Dennis Sellers for Apple World Today:
According to the latest market share survey from NetMarketShare, the market share for both macOS and iOS was up last month.
macOS had 9.77% of the desktop/laptop operating system market share in May compared to 9.74% in April.
iOS had 28.23% of the mobile operating system market share last month, compared to 28.21% in April.
MacDailyNews Take: The cream rises to the top. It’s amazing that the vast majority choose to handicap themselves by using poor imitations of the real things.
@ MDN take:
Apple is competing against multiple vendors and a very broad range of device quality and price. Many customers either can’t afford or do not want to spend so much for a PC or phone. Apple will never garner overwhelming market share unless that want to sacrifice profits for ego boosting unit sales.
I’m sure Apple’s profit market share is in the 90% range. To intelligently increase share, Apple need to squeeze the competitors out of profitable market segments. They did that with digital music players very effectively. They are still trying to work out how to do that with phones. Using older generation phones and marketing them as low cost options helps somewhat, but they are not being aggressive enough in providing attractive mid tiered phones.
As for Macs, I’ve been disappointed in the pricing structure and marketing. Apple can afford to more aggressive on pricing especially at entry level machines to really put the squeeze on other manufacturers. Another aspect is their product development has been lax. Hopefully the new Mac Pro will be announced at WWDC but also Apple need to create more buzz about their other products. Taking 3+ years to release a newer version is pathetic and I personally have delayed several purchases because the model was old and not worth the investment.
Wow! Hundredths of a percent. The margin of error is likely that much. Apple is barely putting up a fight on either front. There are darn few big investors who are going to be happy with those growth numbers. And what makes it even worse, next month those numbers are likely to be negative. There is little consistency with Apple’s gains. It always turns out to be a roller-coaster ride for shareholders.
Whether it’s amazing or not that people choose something other than MacOS or iOS, the reality is all that matters. The fact of the matter is that Apple is not offering what consumers want. Most people are quite satisfied with Windows and Android. Apple needs to force the issue in some effective way other than security and privacy as very few people on a global scale care about those things. Tenths or hundredths of a percentage rise in market share isn’t going to cut it. I honestly just don’t understand it as to why Apple can barely increase any market share. It just seems to me as a lack of effort on Apple’s part. They’re not doing something right. There has to be some sweet spot of market share growth and profits. Sacrificing one for the other isn’t an ideal situation, by a long shot.
Please, Apple, if you can’t come out with some features that other smartphones or computers don’t have,then lowering prices seems to be the only solution. Not scraping the bottom of the barrel, but just enough to give the competition some pain. Or else, find some new revenue streams to offset those losses.