“A funny thing has happened over the past couple of quarters. While Apple has been firing on all cylinders, and the iPhone is selling hundreds of thousands of units a month, its Macintosh business is the hottest line of all. It roared back in the quarter that ended in June to reclaim its status as the company’s largest revenue source and, at long last, break that 5 percent share barrier, according to IDC,” Brent Schlender reports for Fortune.
“Indeed, Apple’s U.S. Mac sales have grown at triple the rate of the rest of the PC industry since last fall, propelling it into third place in the U.S., behind Dell and Hewlett-Packard,” Schlender reports.
“…If you parse the market, you realize that Apple’s seemingly minuscule share is much, much greater in the slices it has targeted,” Schlender reports. “Apple doesn’t even pretend to compete for the corporate servers that are technically considered PCs because of their internal design; those account for about a fifth of the market. Nor has it ever targeted big business, other than publishers and creative departments.”
“The bulk of Macs are purchased by consumers and students who make their own buying decisions rather than take what an employer issues. Apple has a 15 percent market share of PCs sold at retail and online, according to NPD,” Schlender reports.
“Apple’s software could turn the Mac into a phenomenon again, perhaps even in corporations. Apple is arguably the best software company on the planet, regularly releasing basic operating system software and application programs that reveal the greater potential of computers as devices for communication, creativity and entertainment,” Schlender reports. “Apple is growing faster than its competitors because it improves its hardware and software more often than anyone else. It is broadening what we think of as a consumer-oriented PC and thus helping its market grow. That’s a good long-term investment story. And, oh, by the way, Apple also makes some pretty slick music players and cell phones.”
More in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Mike in Helsinki” for the heads up.]