“For Apple, its June quarter has traditionally been a seasonally slower period, where sales tend to fall off just ahead of the educational buying season. But this year the company’s business appears noticeably stronger moving towards summer, due in part to a number of consumers switching to the Mac for improved stability and security,” Kasper Jade reports for AppleInsider.
“Studies are showing that consumers are indeed flocking to Macintosh platform these days, but not necessarily due to the much-hyped iPod ‘halo effect’ — a notion that positive experiences with an iPod are leading consumers to run out and buy a Mac. Instead, an increasing number of studies are showing that most PC users switching to the Mac platform are doing so because they’re fed up with the security and stability woes currently plaguing the Wintel platform,” Jade reports. “The most recent study comes research and investment firm PiperJaffray, which earlier this week spoke with 20 of Apple’s specialist resellers regarding business in the June quarter and trends with various products. On average, Apple specialists said that over 16% of customers who buy a Mac from their stores are PC switchers. In Apple’s own retail stores, this figure is closer to 50%.”
Jade reports, “While Apple’s June results will likely provide only slight upside, PiperJaffray remains bullish on the company given confidence that business will accelerate in the September and December quarters. ‘Our checks, along with IDC market share changes, suggest the halo effect is real. We believe this trend will allow Apple to continue to gain market share over the next several quarters,’ the firm said.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The sooner Apple wants to start advertising on TV about what Mac OS X offers average personal computer users, the better. If not now, when?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Mac fans line up for new operating system as passerby asks ‘what is a tiger?’ – April 29, 2005
Why doesn’t Apple advertise Mac OS X on TV? – April 12, 2005
Apple’s biggest blunder in years? The unconscionable lack of Mac advertising – May 10, 2005
Forrester analysts: Apple should advertise Mac OS X Tiger on television and in movie theaters – April 29, 2005
Why isn’t Apple advertising the Mac mini more? – February 28, 2005
Bill Gates jokes about Mac OS X ‘Tiger’ and calls Apple ‘the super-small market share guy’ – May 03, 2005
CSFB upgrades Apple to ‘outperform’ as Mac ‘poised to deliver strong growth, market share gains’ – April 25, 2005
Thurrott: Mac OS X Tiger ‘will do absolutely nothing to change the Mac’s market share’ – April 01, 2005
Apple could grow global Mac market share to 5% in 2005; Morgan Stanley ups AAPL price target to $60 – March 18, 2005
Apple’s Mac is not doomed to small market share forever; the ‘Ignorance Lag’ is ending – February 11, 2005
Analyst: Apple Mac worldwide market share could increase to 4.5 percent by end of 2006 – January 24, 2005
Apple shows strong Mac shipment growth, market share gains in fourth quarter 2004 – January 19, 2005
G Spank:
You are right – the fall could be absolutely HUGE for them. Again, another opportunity for Apple to have some sort of campaign to create awareness.
If not TV maybe on college campuses. Wow.
By the way, of the 6 people I switched were all in their late 30’s, so the reluctance of older people may not be as bad as we think.
The Mac Mini is also perfect for highschool students – and affordable for families with limited budgets.
And it’s also secure, safe and easy to maintain.
The quality of schoolwork will go up too – they could include Pages and Keynote.
SD, macs dont need virus protection, have no 3rd party conflict problems, and are more intuitive. They are perfect for morons and always have been. Both my mom in law and mom use them (sorry girls). Your typical elitist take doesn’t fit any more.
I just checked, my cupholder won’t take a 64 oz, so there.
stantheman:
I love that you don’t know what an “unbiased source” is. What “unbiased source” would you use for Apple sales information? How would that “unbiased source” obtain that Apple sales information? See how foolish you look?
You may now go back to your wonderful Wintel experience. Feel free to take an extended leave.
LOL just read the article. It IS specious polling. I have forwarded it to President Kerry for review.
SD, macs dont need virus protection, have no 3rd party conflict problems, and are more intuitive. They are perfect for morons
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Sounds like they would therefore be terrible computers for educated people (such as myself)
I’m such an arrogant prick when it comes to my education that I’ll fight with Sober virii for sport.
Mike …
Concerning my WinDoze friend … I might add that this “switch” has been more than two years in the making … and he first considered the Mini…. but configured the way he wanted … he then thought the G5 iMac would be a better buy …. but then he started adding stuff he wanted … and then the Power Mac started to look more and more attractive to him … so .. thats what he ended up getting !!
Andrew …
Well.. I think you’ll be in 7th heaven once you cut the cord, and become totally MS-Free !! Good luck !!
And here’s one switcher’s story. I just came back from David Jones (an upmarket department store where Apple has a store within a store) in Sydney, Australia. My sister just put a deposit on a new superdrive e-Mac.
Her reasons:
1. She’s really impressed with OS X. She likes what it does.
2. The OS is rock solid.
3. It’s easy to use.
4. She heard horror stories of viruses, malware etc. In fact I told her
not to worry about a virus protector
5. It looks so cool.
After many years of banging my head against the wall my sister has seen the light on the hill…and the light is in the shape of an Apple (with a piece missing).
As for David Jones electronics section the first thing you see as you approach the entrance are G5 iMacs, so you have to go past the Apple section before you can get to the Windows section.
People were queuing to play with Macs whilst no-one was looking at Wintel machines
There was a nice little iBook that caught my eye but as my iMac G5 is just over six months old that will have to wait for another day. It’s not worth the divorce.
Apple should offer some sort of deal as an added incentive. Maybe a free ‘something’ to any registered mac user who gets someone else to try the mac experience. Nothing fancy, free Apple care, ipod shuffle or a voucher to the value of $xxx.
The wild thing about Mac Users is that up to now they have been disproportionately clustered at the ends of the bell curve. You have a lot of the ultra basic users like grandma who has a Mac because it is easier to use and has fewer problems AND a lot of über geeks because it is unix and has a terminal. It is now infiltrating into the fat part of the market – the middle of the bell curve.
I just switched our China manager and he went whole hog – got an iMac G5 for home and a powerbook for the road. It really feels good because they always call you up to thank you afterwards and they are so enthusiastic and just plain happy about their computer. You don’t see the same kind of delight in the windows world.
Funny thing is, I’ve switched 33 people as of today (just switched my Uncle to a Mac mini & 20″ Cinema Display) and not one has complained about it. In fact, I was at my cousins’ wedding last week and my nephew (whom I Switched 6 months ago, to a PowerBook) bought my wife and myself free drinks all night!
Rock On Apple®
MW: problems – not here though! Try Redmond…
To the troll that quoted Piper Jaffray as saying that Apple sales were sluggish.
Eat Your Words —
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Piper Jaffray maintained an “outperform” rating on Apple Computer (nasdaq: AAPL – news – people ) with a $52 price target. Piper pointed to Apple’s improved production efficiency and strong demand. “Apple is continuing to improve production efficiency as supported by the fact that most products are being shipped on the same business day as the day of the order placement,” the research outfit said. In regards to demand, Piper notes that Apple products have exhibited solid performance on the top seller lists of Amazon.com (nasdaq: AMZN – news – people ). IPods now hold eight of the top ten spots and 12 of the top 20 for MP3 players, up from four and six, respectively, on April 22. “We believe this exhibits Apple’s dominance in the portable MP3 market and shows that the initial exploratory phase of other MP3 players has lightened,” said Piper. Apple Macintosh computers have experienced similar success, holding six of the top ten places in their category, up from five in April. Piper believes that, “this shows that Apple continues to hold a significant computer market presence.” In the All Electronics list, OS X Tiger and OS X Family pack hold the No. 2 and No. 5 slots, respectively.
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This was on the 10th May. Just do a Google for Apple and “Piper Jaffray” to read the truth.
Remember “Bugs fly in through open windows”
Machappy and glad of it.