“Apple revolutionized the personal computer industry with the release of the Macintosh thirty years ago,” J. M. Manness writes for Seeking Alpha. “But the weight of the name of IBM moved MS DOS systems and later MS Windows, both made by Microsoft, to become the standard in business and from there, in the home.”
“However, a report by research firm Gartner, released Thursday evening, says the Mac is making gains, at least in the U.S.,” Manness writes. “Apple moved up almost 4 percentage points in market share [from 9.9% to 13.7%] – a growth rate of 28.5% by units. This is by far the highest growth rate of any major vendor, as most others had shrinking sales. In a sense, this is not really surprising. Last holiday season (2012) Mac sales were hampered by severe shortages of the new iMacs…. [so] it is only natural for this year to show greater growth. ”
“The unanswered question is how the Mac line is doing globally. Unfortunately, Apple does not [yet – MDN Ed.] make it into the top 5 vendor list globally, so we do not get to see Gartner’s figures here. We can, however, try to estimate them ourselves,” Manness writes. “Let us suppose that the foreign growth was greater than that in the U.S. Last year, in the FQ1 conference call, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said that overall revenue growth in China was up 67%. Even if we halve this, it would still be well over the U.S rate of 28% unit growth. Of course this is only China, so I will estimate a foreign growth rate of 30%, just slight higher than domestic.”
Gartner: Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 4Q13 (Units)
Note: Data includes desk-based PCs and mobile PCs, including mini-notebooks but not media tablets such as the iPad. Data is based on the shipments selling into channels. Source: Gartner (January 2014)
“This would give us a figure of 3.085 million, to which we add the domestic for a total of 5.253 million units worldwide. This represents a market share of 5.9% versus 4.6% last year,” Manness writes. “This is a huge jump. Note also, that this is just a shade short of the figures for ASUS – less than 3% short. If Apple growth continues, they may soon be on the chart… To this we should note, as pointed out by astute researcher Horace Dediu of Asymco, while Apple’s unit share is only around 5%, its share of PC profits is around 45%… A lot of this growth seems to becoming from enterprises, the traditional bastions of Microsoft, as companies open up to Macs. If this change in corporate attitude continues, then it is likely that Macs will continue to grow market share well into the future.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The silver lining from The Great iMac Drought of Christmas 2012 appears, but there’s likely more to this than just a rebound effect. The twin halos from iPhone and iPad is moving the needle!
Listen, if you’re an iPhone and/or iPad user and you don’t yet have a Mac: You are missing out. When you have a Mac, not only is it markedly superior to a Windows PC, it is synced seamlessly with your iPhone and/or iPad. Bookmarks, passwords, photos, calendars, and so very much more. If you don’t have a Mac, you’re shortchanging yourself and limiting your iPhone/iPad experience.
Also — and we’ve met only a handful of these people — if you have a Mac, but, for some reason are trying to use an iPhone wannabe or iPad knockoff, WTF are you doing?! Proceed immediately to your nearest Apple Retail Store and ask them to explain all that you’re missing or you can just take our word for it: Get an iPhone/iPad to go along with your Mac – they all work together! You can thank us later.
Related article:
Gartner: Apple’s U.S. Mac sales surge 28.5% as Windows PC market drops 7.5% – January 9, 2014