“I recently looked at the new Gartner PC market share numbers and was somewhat surprised to see that Apple is now in the top 5 of PC vendors and perhaps more importantly, now has a market share of 6.2%. IDC puts their market share about one point lower, but even with that, these numbers are impressive if you realize that less then 24 months ago, Apple’s market share was barely 3.8% of the total WW market for PC’,” Creative Strategies’ Tim Bajarin writes for Technology Pundits.
“Many believe that this important growth comes from the halo effect of the iPod and while this is likely true, Apple’s products are catching on with new users and PC switchers,” Bajarin writes. “Apple says that over half of the 1.6 million Mac’s sold during the last quarter at their stores were bought by people new to the Mac platform.”
Bajarin writes, “But, there is something else going on here that I am convinced bodes well for Apple and will be a problem for the PC vendors if they don’t figure out how to counter it. My son Ben does our research in the area of Gen X and Gen Y users and he was talking to kids at his alma mater recently and they told him that over half of the kids at this private college were Mac users. I was talking to a very senior exec at a major PC company recently and he complained that all his teen age son wants is a Mac, even though he has access to PC’s up the wazoo.”
“In talking to various Apple executives over the last few years, it has been clear that they understood something that the mainstream PC vendors are just realizing now; That is that the real tech market of today and the future is not Silver Surfers or Baby Boomers. It is Gen X and Gen Y and Apple has spent a lot of time over the last five years creating products that are cool, innovative and creative that hits the sweet spot of these buyers. And, of this group, Gen Y or kids between 14 and 24 are the most influential when it comes to buying tech products,” Bajarin writes.
Bajarin writes, “We have done a lot of research in this area and it is clear that this is the demographic that will drive the demand for new technology in the future. And this is where Apple excels. They clearly study this demographic closely and create their products for them. And, amazingly, what they create for Gen Y translates well to Gen X and the older generations since Gen Y is the crowd these older groups turn to to get advice for what they should buy. I spoke with a grandparent recently who said that he bought his new Mac on the recommendation of his 17 year old grandson and loves it.”
Full article here.
“Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven.” – Henry Ward Beecher
Related articles:
IDC: Apple Mac attained 5.8% of U.S. market share in Q3 06 – October 18, 2006
Gartner: Apple Mac grabbed 6.1% of U.S. market share in Q3 06 – October 18, 2006
Apple Q4 earnings results: $546M net profit on $4.84B revenue, sold 1.61M Macs, 8.729M iPods – October 18, 2006
Gartner: Apple Mac grabbed 4.6% U.S. market share in Q2 06 – July 19, 2006
IDC: Apple Mac attained 4.8% U.S. market share in Q2 06 – July 19, 2006
Small correction.
Apple said that more that 50% of the Mac sold in its retail stores where to windows switchers. They did not disclose the amount of Macs they sold in their stores, but it is safe to say that it is much lower than 1.6M.
Anyway, apple is doing great and so i AAPL!
I know a LOT of teenagers.
The gamers don’t want a PC, they want a PS3.
Everyone else wants a Mac.
Or an iPod.
Or both.
And every damn one of them goes ape-sh|t when you talk about an iPod phone.
This is gonna be huge. =)
-c
MW: “needed” (I can think of nothing clever for this word.)
to MacRaven : of course iChat supports video (duh !), I wrote that Microsoft Messenger for Mac doesn’t support video, and that’s the issue, because no-one uses iChat/AIM in Europe, everyone uses MS IM.
Damn, I’m 42 and still cool (and HOT, too)
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Can anyone tell me what my stock would be worth today if I had bought $1500 worth of Apple stock (150 shares) when it was at 10?
Bily Bob,
enough to make you weep!
Well, 150 times the current price (82.28) is $12,342.
MW: “today” (is the greatest day I’ve ever known)
I wish people would quit using my name in piss ass generalizatons
Hey Billy Bob Thorton’s Penis, quit blocking our light.How else are we gonna get a tan down here?
Wow, MDN getting poetic! Whatever happened to “Enderle is a fool!”? Ahhh, the good old days.
I’m not after cool. I want stuff that is good looking and works well. Apple does that. To me, that’s as cool as I care about. If Gen X and Y and ZZZ feel Apple is “cool” because it’s “in” or for other reasons, fine, they can have it.
I’m 54, and I ‘switched’ two people today, mainly thanks to iLife: one a little younger than me and the other somewhat older. I don’t think age has a great deal to do with it.
One million downloads of boot camp tell the story. 1 million of those Macs are Windows PCs.
Object-X
Nice try but MMORPGs are the hot thing right now and there’s simply NO WAY a cheesy console can provide the depth of gameplay experience you can get form a computer in any true MMORPG.
Why? Because what a MMORPG is basically an elaborate chat client with fancy graphics. Explain to me how with any type of game controller you can function in a chat program exactly?
Oh, that’s right.. you can’t. Also, most of the hard core gamers on these games use voice chat clients like Ventrillo and Teamspeak.. oh you can’t do those on a console system?
Yeah consoles will take over computer gaming about the same time as I discover the Loch Ness monster.
Nice try.
Not to say that console gaming isn’t hot.. but it’s been a multi billion dollar industry for quite awhile and computer gaming is still around, and a strong industry.
Heck even games you CAN do on a console sell well on PCs.
“At 46, I’m a late Boomer / early Gen X. Started using Macs in 1984. Started working with computers in 1976. “
I’m right there with you. I remember peeking and poking using Basic on a new TRS-80.
And forget the “cool” factor about the Mac, they fact of the matter is that people are tired of the hassles of PCs. Computers are supposed to make our lives easier. Macs do that.
Further, the best thing that the iPod did was inform the other 97% of the population that Apple still existed and would not be going out of business next week.
One of my friends switched and bought an iMac. He is wowed by the simplicity of the OS not to mention its security. One thing he liked was the stealth mode Apple provides Web surfers. Now he can use Pounder II against some of the assholes who kicked him off their Buddhist bulletin board.
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Speaking as a 17 year old Gen-Y person, I can tell you that the majority of people in my age group (as far as I can tell) are no longer interested in IM and PC gaming. Most people I know do not care whether MSN Messenger has animated winks and nudges or any other useless extraneous features like these. They want a quick way of communication, with a picture of themselves or something that means something to them, and that’s about it. Text messaging has taken over for the most part. I text message probably ten times more often than I IM nowadays. PC gaming is also dying out as most “gamerz” that I know are much more interested in the Xbox 360 and upcoming PS3 than their computers. PC gaming is expensive, and offers few benefits over console gaming today.
My girlfriend switched to a Macbook 3 weeks ago and she loves it. She has the following needs:
– Instant Messaging over MSN
– Safari for surfing the internet
– iTunes for Music
– Word for taking notes in class and writing assignments
– iPhoto for her digital photos
And she wants to do these things with a minimum of hassle. The Macbook is the perfect notebook for her and for most other youth our age. And she’ll never go back to a PC. She hates Windows and sees it for what it is now. This is the reason why Apple’s market share can only go up.
–mAc
“she’ll never go back to a PC.”
Until she gets a job flipping burgers and has to use the cash register.
Or gets almost any job in corporate america.