According to leading market research company The NPD Group’s 2009 Household Penetration Study, approximately 12 percent of all U.S. computer owning households own an Apple computer, up from 9 percent in 2008. While Apple ownership is growing, those households are decidedly in favor of mixed system environments. Of those 12 percent, nearly 85 percent also own a Windows-based PC.
Multiple computer ownership is a common thread in Apple computer households, with 66 percent of households owning three or more computers, compared to just 29 percent of Windows PC households. Apple owning households are decidedly more mobile as well, with 72 percent of them owning a notebook, whereas only 50 percent of households that have a Windows PC own a notebook.
Not only do Apple computer owners own more computers (and more mobile computers) than the norm they also tend to own more types of electronics, and more of them, than typical computer owning households. For example, while 36 percent of total computer owning households have an iPod, 63 percent of Apple households have one. And while almost 50 percent of Apple owners own some type of navigation system, only about 30 percent of all computer households own one.
“While Apple owners tend to own more computers and more electronics devices, there is also a high correlation among Apple owners and more affluent consumer households,” said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis, in the press release. “Thirty-six percent of Apple computer owners reported household incomes greater than $100,000, compared to 21 percent of all consumers. “With a higher household income, though, it’s not a surprise that those consumers are making more electronics purchases,” Baker said. “The average Apple household owns 48 CE devices whereas the average computer household owns about 24. Apple household owners’ actions and purchases can be used by the industry as leading indicators for hot new products and adoption.”
A total of more than 2,300 of NPD’s online panelists completed this survey.
Source: The NPD Group, Inc.
MacDailyNews Take: How exactly was the question worded? Are some of these Macs users who claim to own a “Windows PC” actually referring to their own Macs running Windows natively via Apple’s Boot Camp or via fast virtualization using such products as Parallels Desktop for Mac or VMWare’s Fusion? After all, a Mac slumming it with Windows is as much a Windows PC as any other (just prettier on the outside).
Regardless, “Mac users have made conscious technology choice and are therefore better informed.” – Paul Thurrott, December 15, 2004
That surprises me.
No crap in my house! 100% MAC
Okay, I own one old Dell that doesn’t get turned on but 4 times a year to download my son’s diabetes numbers. Contrast that to the 5 macs that are used daily.
I’m a 15 per center also – always have been.
The PCs are just the old system that the new Mac replaced. They are most likely switcher households, who haven’t made the decision to throw out the old PC, just in case… Or they are using it as a back up system.
You mean 85% of Mac Households own a paperweight.
2 iMacs, 1 Macbook Pro, and one windows PC (for military work).
<b>“@Joshua Maynard
No crap in my house! 100% MAC”</b
Joshua, if you want to be a fanboy you need to practice a bit more..
The use of the word “Crap” is good, or “Crappy”, however don’t refer to a Mac as a “MAC”.. Fanboys like a jump on people who make that mistake by saying things like “It’s NOT MAC it’s Mac, short for Macintosh” .. It’s makes fanboys feel real smart!!!!
I’m glad there’s no CRAP in your house. I assume you’re unemployed??
That is a surprising stat. I’d have figured maybe 50-60%. Would be interesting to see of those 85%, how many of the Windows PCs get a lot of active use. Of course, in big families, one PC among several Macs (or vice versa) would still qualify…
In the closet.
My old used Compaq laptop died a couple years ago, taking me out of that 85% bracket. My dad’s only recently been switched over to the Mac, and he still keeps his old Dell around to play Windows solitaire once in a while (apparently, the Mac version of the game I found for him isn’t sufficient for his needs), but all of his “real” work is done on his Mac now.
I’d be more interested in seeing numbers on how often these Windows PCs are used, in comparison with the Macs. I have a feeling that both Wings2Sky and my dad’s example are highly representative of the pattern – the Macs are used for all the real work, and the Windows PCs are kept around for games or just-in-case, but are rarely used in comparison.
4 Macs, 2 are laptops, and 1 PC laptop for that 1 PC program that doesn’t have and never will have a Mac equivalent.
I’ll use the PC (XP Pro SP 3) until it dies (4 year old HP Pentium 4) and then go the emulation route on a Mac laptop.
Windows is a pain in the ass but I have to use this damn industry standard program.
We are a Mac only house. The only PC’s that are in my house either someone caring their laptop or my son fixing someone’s Windows crap computer. Those Windows PC’s die regularly and keep doing that until the people get a Mac. Sometimes, I just give them one that I no longer use.
If we lend out our old Macs, we can help to end the plague of the Microsoft Windows PC epidemic. Everyone, stop the plague and give your old Mac a new home!
…apart from a Linux box being RAID/Time Machine/Web server etc, only Mac stuff here…
Like Gabriel, I’ld also be curious to see how often these Win machines get used in comparison with the Macs.
The funny thing is that it doesn’t matter when you tell people you use both, they still will not believe that the Mac is better than the PC. I used to work in a mixed PC/Mac environment, never had to work on the Mac’s but was always working on the PC’s. Everyday. Multiple times a day. Even when I tell people this, they believe what they read in a magazine instead of their own lying eyes or my experiences. TCO doesn’t matter, apps don’t matter.
I run a windows partition at home for AutoCAD- essentially because I have to.
If no Boot Camp option was offered on such a survey, I’d say that I have a Mac and a PC. I wonder how many others answered that way… I suspect their numbrs don’t represent as much dell and HP ownership as it seems.
I have 2 Home Theater PC’s. Mac can’t match the HTPC yet. I use BeyondTV for recording over the air HD on one of them. Works fantastic and almost never needs a restart. As a matter of fact, I’ve had to restart my MBA much more often then my HTPC. The other one is solely for decoding OTA HD for TV on my big screen.
When PC’s aren’t loaded with crappy software they work very well.
I don’t use it for internet so that makes a big difference in reliability.
BTW, the HTPC running BeyondTV runs 24/7 for both recording and playback.
Mac = quiet computer
MAC = LOUD computer…
perfectly acceptable.
The rate of adoption of Macs by ex-Win users is growing apace around me.
I own a Dell in addition to my iMac. But, that’s because I had the Dell before buying my first Mac and I tend to keep an old PC around as a spare, so to speak. I hardly ever use the Dell and it is kind of painful when I do. But, I do own a Windows PC.
6 macs – MacPro, 2 MacBook Pros, 2 iMacs, 1 Macbook, 1 Mini (all inten), and 2 windows xp machines (my work and my son’s gaming machine (he also has a MacBook Pro for everything else). Also 3 Apple TVs.
…further to my earlier post: at work we’re unfortunately a Win-only company, and I happen to be in first-line user support for my local colleagues.
Yes (like doc just before me), these Win machines (less than 1-year old Dells for that matter) have (multiple) issues on a daily basis. Things that normally worked yesterday, hardware, software, connectors, whatever, will not work today, and in the best case present you with an utterly useless error pop-up.
At home, the stuff just works, nothing more to say.
Many of my friends have followed my advice, and are all happy to finally have switched, most wondering why the hell they didn’t do that earlier.
Some (like my parents) refuse to (try to) understand, and say that “they’re also machines anyway, so they will also crash like our computer does”. It’s like someone who never flew to a destination, saying that he finds that a car or bicycle will also bring him to any destination without issues, so there’s no need at all to try this ‘flying’ thing.
Yeah, because the business or job someone has usually has the IT staff had out a PC laptop to an employee and tell them “Use this and suffer ancient technology and crashes” ….oops, sorry I meant “Use this to comply with the rest of the office software and communication.”
I can’t wait until all business’ buy a clue. So ridiculous that places that NEED to be secure use Winduhz. And the amount of lost production due to Winduzh BS rebuilds and troubleshooting is such an incredible waste of employee time and company money.
A-s-s backwards indeed.
I have Windows…..because I’m forced by its ActiveX/Internet Explorer Monopolizing scheme to use it.
And it doesn’t do any good to tell the PC IT’s that you could communicate just fine with the staff from your Mac, you MUST use a PC or they get all weirded out. Hear that from more than a few friends.