I’ve been thinking about Apple’s market share late…
August 11th, 2003 | by Jeremy |I’ve been thinking about Apple’s market share lately and what it means for the computer, Mac users, and those interested in buying a new computer. Apple is regularly “ripped” for a market share that some say is small and continuing to shrink.
Apple itself claims to have a 5 percent market share. That’s what the company was referring to when it launched its retail stores with its “5 down. 95 to go.” campaign. Some other sources claim Apple’s market share is as low as 2.3 percent.
But where do they get these numbers? Many times, it’s through sales data. But that can often be misleading. For example, pretend there’s 100 computer users in the world. 50 of them buy PCs in the year 2000 and 50 of them buy Macs. Market share for Macs? 50 percent.
Now in 2002, all the PC users throw their computers in the trash and buy 50 new PCs. The Mac users are still happy with their Macs and keep the ones they bought in 2000. In 2004, the PC users again dump their PCs and buy 50 new PCs. Since it’s been four years, the Mac users also dump their Macs and buy 50 new Macs.
So looking at the sales data, between 2000-2004, 150 PCs were sold, but only 100 Macs. Therefore the Mac market share was 40 percent via sales data. But if you go by number of Mac owners, it was 50 percent.
The average Mac user does keep their computer longer than the average PC user. Lots of this has to do with the bloat of the Windows operating system and that over time, it actually does get slower. Many of the cheap PCs don’t last as long so they’re thrown away and also PCs tend to be cheaper, so maybe getting rid of one PC to buy another isn’t as big of a deal for some people.
Also, one person can have more than one computer. If a business buys 50 PCs for its 50 employees, but those 50 employees each have a Mac at home, what’s the market share? 50/50? Or does one negate the other?
Sales data alone is a very bad way to measure market share. At least call it “sales share” or something. Is Apple being penalized in research data because their computers tend to last longer?
Then I ran across an interesting quote while reading an article about how BuyMusic is blatently ripping off Apple’s iTunes Music Store ads…
What’s more, iTunes only works on Macs for now, and Macs make up only about 3 percent of the personal computer market.
Doherty says the point of the commercials is to entice people who own PCs, which happens to be almost everyone. “‘Music for the rest of us’ (BuyMusic.com’s slogan) means everyone who doesn’t have a Mac, which accounts for about 150 million PC users,” she said.
150 million PC users? Sure, I can believe that. But, 25 million people use Macs. Then out of 175 million computer users, 14.2 percent use Macs. Now, if you just count the 7 million Mac OS X users, that’s about 4.4 percent. Still, OS X is still being adopted and, as I said, Mac users tend to hold on to their computers, and even their precious crash and freeze-prone OS 9, longer than PC users.
And Apple’s retail stores are doing well. Third quarter revenue for the stores was $145 million. The stores are expected to have revenue of $600 million this year. And 50 percent of those buying Mac systems at the Apple stores don’t currently own a Mac. That’s tens of thousands of switchers.
But it’s also possible that even as Apple sells more computers, their market share could still shrink because the overall market gets larger. There could be 10 million Mac users out of 100 million computer users. If the number of Mac users jumps to 15 million but the overall number of computer users goes to 200 million, then Apple’s market share just shrank by 25 percent even though the number of Mac users increased by 50 percent.
So does market share matter? Probably not. At least not in the way that it’s being reported. From all the articles about Apple’s market share shrinking, you’d think the company was about to go out of business. But it’s not. The number of Mac users is GROWING. The market share may or may not be growing, but the number of Mac users are. If you’re a programmer, there’s more Mac users out there now willing to buy your software than there was five, or even three years ago. And if you’re thinking about switching from your PC to a Mac, there’s more people out there now to welcome you in. So don’t believe the FUD.
By the way, there’s a humourous website mocking the crappy BuyMusic site. Check it out.