MAC OS X share nears 8% of market

[Jannus]

I don't mean to insult anyone's intelligence, but I'm not sure the significance of the Mac 8% market share figure is widely appreciated.

If you believe Net Applications, Apple has increased its market share from 6.18% in August 2007 to 7.94% for June 2008. That is, of course, a mere 1.76% increase in share in eleven months. That doesn't sound like much, but that is astounding!

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=9

Changes in market share can only occur relative to the enormous installed base of personal computers, currently estimated at about 1 billion worldwide. For Apple to increase market share by 1.76%, that means roughly 17,600,000 people who had been using Windows in August 2007 are now using Macs.

Similarly, Net Applications has Linux overall moving from 0.47% to 0.80% over the same time. That's trivial. But it represents almost a doubling of the Linux desktop user base, and it means 3,300,000 people who had been using Windows eleven months ago have now switched to Linux. Overall, it would seem that about 21 million people worldwide have given up on Windows, and in just the last eleven months! That's more than the entire population of Australia!

Relative to the installed base, a disproportionately large number of new computer buyers must be choosing something other than Windows, and on a pretty MASSIVE scale. Apple cannot, of course, increase market share by 1.76% by increasing sales by 1.76%. The increase in sales of new Apple computers would need to be enormous, and it is. Apple's sales for the quarter just completed are up 61% from the same quarter last year (at least for laptops)! Two-thirds of all new computers sold which are priced above $1,000 are now Macs. In order to effect their "tiny" 1.76% increase in market share, Apple has completely taken over the high end of the computer marketplace.

The loss of the high end of the marketplace is problematic for Microsoft. A $50 license fee is trivial for a $2,000 computer. But for a $200 "nettop" device, a $50 license becomes a deal-breaker. So if Apple is challenging Microsoft at the high end, Linux is beginning to threaten the low end. Nearly all of the new inexpensive "netbook" and "nettop" computers popping up everywhere are at least offered with some kind of Linux alternative. A year ago, you wouldn't have been able to buy a computer with preinstalled Linux from anyone. Now, every major vendor has at least one. Against this threat, Microsoft offers their seven year old version of XP Home. Microsoft is promising a new version of Windows ("Quebec") to compete against all the shiny new custom versions of Linux in the cheap market segment - but not until 2010! And that's assuming Quebec ships on time, which seems doubtful.

The changes in customer preference we have seen over the past year in the marketplace for new computers are remarkable. If the new trends are sustained a few years longer, they will mean the end of the Microsoft monopoly. And that just might force Microsoft to offer quality software at reasonable prices.


http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=9

http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/mac_notebook_sales_up_61_percent/

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1900

 

[_AJ_]

not to disagree with you jannus but

it seems more likely that people are buying other machines as well as windows pc's i say this because most of the increase in linux is probably due to netbooks like the eee pc
and pretty much the same on the mac they buy a mac but also they buy windows and office and run them on the same machine so microsoft are not loosing customers pc makers are

as for 2/3 of computers over $1000 that excludes that magic $999 or 998 ect. price point which is pretty much the sweet spot for sales of pretty much anything

if you did the results for over $900 the results would be vastly different

so linux takes the low $$200 to 300 apple the high over $1000
and windows continues to sell pretty much what it always has $300- $999 which is the bulk of all computers sold

gee i bet microsoft are upset with that

 

[Apollo]

not to disagree with you jannus but

it seems more likely that people are buying other machines as well as windows pc's i say this because most of the increase in linux is probably due to netbooks like the eee pc
and pretty much the same on the mac they buy a mac but also they buy windows and office and run them on the same machine so microsoft are not loosing customers pc makers are

as for 2/3 of computers over $1000 that excludes that magic $999 or 998 ect. price point which is pretty much the sweet spot for sales of pretty much anything

if you did the results for over $900 the results would be vastly different

so linux takes the low $$200 to 300 apple the high over $1000
and windows continues to sell pretty much what it always has $300- $999 which is the bulk of all computers sold

gee i bet microsoft are upset with that

You also have to think of what OS they are using on the Mac machines.

Paul Thurrott, a big Windows guy, uses a Mac himself. The thing is, he never boots into OS X. He installed Vista, and that is all he boots into. He said the only reason he would boot into OS X was to test and compare software for his blog, and column.

 

[Corny]

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