Apple has been in the news a lot lately. The new anti-Vista ads are one reason; they stung enough to make Bill Gates whine a bit to Newsweek
OK, just how well is Apple doing now that it’s shifted to Intel and all that? Are the armies of iPod users swinging over to Macs?
I took the unit sales of Macintoshes for the past two calendar years (as stated in their Form 10-K reports to the SEC)and compared them to worldwide PC sales (as stated by IDC Researchfor each quarter in 2005-2006. production
| Quarter | Total Mac Sales (in thousands) | Total World Sales (in thousands) | Apple’s World Market Share |
| 4Q 2004 | 1,046 | 52,186 | 2.00% |
| Q1 2005 | 1,070 | 47,109 | 2.27% |
| Q2 2005 | 1,182 | 47,477 | 2.48% |
| Q3 2005 | 1,236 | 52,879 | 2.33% |
| Q4 2005 | 1,254 | 60,318 | 2.07% |
| Q1 2006 | 1,112 | 53,207 | 2.09% |
| Q2 2006 | 1,327 | 52,084 | 2.55% |
| Q3 2006 | 1,610 | 57,052 | 2.82% |
| Q4 2006 | 1,606 | 65,587 | 2.44% |
So in two years, Apple has gone from 2.0% to 2.5% marketshare.
In comparison, here’s a couple other companies that made gains over this time, too. First, Hewlett Packard:
| Quarter | Total HP Sales (in thousands) | Total World Sales (in thousands) | HP’s World Market Share |
| 4Q 2004 | 8,257 | 52,186 | 15.8% |
| 4Q 2005 | 9,564 | 60,318 | 15.7% |
| 4Q 2006 | 11,900 | 65,587 | 18.1% |
Hmmmm. Between 2005 and 2006, HP increased its marketshare 2.5%, or five times what Apple did, and sold 2.3 million more units 2006 than 2005, which is almost 50% more units than Apple sold in total that quarter.
But you only hear about HP when they have a scandal (or pass Dell in sales).
HP is a PC giant, you say? OK, how about a certain company called Acer?
| Quarter | Total Acer Sales (in thousands) | Total World Sales (in thousands) | Acer’s World Market Share |
| 4Q 2004 | 2,165 | 52,186 | 4.1% |
| 4Q 2005 | 3,302 | 60,318 | 5.4% |
| 4Q 2006 | 4,630 | 65,587 | 7.1% |
Hmmm. In two years, Acer more than doubled its PC sales, and increased its market share 3%, or six times that of Apple. It sold 2.5 million more PCs in in the last quarter of 2006 than 2004, over 50% more than Apple’s total sales.
Do you know who the head of Acer is? Do you know anything about him, outside of his obvious uncoolness compared to You Know Who?
Dying and Thriving
Even after we’ve put Apple’s sales in proper perspective, the company obviously still is selling considerably more Macs than they used to.
Just what is selling and what is not is the real story about Apple.
First, let’s see how Apple’s desktop computers (the Powermacs, the iMacs and miniMacs) are doing, quarter by quarter:
| Quarter | Desktop Mac Sales (in thousands) | Laptop Mac Sales (in thousands) |
| 4Q 2004 | 623 | 423 |
| Q1 2005 | 608 | 462 |
| Q2 2005 | 687 | 495 |
| Q3 2005 | 602 | 634 |
| Q4 2005 | 667 | 587 |
| Q1 2006 | 614 | 498 |
| Q2 2006 | 529 | 798 |
| Q3 2006 | 624 | 986 |
| Q4 2006 | 637 | 969 |
While the overall PC market increased 25%, the Apple desktop market stayed static, while the number of notebooks more than doubled. For sure, notebooks have been grabbing the lion’s share of the overall PC market, but not quite to this degree.
Just as Apple has become an iPod company that happens to sell Macs, they’re becoming a notebook company that just happens to sell desktops.
To the extent anybody’s switching, it’s to the notebooks. This brings up an interesting idea, which we’ll discuss tomorrow.
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