcements. The rumor was that an iTMS was going to open in Australia, but I guess that didn’t happen? Anybody know what did happen, if anything?
(2) Apple wants to sell stuff through it’s own channels, so it can keep the retailer’s markup. This is straining its relationships with independent resellers all over the world. Even though business is a cutthroat competition by nature, I don’t feel good about what’s going on in this aspect of Apple’s operations.
MDN’s headline is misleading – the drop in market share was for the year, not the quarter. And it was based on an estimate for Q4, not the actual figures. So if actual iMac G5 sales were taken into account, the picture could be markedly different.
As Martha from Apple Australia said, “You’ve got to be kidding!”
Correct me if I am wrong but the IDC report that this Hayes guy is basing a lot of his article on was from BEFORE Apple announced their Q1 results. I do hope that Apple gets an Ozzie ITMS soon and takes good care of our current (and future) Mac using friends down under.
I dunno when the IDC report was published but he obviously interviewed Martha after the Q1 results
Based on street experience, nothing could be further from the truth. Eat my shorts, Simon.
Australia is a third world economy, they export commodities (mostly mined like coal) and import almost all of their consumer and durable goods.
Sure Oz was heading forwards but has been going backwards for a few years now so it would not too suprising if the demand for good quality products is declining.
You mean they had to go to the other side of the planet to find a spot where they could write their “sky is falling” article?! (no offense to Australia)
Better get your negative Apple stories in now before Apple Australia stores, Australian ITMS, and the Mac Mini take their toll. In a few months those pre-written stories will be worthless.
Guess Poser needs to do some homework – or is he just a redneck, ignorant & introspective Yankie??
Australia sells commodities, yes, but they are dwarfed by our services sector.
Think again before writing us off – our economy’s growing a lot better than the US of A and has been for over 15 years!
Your demand for good quality presidents has been declining steadily for the last five years.
To his credit, at least HE uses a Mac!
Guess Poser: You’ve got to be kidding. Can you even find Australia on a map? Our economy has just gone through growth that has outstripped most of the world (for almost a decade), and you call Australia a “third world” country. The word “wanker” comes to mind. Troll.
I agree ITMS would help the situation, but the trend started with iPhoto albums and continues with iTunes. Fact is, all the world maps in Cupertino were made before 1770.
They continue this with the new iPhoto 05 – when SJ said “worldwide” in the keynote he really meant “North America and selected parts of Europe”: all mention of the new album features has been removed from the Australian site.
I only bring this up to suggest that Australians may be waiting much longer than we think for an ITMS.
Hopefully the Mac mini will be well promoted and make Australia’s Mac situation a little better.
And cause Bill Palmer to stop using the internet to show the world he really should be on medication.
MDN: Your take doesn’t really make much sense.
Let’s say that sales for Macs went up, but market share went down. If you interpret this to mean that the rise is due to the Halo Effect, market share going down means more and more people therefore must be SWITCHING to PCs from Macs. Is that really such a good thing?
Just because someone posts something that doesn’t look as great for the Mac community doesn’t mean we have to twist the facts to try to make it seem wrong.
-Russell
By Guess Poser … “Australia is a third world economy”
All I can say is your a misguided, uneducated individual who has no idea about the world outside your own bedroom. Kepp on tugging … you never know, you may finally reach a point of personal satisfaction.
I’m from NZ and I know Australia has a similar problem.
We pay far too much for the Products we get here and so people percieve Apple as TOO EXPENSIVE!
ok so I know it’s an old argument and Resellers have to make a profit! But I’m sorry if you want to increase market share then LOSE the Resellers and Quick!
Why? Well if you live in NZ or Aussie for that matter we pay through the nose!
How about paying US$391 for a US$299 20gb iPod?? Or say US$3528.00 for a Base line 17″ 1.5ghz Powerbook, that sell in the States for US$2,799.00??? Or a Mac Mini for US$606 instead of $499???. If you don’t believe me check out this sneaky Reseller who decided to RENT/LICENSE the Apple website for NZ (for 3 years I heard) and sell everything Marked up 25% or so!!
http://www.apple.co.nz
Now maybe this doesn’t seem to much to you rich Americans, BUT just remember your dollar is about 70cents to our $1, so a US$1000 jumps the price up a hell of a lot for us (especially if our exchange rate rises for us and the Resellers don’t pass on the changes to us! As they have done for 2 years now!!)
I mean COME ON Apple. Hurry up and open some of your awesome stores over here NZ! We want to buy your products, BUT hell, not at these prices… I wonder why people look at me funny when I talk about apple here… EVERYONE know they are TOO expensive!!
GIVE us an APPLE STORE IN NZ !!! GET RID OF THE RESELLERS BUY THEM OUT IF YOU HAVE TO!! HELP US BUY YOUR PRODUCTS!!!!
Good to see so many proud Australians here.
While I agree that Australia is not a third world country, I don’t think Apple is going to have much impact for quite some time here.
Whenever anyone sees the interface on my Mac they go “wow! what’s that!?”. It’s like they’re image of what a computer interface is automatically windows. They’ve never seen an OS X interface, and are completely unaware of its existence.
They’ve heard of Apple of course, but don’t know that there’s any differance, other than its a bit inferior and outmoded.
Some daily papaers discuss the fortunes of Apple, but there are no screenshots, or anything to put an image into people’s minds, and any IT person will look down their nose at them as a kind of mid nineties toy for artists, certainly not a serious business machine.
For Apple to have any impact in Australia, there would have to be a very concerted effort on all fronts.
Actually, I have a look at kiwistarboj’s post, and I agree wholeheartedly, we do pay a premium here. No matter which side of the Tasman you are on the currency you are working with makes everything 30% more, import tarrifs add to it, so they can never compete with local assemblers of PCs. Price, I’m afraid, is a big killer here.
The other big killer? so few games for the Mac. I tried to get my hands on Rise of Nations, its been around for quite some time on Windows (at least 6 months), and it’s still unavailable on the Mac. It makes the lack-of-software-for-the-mac mantra ring true, and any counter-arguments sound weak.
Guess Poser has a point. Since Howard came to power, education has slowly been dissolving, as well as – in my opinion – confidence in IT innovation. At the end of the day, it means we have a country of stupider people with no longer term outlook – they think a dollar saved by buying a Dell is a dollar saved forever.
On top of this, Australian business (in Sydney at least) is so Microsoft orientated, that getting a Mac in there is like pushing a needle into a brick wall.
Apple really needs to start at the top. Push the XServe into the top tier companies, and work down.
While Australia does rely on commodities and primary produce, it is not a third world economy. Far from it and Australia is far more economically stronger than the US at the moment. Indeed, Australians are the quickest in adopting new technologies in the world.
Unfortunately, while Apple has a good presence here in Australia, PCs strongly dominate the market. I confess that while I used a PC computer at work, I had never bothered to have a computer at home for about 12 years. I just didn’t see the use when I could surf the net and send and receive e-mails at work. When I was looking wound for a new computer because I wanted an I-Pod, my initial instincts were go for a cheap Dell because the PC I used at work seemed to be OK (but on reflection it was bloody slow). I bought a Mac because I desperately wanted an I-Pod and our IT Manager is a Mac fanatic and couldn’t recommend the machines highly enough.
I suspect my experience is not unusual. Apple has no presence in the corporate world and most people are just prepared to go with what they know and the cheapest in the marketplace for surfing the net and listening to music.
Guess Poser:
Re Australia and its economy – start reading some OECD reports, The Economist and stop getting your information from Microsoft Encarta 97 (which was at least 20years out of date with its info when launched)!
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You may also like to get your news and information about the rest of the world from other sources than the US guide to diplomacy.
I apologise to all the decent well informed Americans who have to accept that inference, but I tried hard to think of another nation that may produce someone so ignorant of the high living standards other nations DO ENJOY, and I’m sorry to say as a betting man (us Aussies love a wager) I have to put my money on the fact that Guess Poser is a product of an American culture that derives some of its own self value in denegrating/being ignorant of the value of other nations/cultrues achievments etc. As I said not indicative of all Americans (especially my relatives
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”cheese” style=”border:0;” /> ) but too often displayed by your fellow countrymen to be coincedence.
My 2(thirdworld) cents
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Luke
Positions on OECD Educational League tables showing comparitive standards of education 2004
Mathematics
1st – Hong Kong
11th – Australia
28th – United States
Reading Ability
1st – Finland
4th – Australia
18th – United States
Science
1st – Finland
6th – Australia
22nd – United States
Problem Solving
1st – South Korea
7th – Australia
29th – United States
Unfortunately the UK Government didn’t provide the OECD with the figures last year, so I don’t know how we racked up. However, considering we steal all Australia’s best people, I don’t think our own figures matter too much
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Dave H:
“Unfortunately the UK Government didn’t provide the OECD with the figures last year, so I don’t know how we racked up. However, considering we steal all Australia’s best people, I don’t think our own figures matter too much”