“Only 8% of the 4,427 consumers surveyed by ChangeWave in late February say they’ll be buying a laptop in the next 90 days – the lowest level of consumer laptop demand in the past 12 months,” Paul Carton and Jim Woods report for ChangeWave Research. “The same trend was seen in desktop PC purchases, with just 6% saying they’ll be buying one – also a low for the year.”
“Things weren’t any better on the corporate side, where PC buying has also slowed precipitously. In February, only 73% of 2,204 corporate respondents said their company plans on buying laptops in the next quarter – down 4-pts from a year ago. It’s the same pattern for desktops, with corporate purchases down 5-pts,” Carton and Woods report.
Carton and Woods ask, “Given such big declines, which computer manufacturers will be hurt most?”
“Despite the slowing PC environment, planned purchases of Apple Macs remain relatively strong,” Carton and Woods report. “Looking at the next three months, Apple remains the leader among consumers who plan to buy a laptop (31%) – down just 2-pts from the all-time high recorded in our previous survey. Apple planned desktop purchases (28%; down 1-pt) are also near record levels.”
“Importantly, Apple’s numbers are up more than 50% from a year ago,” Carton and Woods report.
“Corporate planned Mac purchases are also at or near record highs, as laptops (7%) were unchanged from previously, while desktops (6%) fell just 1-pt,” Carton and Woods report. “And in a clear sign PC buyers like what Apple is doing, our survey showed the company continues to set the standard for customer satisfaction.”
Carton and Woods report, “Among corporate respondents using the Leopard operating system, over half (53%) report they are Very Satisfied. This compares to a 40% Very Satisfied rating for Windows XP Pro users, and a dismal 8% Very Satisfied rating for Microsoft Vista Business (8%).”
MacDailyNews Take: In our experience, those who claim to be at all “satisfied” with any Windows version have never really tried a Mac.
Carton and Woods continue, “Clearly, the Leopard OS is a crowd pleaser.”
“Dell’s fortunes going forward are far different than Apple’s,” Carton and Woods report. “Our previous consumer PC survey showed Dell with a small uptick in planned consumer buying, but that rise appears short lived – they are once again losing traction going forward. Planned purchases of Dell laptops (28%; down 2-pts) and especially desktops (32%; down 4-pts) are considerably weaker than in our previous survey.”
“Dell is also plagued by a downturn in planned corporate PC buying for next quarter, with desktop (32%; down 3-pts) and laptop (32%; down 1-pt) purchases falling to new lows,” Carton and Woods report. ‘It’s like déjà vu, all over again,’ Yogi Berra famously said, and that’s what it looks like as Dell once again resumes its market share slide.”
Carton and Woods report, “Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) also wasn’t spared in our surveys, as they are experiencing weaker PC sales going forward – led by a big drop in consumer planned buying of desktops (18%; down 5-pts) and laptops (19%; down 2-pts). On the corporate side, planned purchases for H-P desktops fell 1-pt to 17%, while laptops dipped 2-pts to 14%.”
“One thing in H-P’s favor, however, is their strong sales overseas (nearly 70% of their total sales) – where the current slowdown is likely having less of an impact. Note that our ChangeWave surveys focus mainly on the U.S. market,” Carton and Woods report. “When we did ask respondents living outside the U.S. about Hewlett-Packard planned purchases, H-P registered higher market share numbers for consumer desktops (22%), corporate desktops (20%) and corporate laptops (17%).”
Full article and video presentation of the survey findings here.
I just wanna know about the 8% who are actually satisfied with Vista.
@Tommy Boy
Ignorance is Bliss
@Tommy Boy
Yes. What manner of creature are they, anyway?
Those are the same kind of people who stuck by Apple in the dark years…so the number should bottom out at around 2.5%
Apple’s fortune will be everyone else’s misfortune.
A friend of mine actually loves Vista on a brand new HP PC. Although, he has used my and another person’s Mac several times and likes them a lot. He has said that if he wasn’t a .NET programmer, he would switch. I’ve almost convinced him that people can make money as a Mac developer.
This is the sort of news that the dealers love.
AAPL is already up over 3%!
….. and that’s against the grain, because Nasdaq is down.
The 8% of Very satisfied Corperate Vista OS is from IT people that just will not admit that they made a mistake in going to Vista in the first place.
Waiting for the Zune Flames on the 8% Vista Satifaction rating.
damn, those are some ugly-ass microsoft excel graphs!!!
8% Vista satisfaction?
Well it’s obvious, isn’t it?
It’s those IT dweebs who try to keep it up and running. Without Vista, without Windows, just WHAT would these people do?
I mean, now that there are no more film strip or 16mm film projectors, there’s got to be SOMETHING for them to fix. Windows fits the bill. Perfectly.
@ Demon:
I think you meant to say that IT people just will not admit that they made a mistake in going with Windows in the first place.
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@ G Spank
But, remember, during apples dark years, the alternative was Windows 3.1 and then 95 for a time. There was still no comparison.
A 2% decline in the last month means Apple wil be dead 16 months from now! SELL!! SELL!! SELL!!
@Lazy European
What are you smoking?
I don’t understand the numbers presented. Did Apple lose 2% of their market share? Did the market shrink while they nearly maintained, thus growing their share? I think I understood the “50% growth, year over year”, but not certain how that contrasts to last quarter.
I recognize that my stock is up more than $10 a share! I like that. Thank you, doubters, for the silly adjustment that let me get back in at “a bargain”. Yeah, the P/E is still a bit high, but better than it was. And the hints are that it will continue to climb for a bit.
Still, these numbers are not well explained. Apparently Lazy European is even worse off than I am … 2&#xX1;6 months is almost a 1/3-loss of market share, back to last year’s numbers.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Almost *nobody* works in IT without an MCSE. And the “M” in MCSE stands for Microsoft. Expecting IT to recommend ANY machine other than a Windows machine is an exercise in futility. The only IT people I ever knew who weren’t owned by Microsoft were the ones who started in the field before there were MCSEs. IT support for Macs will happen when an MCSE becomes worthless, and businesses quit hiring people with them based on “industry standard practices”.
MDN Magic Word: “human”, as in what most IT people aren’t
The market is overall weak because of economic concerns, as many now deem a new PC discretionary. But Apple’s numbers suggest an increased market share, likely hitting the magic 10% number here in the US by the end of the year.
As to Lazy European’s “SELL SELL SELL”, he probably wishes he bought more when it broke below 120.
<< I just wanna know about the 8% who are actually satisfied with Vista. >>
I think they meant 8 people and not 8 percent.
Double the number of people are wanting to buy Apple from one year ago – that’s all that matters. Market share will surely follow.
But what is really crucial – is that the curve is going up yet more, because as we all know every Mac sold sells another 5… or more.
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Almost *nobody* works in IT without an MCSE. And the “M” in MCSE stands for Microsoft. Expecting IT to recommend ANY machine other than a Windows machine is an exercise in futility. The only IT people I ever knew who weren’t owned by Microsoft were the ones who started in the field before there were MCSEs. “
You can say it again and again, but that doesn’t make it even close to being true. I’ve been in IT for 26 years, and most people do NOT have Microsoft certifications. At the end of the day, the reason most IT houses go with Microsoft more often than not is three-fold:
–No shortage of applications
–No shortage of technical support
–No shortage of user and administration experience
You can pretend it’s otherwise, but that only betrays your ignorance as to how IT environments work in the real world.
“IT support for Macs will happen when an MCSE becomes worthless, and businesses quit hiring people with them based on “industry standard practices”
Substantive IT support for Macs will happen when Apple decides the enterprise is important enough to their revenue stream to dedicate resources and application support in proportion to the demand. Frankly, it’s just not in Apple’s interest to do that, and until that time, Macs will be an afterthought in the enterprise.
Apple makes in my opinion the best hardware in terms of quality components and style.
I would love to see stats that show how many out of the 53% that are happy with OS X are running VMWare Fusion or Parallels? Sucks when you need to fall back to the comfort they were used to in windows…
For all the people that are so negative towards Windows and Microsoft remember that for better or worse Windows will run on all platforms(granted maybe not as good as OS X in all instances) but OS X will only run on hardware supplied by Apple ($$$$).
I wonder what the quality of OS X will be if Apple ever releases the OS for the same hardware platforms that Windows supports.
If OS/X is so good, why hasn’t apple released it for all platforms?
…things to think about…
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don’t be too distracted by the pretty box
“If OS/X is so good, why hasn’t apple released it for all platforms?”
Because they make a proverbial metric buttload of money manufacturing and selling computer hardware*. And Apple consistently makes a profit.
(*MS began as a software company.)
“…If OS/X is so good, why hasn’t apple released it for all platforms?…”
Why would Apple need to bother with this? The only reason MIGHT be to capture business from government agencies that require multi-source suppliers. But this gain could be offset by all the problems that would arise from running Mac OS X on cheap hardware. Even then, Apple already meets or beat those other manufactures on price and performance.
It isn’t necessary to offer OS X for all platforms!