Sam OliverAs first reported at Betanews, the latest sales figures from NPD Market Research show Apple with the lion's share of premium computer sales, and the Mac maker's commanding share only continues to grow. In May, Mac sales made up 88 percent of computers priced four figures.
The average computer sells for $701, but separating Windows PCs from Macs shows a huge disparity. While the average Windows machine in June sold for $515, the average Apple machine came in at $1,400.
In this economy, it's clear that price matters — to an extent. This week, Apple reported a record third quarter, bolstered by new lower prices on its entire line of MacBooks. The company sold 2.6 million Macs during the quarter, ushering in its best-ever June quarter.
Apple sells only three products below $1,000: the 13-inch MacBook, and both versions of the Mac mini.
In June, Apple lowered the prices on its 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pros by $300. It also created the 13-inch MacBook Pro for $1,199 — a cost of $100 less than its non-Pro predecessor.
Even with its premium prices, Apple has managed to grow its market share of computers that cost $1,000 or more. This as Microsoft has taken aim at the company's prices, calling it the "Apple tax."
In terms of overall volume, Macs held an estimated 8.7 percent of the U.S. PC market through June. But according to research firm Gartner, Apple's share is growing, having grown 2.5 percent in the second quarter while the rest of the industry slid.
William Gallagher
Wesley Hilliard
Christine McKee
Andrew Orr
Andrew O'Hara
84 Comments
Macs made up a whopping 91 percent of the $1,000 and up computer market in June, up significantly from early 2008 when Apple's premium market share was 66 percent, according to new data released this week.
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Apple is money Baby, money!
Seriously, it says a lot about the market and Apple - are only Apple buyers prepared to spend more than $1000 now (given that it is almost impossible to buy an Apple for less than $1000)? Apple is much more price and feature competitive against high-end PCs in the "light as possible" and "fashion accessory" segments so it probably has those sewn up and won't compete below $1000 - this all makes sense.
The key thing is can apple maintain its ASP and margins - from the earnings report, it seems they can do both...
Oh... first!
mainly due to the fact that Macs are too expensive.
Lets have a $700 headless Mac to bridge the gap between the Mini and the Mac Pro.
are only Apple buyers prepared to spend more than $1000 now (given that it is almost impossible to buy an Apple for less than $1000)?
Only Apple buyers have to spend that much (if they want something other than a Mac mini, that is).
Anyone can afford a Mac. Hasn't anyone heard of the technique of saving up for what you want? If you can't afford it now, save till you can. Or buy refurbish at the Apple online store.
Smart shoppers shop for value. Poor and stupid shoppers shop for price.
Real life story from yesterday: I'm asked at work to make some amendments to a PDF document. Our corporate PC's come with Acrobat Reader only. My boss thinks I'll print the original, write the changes on the paper copy, scan it (essentially making photographs and saving them in PDF format) and send it to the people who need it. You do realize that my finished product is not longer a document -- you can't search the text (or copy, cut, paste, edit) since it is now merely part of a photograph.
I quickly went back to my hotel and got my MacBook which comes with Preview FOR FREE. Preview lets you annotate and markup PDF documents, so I was able to do that and send the people a real PDF document with our proposed changes.
The list price of the cheapest version of Adobe Acrobat is $299.
Your PC may have had a better price on the day you bought it, but my Mac has given me superior value. If you continued to spend the money to bring your PC to be able to keep up with my Mac, you'd soon have spent way more than I did on day one.