Mac sales outpacing industry 3:1

Jarrod Spiga:

First, let me state that it is indisputable that Apple sales are growing - and I'm not aiming to debunk that.

However, the reporting in this story only goes to show that statistics can re-inforce just about any opinion that you may have. I challenge all readers to click through to the IDC press release and read it with an open mind.

If you do so, you'll notice a few things that - while reported correctly - can be easily misinterpreted.

For instance, Apple's year-on-year growth is reported correctly. However, add 26% on top of a small figure and you still get a small figure - albeit a slightly bigger one.

Apple's year-on-year growth corresponds to 199,000 extra units. Compare this with HP's growth - 830,000 extra units were over the last year.

Overall market share for Apple increased by 0.6%. This is the less-misleading figure - and it's interesting to note that this figure is NOT mentioned in the article (BTW, saying that Apple's market share was NOT 3.7% - the IDC press release clearly says it was 4.8%).

As mentioned earlier, this is good news for Apple and is worthy of being reported. I just wish that the reporting of such news was slightly less biased and slightly more accurate.

tin:

Vista is probably a consideration. Anyone avoiding Vista would not be buying a new PC that forces them to get it (unless they have existing XP volume licenses allowing them to roll back).

Vista has also convinced quite a number of people to move to Macs or Linux. Macs getting the bulk of sales from this since:
a) you need to buy new hardware to get it
b) Macs are the other option as far as most people understand.

And finally, I would like to remind people that sales mean nothing. Do you go buy a new PC every quarter just to get your vote in on the sales stats?

Stephanie:

Apple are shipping a different product. I contend that overall capitalisation is the only legitimate comparison, because Acer, HP etc do not market the same products. It would be like arguing that Sun is unsuccessful because it doesn't market many machines. Never mind that the price point is many thousands of dollars plus. Apple, unlike HP, Acer and the like sells mainly in the premium price range and profits on its own operating system. This is something HP and Acer do not do. As for Dell; it's like comparing Porsche sales to Hyundai and calling Porsche unsucessful. What would make me truly happy would be to have a Sun Sparc processor inside a Mac which is manufactured by HP or Toshiba. Sadly it would never happen. The only point where market share probably does matter is experience designing and debugging hardware and software partnerships. This does not affect Apple because it has captured niche markets in media publishing, science and open source just as windows has captured business apps. With the iPhone they have created their own market, again on media. As for their laptop hardware- very pretty but sadly the hardware is not as stable as it was in the early imac days.

Apple, please, it is time to try something you tried before. By all means closely control and guard your form factor this time, but let the majors ship clones and make your money off of the software. Run a Macbook, MacBook Pro and Macbook Clone range and require that the clones occupy only the more expensive price point instead of what happened in the 90s.

Joe S.:

Apple is a hardware company. They make money off of hardware sales. To say that all these companies don't compete with each other is ludicrous. Apple has been building hardware longer then all the companies you mentioned. I think they know what they are doing. Let's see some failure rate numbers on the laptops, otherwise you are just blowing smoke. The high end is where the money is. Margins are pretty thin on low end PCs. Sure they boost the market-share numbers but they are not profitable. Why else would Dell be losing money? Dell the porsche of the computer industry, that gave me a chuckle. Dell is the Wallmart of the computer industry. So if the high end is where the profits are Apple should give this market to clone makers. Yup, that is a pretty sane thought. The clone makers in the 90s did make machines at the high end. Apple is a hardware company that makes software to sell hardware. There are some ludicrous statements in your post. Look at Apples profit margins from the last couple quarters & compare them to the other computer makers even MS.

In the forth quarter of last year, HP and Dell combined sold 10 times as many PCs as Apple in the US, earned 5.5 times as much revenue as Apple, but together only ended up with 2.2 times as much net income as Apple.

In other words, Apple earned nearly half as much net income with its 5% share the market as HP and Dell together, with their combined 55% share of the US PC market: $1 billion for Apple vs $2.2 billion for HP and Dell together. If you compare prices for similarly configured machines from these vendors there is really no difference to speak of. I wonder what percentage of the high end of computing Apple has? That is where the money is. So, Apple should share the profitable end of the PC industry with clonemakers...not very smart at this point. Maybe in the future.

Rimsy:

I believe he was saying that Apple is the Porsche of the industry because it supposedly builds quality, overpriced machines and Dell are Hyundai cause they sell cheap cars, but they sell a hell of a lot of them. Try understanding the post before making an idiot of yourself.

Joe S.:

You're right I missed that. I apologize. Do you have any other comment on the rest of the post or did you just pop in to call me an idiot. Well nipplehead?

u752181:

Are Mac sales outpacing the industry 3:1? This means that 3 Macs are sold for every 1 in the "industry". Just garbage.

The headline is just plain wrong. Change it then let the rest of the garbage you call news stand on its own.

Get over yourself.

JS:

Why do you care?

Rimsy:

No, he didn't say Mac sales are outpacing the industry 3:1, he said Mac sales GROWTH is outpacing the overall industry average 3:1, so they are gaining market share. Shows there are a lot of stupid people out there who get sucked in by clever marketing.

Anonymous1:

Quote - No, he didn't say Mac sales are outpacing the industry 3:1, he said Mac sales GROWTH is outpacing the overall industry average 3:1
-----------
Maybe you should have a look at the title of the article again

sigh:

Note to APC editors: Danny's blog articles are really dragging down the quality & credibility of your site. I'm a Mac user too, but I cringe when I read them.

Joe S.:

No you're not...he is just repeating what another agency said. If the numbers for Apple are wrong then the rest of the numbers have to be questioned also.

sigh:

Contrast this article with one from a specialty Mac/Apple journal on the same subject . How come they can show some journalistic objectivism, whilst none of it is appearing here with Danny's article?

Anonymous132242424:

Looking at the linked IDC article, the following numbers are true (US SaleS:

Apple sales increased 26.2%
HP sales increased 26%

So yes it is impressive for Apple..

BUT

HP sold over 4 million, up from 3.2 million

Apple sold 960 thousand, up from 761 thousand.


So what you've said is the same as me saying that last year I sold one custom PC, this year I sold 5, WOW IVE HAD A 400% INCREASE IN SALES. IM BETTER THAN EVERYONE!!!!

Idiot.

Mark:

So... does this mean that about 94% of the home computer market is PC based then?

Seriously, this is fanboy journalism at its worst. Time for the editor to have a frank discussion with Mr Gorog I think.

Joe S.:

In the forth quarter of last year, HP and Dell combined sold 10 times as many PCs as Apple in the US, earned 5.5 times as much revenue as Apple, but together only ended up with 2.2 times as much net income as Apple.
In other words, Apple earned nearly half as much net income with its 5% share the market as HP and Dell together, with their combined 55% share of the US PC market: $1 billion for Apple vs $2.2 billion for HP and Dell together.

debiant:

Leave poor danny alone. There is not often that there is much to say about apple. Just more of the usual hype. If mac users feel the need to carry on and on about trivia to satisfy their own insecurities then thats their choice. Its easy enough to avoid Danny's Mac tirades.

Ironic really apple is always positioned as the innovator. Check this link out and you will find the often the reverse is true
http://www.venturecake.com/who-copied-who/

The old adage is still true "a fool and his money are soon parted". Apples profit margins (relative to the rest of the industry) are proof of that.

Joe S.:

Did you read my post? With 5% of the market Apple made half as much as Dell & HP combined in the last quarter (who have 55% of the market). Maybe you didn't get that. As for your article these are all surface arguments, what about functionality. I don't think you got that article either. I wasn't picking on Dan.

Dan Warne:

> Seriously, this is fanboy journalism at its worst.
> Time for the editor to have a frank discussion with
> Mr Gorog I think.

Could all you guys stop having a go at Danny on a personal level? By all means argue the facts presented, but from an Editor's perspective Danny is doing a good job of writing stories that are informative and encourage debate.

We're listening to the feedback and always fine tuning the stuff we do to meet what readers want to read, but it's not helpful having a go at journalists on a personal level. 

sigh:

Fair enough Dan, but his style of writing is obviously raising hackles with your audience and turning them off. None of the other contributors to your website contain such a streak of bitterness when it comes to discussion about their less favoured technologies.

Have a look at Danny's comments in other people's articles - there is a definite nasty streak whenever Microsoft is mentioned.

James likes his Windows, Ashton likes his Linux, but at least they are able to comment on things they dislike with their tongues firmly in cheek and with a sense of humour.

My previous reply tried to highlight the bias in this article (as mentioned by Jarrod in his reply) - certainly not a personal attack. I guess as you're editor it's up to you whether you wish to keep this up in your site.

Joe S.:

There is nothing in this article that is inflammatory. Maybe you are being overly sensitive. Makes you wonder why. If you want to dispute the facts in the article, fine. There is nothing of substance in your post.

Tony:

Dear Sigh, attack the issues in an objective manner! Don't attack people! When you make personal attacks you severely weaken your case.

Are you one of those people who flies into a rage in the workplace? If so, it would be worth remembering that you will be hurting yourself more than anyone else. I personally know of two people who died of heart attack from being too emotional in the workplace. It simply isn't worth it.

There's something to be said about anger management courses and meditation!

Danny is quite clever in provoking debate the way he has.

I remember when Adidas was King of the sports equipment world, and nobody had heard of Nike. Nike had what's called a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) which was simply "Kill Adidas", and they sure became the winner. So, while Microsoft is a big monster, it is by no means unbeatable (it's mistakes with Zune, search, Xbox problems, PNRP etc aren't encouraging). In fact, it is often the monolithic monopoly that becomes the dinosaur. So don't underestimate Apple, nor think that Telstra is invincible. Telstra could learn a lesson or two in this department too.

Finally, with regards to Microsoft there are two types of customer i.e. consumer and business. Businesses are screaming for open standards - they are fed up with being locked into Microsoft's proprietary technologies which force them to effectively pay an expensive Microsoft tax on a regular basis. Microsoft's proprietary so called Office Open XML has just been rejected in the US as an open standard. So, Microsoft is still fighting the inevitable as most big monopolies like to do. In this regard Apple is actually quite clever in the mish mash of internationally approved open and proprietary technologies Apple's OS X has embraced. Apple is learning to co-exist with the open source community which will help it.

With Firefox, Open Office's approved ISO/IEC 26300 ODF standard, it would be foolish to underestimate the advances that the open source community are making. Microsoft's bludgeoning patent deals with Linspire and Novell are a crude attempt to try and stop this. It won't succeed.

As more people use Firefox (a lot safer than IE), Open Office etc the more Microsoft will be weakened because its revenue base becomes reduced as a result. It is actually quite surprising how much good open source software is out there these days.

markm66:

"informative and encourage debate." Somewhere in the article(and dannys other articles) there may be some good facts but what I see is just blind apple fanboism that I expect to see on forums not in a quality publication. Danny should read some of the linux articles to see how informative articles can be written without resorting to fanboi journalism. I will ignore Danny's articles in the future because I prefer to read balanced articles.
FYI I use all platforms daily but I manage not to wet myself over any one product.

Neil Anderson:

Apple's market capitalization is larger than Dell's and Apple is closing in on HP.

Michael:

yes but remeber market cap is basically the value assigned to the shares, which isn't necessarily reflective on how well the company is doing. What matters for this comparison (ie mac vs pc) is market share, not market cap.

Joe S.:

What matters is profit

Joe S.:

Gateway lost 8 million last year, yet is higher than Apple in market-share. Dell sells 5x the computers that Apple does but makes less of a profit (at least lately). I be interested in knowing how mach market-share Apple has on the High end of computers (where the profit is).

Neil Anderson:

Your photo caption is hilarious! :)