There's a rumor floating around, fueled in part by a posting yesterday on AppleInsider, that Apple's market share dropped in late 2006 to a piddling 2.4 percent.
Don't believe it.
More realistic numbers are being reported by IDC. That research firm's ... well .. research shows that Apple is in a healthy fourth place in the U.S. market, behind Dell, HP, and Gateway. (Well, actually waaaaay behind Dell and HP - but that's no surprise.) IDC sets Apple's market share at 4.7 percent and rising.
What's more, Dennis Sellers over MacsimumNews reports that the Gartner Group has released preliminary figures that put Apple's personal computer market share at an even healthier 5.1 percent in the last quarter of 2006.
Make no mistake: Apple's on a roll.
Anonymous
March 18, 2008 at 1:22pm
I have always believed that one reason that Mac sales have always been a false indicator of Macintosh integration into the computing world is that Macs work!
How many Macs are out there, chugging away on peoples' desks that are 2,3,5 years old? Too many people have to buy a Windows-based computer every couple of years. My Mac desktop is almost ten years old, been upgraded a number of times, but keeps up just fine. Yes I'd love a new one, BUT don't need one because something blew up or the newest OS from MSFT won't work on it.
David
January 19, 2007 at 2:16am
Do any of these reports have a prediction of how high the market share percent could go? How about when was the last time the number was at 4.7 or 5.1 percent? And, just a reminder, is market share only the computers that were sold during a certain period? Or does it count all computers?
Oh, and what were the numbers for the Big Three? (How much before we catch up to Gateway?)
Finally, shouldn't these reports change how they report the numbers? It used to be Apple=PowerPC=Mac OS and Others=Intel=Windows OS, but now it's truly a case of Mac OS installations vs. Windows installations.
