Using figures from Gartner that project PC vendors will ship 187 million units in 2004, up almost 14% from 2003, Paul Thurrot sees doom for Apple Computer’s Mac platform. Recent Apple CPU sales show 700,000 to 800,000 units a quarter or just over three million units for the year.
Apple Computer’s Macintosh platform “will continue to lose ground, as the company has done every year since Steve Jobs took over. Given the best-case for Apple (800,000 units a quarter, or 3.2 million units for the year), Apple will sell just 1.7 percent of all computers in 2004, compared to 1.88 percent for 2003. But that’s the best case. It will certainly be lower,” Paul Thurrott writes for Paul Thurrott’s Internet Nexus, which proclaims itself to be “an honest look at Windows alternatives by technology reporter Paul Thurrott.”
Thurrott continues, “There’s no debate [about Apple’s market share] (indeed, Apple executives are still using the bogus 5 percent figure). Apple’s market share is 1.88 percent today, and as your own math showed you, it will be 1.7 percent or lower in 2004. Why is this so hard for Mac advocates to understand? The Mac market is ending. Let’s hope Apple has broader consumer electronics plans than just the iPod.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Why is it so hard for Paul to understand that the Mac isn’t going away any time soon? Is it too great a leap to imagine a meaningful percentage of Windows iPod and iTunes users checking out a Mac for their next computer purchase – especially in light of Windows’ virus du jour situation and the multi-year wait for “Longhorn?” We see a Mac renaissance taking place. Paul sees only doom. What do you see?