“Now that it’s won the hearts and dollars of music fans with its ubiquitous iPod, there are signs that Apple Computer is moving toward its own version of conquering the PC market,” Katie Dean reports for TheStreet.com. “For Apple, that means mulling new strategies to go beyond its hardcore fan base in the hopes of adding just a few valuable percentage points to its single-digit U.S. market share.”
“The momentum from its latest quarter suggests the company is poised to do just that. Apple wowed the Street with its fourth-quarter Macintosh sales, which grew 30% to 1.6 million units over the comparable period last year,” Dean reports. “Also, the latest Gartner PC report shows the company growing its third-quarter U.S. market share from to 6.1% from 4.6% a year earlier.”
“For the past several quarters, more than 50% of Apple store customers were new to the Mac platform, management has said,” Dean reports.
Dean reports, “Although there have been various attempts in the company’s history to grow its Mac business, Mark Stahlman, a technology strategist at Gartner Invest, says now is a particularly opportune time: Windows can run on Apple hardware; Apple has a powerful semiconductor company, Intel, supporting them; and businesses are going through a significant evaluation and upgrade process with the launch of Microsoft’s Vista operating system. ‘This is the first time in the history of Apple as a company that they have a real shot at dramatically expanding Macintosh market share,’ Stahlman says.”
Full article with more, including Apple’s plans with Best Buy and that loopy idea from Gartner to have Apple license Mac OS X to Dell, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Bill C.” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
BusinessWeek’s Hesseldahl: Gartner report that Apple should license Mac OS to Dell belongs in trash – October 20, 2006
Gartner: Apple should quit hardware business and license Mac OS X to Dell – October 18, 2006
Analyst: Apple Mac gains market share, the reason why is significant – October 26, 2006
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
Best Buy test-selling Macs using Apple-trained Best Buy employees – June 21, 2006
Analyst: Best Buy may ‘rapidly’ expand Mac pilot program – June 05, 2006
Best Buy now selling Apple MacBook Pro, MacBook, and iMac models – May 31, 2006
I doubt that Apple will license Mac OS X – especially to Dell. Steve likely still remembers what Michael Dell said a few years back and Steve would love to be able to rub it in Dell’s face.
Not to mention the fact that Apple’s market share gains make less necessary to license the OS – especially when they can tout the true dual-boot capability Macs have.
“Beyond CompUSA, there’s no one that really pushes the Apple brand [besides] Apple,” Munster says. Apple’s own specialist stores, he says, are “like converted Burger Kings. They’ve very eclectic, but no one goes in to them.”
Well that the most miss-informed thing I’ve read all day. Can anyone even get in and out of any Apple store on their lunch break? I can’t. Why? Because they are so chock full of people that someone has to run around with a handheld transaction unit to ring people up. They’re packed. They’re *ALWAYS* packed. The big store in University Village in Seattle has been ridiculously crowded every time I’ve been there. I’d like to know where these stores are the “no one goes in to”.
MW: ‘church’ (of the poisoned mind)
why not sell mac os x tiger intel version to pc then make leopard available for macs only. that way pc users will have a taste of what mac is then opt to buy a mac since the latest version runs only on macs.
Oh… and Apple will *NEVER* license OS X to Dell.
Steve does not want to join Mike, or even beat Mike, he wants to *crush* Mike.
Seriously. That’s what I’d want to do to that dickweed, anyway.
Steve tried climbing back on the licensing train when he let Carly build an iPod, and that was yet another failure that I bet he’s not soon to repeat.
MW: ‘chance’ (on me)
I have to agree with ChrissyOne, while I follow some of this article, how packed does an Apple Store have to be before they’ll consider it full? Regeant St. here in London is mad at all hours – now, granted a lot of that is people coming in to use the free internet to send email, but the queue at the cash is pretty long too.
We’ve said it many times, we’re reaching the tipping point… I think the shops are going to go even more beserk. Don’t even think of going there in the 3 weeks before Christmas..!
Geez, obviously he’s never actually been to an Apple Store if he thinks no one ever goes in there. It’s the busiest computer/electronics store per square foot I’ve ever seen in my life.
Apple will NEVER license their OS. It would slow down the rate of development to a crawl (ex. Vista).
I wouldn’t completely rule out the possibility of Apple licensing Mac OS X to other computer makers. I’m sure that the terms would be vastly different this time around (like, they’d actually be profitable to Apple), and I’m also sure that the license would only go to manufacturers whose quality met Apple’s requirements. Sony, HP, and Lenovo could probably do it. Dell, forget it.
-jcr
How many times do we have to beat this dead horse?
SJ has said repeatedly that the beauty of the mac is that they make the whole widget. The moment Apple licenses the OS, the mac os becomes more like windows. How many configurations do you want to support?
Apple has a huge advantage here. Therefore they can do a major upgrade to the OS in 12-18 months…repeatedly, predictably.
Apple wants to sell more macs, not just software.
MS has had great success in selling software, but it is butt-ugly, outdated and overly complex.
Let’s not go there.
Wouldn’t it be great if we can share the Mac OS X experience with more people we meet and work with everyday? How do we do that? If everybody bought a Macintosh now, that would be awesome. What if Mac OS X spread much faster if Apple did license the OS? Would it work?
I think so. If Apple charged as much as Microsoft does for its OS, then that should bring in more money to Apple. Then developers would jump into the fray too.
The Apple stores in Germany are always packed….wait, there are NO Apple stores in Germany – one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest country in Europe with over 90,000,000 people….
Not one Apple store in Germany. None.
Fake Steve Jobs has a much better take on this story:
http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2006/10/mark-stahlman-hero-of-wall-street.html
Mark Stahlman gets the full Fake Steve frigtard treatment he richly deserves.
There are four Apple stores around the Twin Cities in Minnesota. This is a metro area of approximately 2.5 million.
All of these stores are ridiculously packed. And some have a CompUSA and/or a Best Buy (Best Buy is headquartered here) literally right across the street.
If I’m not in a hurry, I order online!
She obviously must be thinking of that great American philosopher Yogi Berra, who said “It’s so crowded, nobody goes there any more.”
I went into the South Center mall mini-store to buy an FM transmitter a few weeks ago. It was on a Tuesday at something like 10 in the morning, and the store was full of people in line, people on every station, people playing with iPods. It took me almost an hour to get out of there. I heard a lot of basic-Mac-instruction type stuff from many of the staff, which told me there were a lot of switchers getting switched.
Again, I’d really like to know where the stores are that no one goes in to. I remember going into Gateway Country years ago and the place was always deserted, but I have yet to experience that in an Apple store.
MW: ‘economic’ (the stock still is, even at 81. buy now!)
To echo some of the comments already:
Apple Stores are ALWAYS packed.
I’ve never been into one that was not.
Whenever I go to Orchard Park Mall in Chicago, the Apple Store is buzzing, and the Sony Style store is depressingly empty.
The writing is on the walls.
Apple licensing Mac OS X is a “loopy idea” indeed. Apple’s end-to-end product strategy works precisely because only Macs can run Mac OS X. As technology is becoming more complex, consumers are appreciating more the tight integration of hardware with software that only Apple provides. Apple’s so-called “closed” system is finally succeeding, not because Apple proved it was better, but because removing the “no Intel inside” objection and “can’t run Windows” objection opened the door to customers considering the Mac option. And now, this Gartner report suggests that today is the right time to give away this advantage by licensing Mac OS X to Dell. The important statistic is Apple’s Mac hardware marketshare; it is not the Mac OS X software marketshare.
Hanz und Franz is right. Apple need to now beef up their European presence. Why doesn’t Paris, with 6 million inhabitants, have an Apple Store? Where is the Apple Store Milan (3 million) or Barcelona (3.5 million)? Apple Store Berlin? Apple Store Moscow, for Christ’s sake? All these places are extremely rich, huge, full of media companies and ripe for the picking, and what’s Apple doing? Opening yet another store in California in a location down the road from three other stores already.
Even with the best products in the world, sometimes the people at Apple show real signs of being rubbish at their jobs. Ignoring markets the size of the EU or Russia is stupid.
My experience when I took a friend to buy a mac at Best Buy was that BB gets almost $300/pc for setting up the virus ware, spyware, and removing the AOL and other junk sold on the HP and Compaq PC’s + the margin on the hardware so they refused to sell the Mac even though I was pushing for one for my friend. The excuse was that you then needed to buy a copy of XP + all the spyware and malware if you ever go to a site that only supports Internet Explorer. You just increased your cost base on the Mac by $500.
FYI Best Buy ain’t Mac’s Best Friend..