Apple's pricing discipline gives Mac 10.5% market dollar share
As most other PC makers are in a race to the bottom in terms of price, Apple's pricing discipline, analyst Charlie Wolf with Needham & Company said Wednesday, has been a tremendous asset. Apple's dollar share of the worldwide consumer PC market has continued to grow since early 2004, when it was just 3 percent.
The Mac's dollar share in the U.S. home market is even more impressive, at about 20 percent, while it unit share sits around 10 percent. And in the European home market, Apple has about 6.4 percent of sales, but 14.2 percent of revenue.
One strong country for Apple has been France, where this week it was revealed that the Mac broke into the top 5 in terms of overall holiday sales. Apple saw 43.5 percent year-over-year growth in sales to sell 182,000 machines.
Wolf's note to investors on Wednesday morning gave an in-depth breakdown of Mac sales during the company's December quarter. The Cupertino, Calif., company's first fiscal quarter of 2010 proved to be its best ever, with sales of 3.36 million Macs helping to propel its revenue more than 50 percent to $3.38 billion.
Wolf said that Mac shipments grew 32 percent in December, versus the rest of the PC market seeing a 16.9 percent increase. The December quarter was the second in a row that Apple topped 3 million Mac sales, and holiday sales were 4.5 times higher than they were in the same three-month frame in 2004.
"Apple sold more Macs in the December quarter than it did in calendar 2003 and almost as many as it did in 2004," Wolf wrote. "The most popular explanation for the surge in Mac sales has been the iPod halo effect. The iPod was the first Apple product Windows users ever purchased. And the iPod so delighted them that a meaningful percentage switched to the Mac as a result."
Another major contributor to switchers: Apple's retail stores. Wolf said when customers enter an Apple store to buy an iPod or an iPhone "could not fail to notice and appreciate the free support infrastructure Apple bundles into the price of Macs." Apple has noted for some time that about half of all in-store Mac sales come from Windows switchers.
For Apple, the momentum looks to continue. January Mac sales were estimated to have grown 36 percent, putting them on pace for 2.8 million for the quarter. A forthcoming refresh of Apple's MacBook Pro line is expected to help boost sales.
Wolf also noted that Apple's share of the U.S. education market is on the rebound, with about a 20 percent market share last quarter - and nearly a 40 percent dollar share. Wolf sees the forthcoming iPad as having the potential to replace low-cost PCs in both secondary and higher education markets.
"It is not difficult to imagine classrooms where the iPad takes center stage, capturing a significant percentage of the school market in the process," Wolf said.
87 Comments
The day that the Mac worldwide market share reaches 25%, Windows will be history in three years. The horrible Windows experience is only maintained by inertia and ignorance.
So basically what this is saying is Apple purchasers are willing to pay on average more than twice what a PC would cost... even when their laptop line is out of date and includes a cpu that existed 3 years ago. Gotcha.
What is really important is to not cross the border. If you claim 10 per cent of the market, nobody actually cares that you fail to deliver some shitty iMacs. When it's 85, everybody whines.
For the price of a mac, you can buy 3 PCs - Well that was an easier way to tell the story. Now gather 'round for some flavor-aid children.
The day that the Mac worldwide market share reaches 25%, Windows will be history in three years. The horrible Windows experience is only maintained by inertia and ignorance.
Are you sure its 25%? Maybe it would just take 24% or maybe they would have to put it to 26% for Microsoft to be doomed. By the way if they got 25% what would the rest of the 75% use?
This is like saying if Apple ever went back to 2.3% they would go out of business within 3 years. Companies like Apple and Microsoft have been around for so lone neither are going anywhere.