“A very interesting statistic came out of Apple Computer’s earnings call on Apr. 19. And it wasn’t just that sales were up by more than $1 billion, that profit rose 41%, or that in the first half of fiscal 2006, Apple generated more than $10 billion in revenue,” Arik Hesseldahl writes for BusinessWeek. “No. To me, the most compelling figure nestled among comments by CFO Peter Oppenheimer was that 50% of people buying Macs in Apple retail stores are classified as ‘new to Mac,’ meaning they have not owned a Mac before, and to at least some sizable extent may be switching over from Windows. This is going to become increasingly important for Apple in the next few quarters, particularly in the latter half of this year and into 2007.”
“The retail division was responsible for 154,000 Mac sales in the quarter, which means that if the ‘new to Mac’ stat is accurate (and for the sake of healthy skepticism, I would really like to know how Apple counts these people), some 77,000 people bought their first Macs in the most recent quarter. Allow me to extrapolate a little further, based on the retail results of other recent quarters. Let’s say Mac retail sales are flat to slightly higher each quarter this year from last year. And if the 50% “new-to-Mac” statistic holds steady, then we could see somewhere in the ballpark of 400,000 to a half-million new Mac owners this year in the Apple retail segment alone,” Hesseldahl writes. “And surely that can’t account for all of the consumers who count as ‘new to the Mac.’ Analyst Charles Wolf of Needham and Co. in New York late last year forecasted that there could be something on the order of 1.3 million people ‘switching’ from Windows to Mac this year. That number may be a little low.”
“Apple’s recent addition of Boot Camp — provided its Beta-testing period is successful and there are no significant problems — will only help close the deal with other potential switchers,” Hesseldahl writes. “If there are any lingering doubts in the minds of many using Windows now who are intrigued by the Mac, Boot Camp will go a long way toward erasing them. This could cause an interesting groundswell of new Mac buyers as Apple continues to fill out its Intel-based product lineup. Still in the pipeline is an Intel-based consumer-grade notebook to succeed the current iBook model, and an Intel-based successor to the professional-grade PowerMac G5… This all adds up to the potential for a pretty healthy year in Mac sales — to switchers and Mac devotees alike.”
More in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Quick, everybody watch out! That point is tipping and it’s aimed right at us!
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Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple Q2 2006 Conference Call notes – April 19, 2006
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If I hadn’t already been using Macs since 1984, I would definitely switch to them now.
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half a million move to mac.
welcome.
bandwagon jumpers.
I would really like to know how Apple counts these people
Duh, they compile your personal data when you buy and when you first start a new machine.
Since every machine is numbered that is cross referenced with the numbers of the machines sold at local Apple Stores.
Oh Apple knows quite a bit about us, in fact the Dock and the AddressBook both contact Apple quite regularly. As well as Mac OS X does when you first boot up.
When you buy a new Mac, they have a list of all the other Mac’s and Apple gear you have bought from them previously. They also have it marked if you bring in your Apple gear for too many problems or returns.
When Steve Jobs said “We have over 25 million Mac users” He knows for sure, trust me.
Has the worm turned?
Andrew,
Wouldn’t it be easier if when you buy a Mac at an Apple store, they ask you, “Is this the first Macintosh computer you’ve ever owned?”.
Then they compile all the results from all their stores and arrive at a percentage.
But your theory is good too.
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cant wait to see the Q4 2006 numbers
Only 300 million to go. Don’t count on CompUSA or Best Buy to help. I have seen Best Buy staff bad mouthing the Mac in their stores when asked about the minis on sale.
Hmmmmm, Andrew – or should I say MacDude – stop with this PARANOIA.
We all know it’s you, in order to hide your appearance you need to change your writing syle. Which for you, is impossible.
So you got sacked by Apple – big deal, grow up and move on. Ranting that Apple are spying on us is simply not true and makes you look like a bad loser.
FYI, Address Book has NEVER contacted the internet on my PowerBook, and I have had Little Snitch installed since it first came out. Dock once tried, but I denied it a connection.
Welcome, new Mac users…
MDN Magic Word: ssshhh, “Wife”, as in, when I mentioned to my wife that Apple came out with Boot Camp and now Mac users can run Winders, my “Wife’s” innocent response was, “Why would anyone want to do that!?” Right…
MDN Magic Word: sshhh, “working”, as in my wife is “working” with Windoze everyday at work… She knows it, i.e., Winders.
In statistical analysis, you don’t need to survey 100% of the sample to get an accurate picture. A truly random sampling of less than 1% of a large number of items, such as population opinions or manufacturing potato chips will result in very low margins of error.
Adding to this, Apple’s various independent sources of samples such as “Did the user run Migration Assistant?”, “Have they registered a computer previously?” or simply matching credit card numbers with computer purchases, and by comparing these independent statistics, they can get an extremely accurate conclusion.
I am very sure that Apple has amazingly accurate numbers for just about everything.
Alas Apple has been quoting similar figures since the first Apple stores opened years ago. The fact market share hasn’t increased dramatically since then leads me to suspect that the numbers have been offset by existing Mac users defecting to Windoze – or a comparable number of first-time computer buyers getting PCs.
Or maybe Mac virgins have been getting one of each – which they no longer need to do, with Boot Camp and Parallels.
… or maybe the couple of percentage points Apple has gained in the past couple of years *is* significant. One thing’s for sure, it’s better to be on an upward trend, no matter how slight.
Big Deal. 50% of the .0003 % that find themselves in a Mac store.
… or what deVry said. I shoulda realized that the fact they’re in an Apple store in the first place indicates intent.
“or maybe the couple of percentage points Apple has gained in the past couple of years *is* significant. One thing’s for sure, it’s better to be on an upward trend, no matter how slight.”
When you are 2-3% against a competitor with 95%+ share, a couple of percentage points is mammoth. Don’t forget that when Jobs came back to Apple, the trend was a shrinking market share. Add that rate of shrinkage to today’s rate of growth to appreciate the current situation. The momentum has changed, and while change has been slow it has been the most critical change. The company is now poised for accelerate market share growth. Think of a large freight train that changes direction. The act of stopping and then moving in the opposite direction takes a great deal of time, and those first few feet in the new direction are very, very slow. Once moving, however, the train accellerates and will crush anything that gets in its way.
Go Apple
It makes sense to me – because the intel switch is really affecting the Mac Base, not the new to Mac users. No graphic designers are buying new Macs until Adobe releases CS Universal. I’d say that’s a LOT of users holding back on new purchases. Just wait until the flood gates are truly removed.
You’re right about not counting on CompUSA or Best Buy to help. I was in CompUSA back in the desklamp iMac era, and I happened to be next to an elderly couple who were looking with great interest at that iMac. The salesgirl helpfully informed them that the Mac “isn’t compatible with other computers, so if someone emails you a picture, you won’t be able to open it.”
I think that’s why CompUSA stores have an actual Apple employee in the Mac section now.
Wouldn’t it be easier if when you buy a Mac at an Apple store, they ask you, “Is this the first Macintosh computer you’ve ever owned?”.
Then they compile all the results from all their stores and arrive at a percentage.
Well that all sounds good and they might do that to check to see how well their employee’s are following orders, but it’s much easier to cross reference the database.
Much like doing a puzzle, you can find out what information you want by filling in everything it’s not.
And if you think I’m Apple bashing, Microsoft does the same thing. It’s marketing, their goal is to gleam as much information as possible to increase sales. The US Government routinely purchases this information.
FYI, Address Book has NEVER contacted the internet on my PowerBook, and I have had Little Snitch installed since it first came out. Dock once tried, but I denied it a connection.
Ok upon further investigation AddressBook contacts .Mac to synch your data, but it does so even if you don’t have the synching turned on. No .Mac account no contact.
The Dock does contact Apple regularly, but you denied it from connecting pernamently using Little Snitch so it doesn’t give you any more warning after that.
Now if you want to see something, install the Developers Tools and run Big Top. In the list on the left is a Outgoing Packet count, set the recording to “unlimited” and let that run all night.
You should see some periodic connections about 10 packets or so, most likely the network timer (contacts Apple obviously). But if you see anymore than that, with no programs running, your most likely OWNED.
It’s not being paranoid, it’s just paying attention.
Working at a large Apple Specialist, I would have to say that 50% is pretty darn accurate. We are very familiar with our customers, what their computer history is etc. All of our salespeople are trained to qualify potential customers: therefore we really have a good feel for what their prior experience is, and we track that info in our database. For us and probably most other Apple Specialists, up until about 6 months ago for new system sales it was about 40% switchers, now it about 55%.
Obviously shopping at an Apple Store is a differnet experience because they usually don’t take the time to get to know the customers, so I am not sure how they got their numbers, but once again, it’s pretty accurate from our perspective.
Little Snitch has been very informative for me. Even Software Update tries to send information about the versions of Apple software you have. Macsurfer tries to initiate a connection to Paypal on Port 443. And others…
The disturbing part is finding out what can be done without your knowledge, not that there’s anything nefarious going on now, but it could.
“Apple figures suggest that 2006 may be very big year, thanks to Windows users switching to Mac”
Wrong. But thanks for playing anyway. Anyone that thinks Windows users will leave in mass for a Mac is a MORON. I wish that was the case but it won’t happen.
ishufflemyfeet wrote, “Anyone that thinks Windows users will leave in mass for a Mac is a MORON. I wish that was the case but it won’t happen.”
True people may not leave Windows in mass, but what would effect would it have on Apple if only 10 percent of Windows user’s switch over a couple of years? Stock would grow in value allowing Apple to continue to innovate with more resources. Mindshare would grow which in turn could increase the number of developers / applications written for or ported to the Mac. A flood is not always a good thing, as December 2004 reminded us.