Mac|Life Market Share RSS Feed

Apple Expected to Surpass Microsoft as Tech Giant

Liam Widman — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:20:52 -0600

CNBC says that Apple is in Microsoft's rearview mirror, but could soon pull ahead of the software giant. While Apple is currently valued at $180 billion, and Microsoft at $250 billion, Apple's business is growing quickly while Microsoft is not.

“The biggest overriding reason why the company still has room to run is that its business is growing,” said Erick Maronak, chief investment officer for the Victory Large Cap Growth Fund to CNBC. “The day they introduce the tablet, that’s going to drive a lot of earnings.” Maronak said he would "not be surprised to see Apple’s market cap approach Microsoft’s in the next two years, though he also likes the software company’s growth prospects.”

Apple already has a market capitalization to Google, who is another major rival of Microsoft. Apple has already doubled annual revenues to $36.5 billion since 2005, while Microsoft has fallen 34% in the same time period.

iPhone Moving Into Second Place

J Keirn-Swanson — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:53:51 -0500

It was only a few days ago we discussed how the iPhone was growing in its third place status, but still lagged behind Research in Motion's Blackberry and Nokia's smartphones globally. In smaller markets, though, the picture is a little different.

According to research by market analysts Canalys, while Apple's sales only accounts for a paltry 13.7% of the global smartphone market and 23.3% of the US market (compared to RIM's 20.9% and over 50%, respectively), in Europe there's a different story. There, RIM is held to just 10.3% of the market while Apple is in second place with 13.6%.

While both smartphone manufacturers' market share pale beside Nokia's (44.3% globally, 64% in Europe), Apple continues to show impressive growth in 2009's second quarter. In Europe, Nokia sales shrunk by .1% from second quarter of 2008 to the same time this year, while Apple posted an astonishing 1,041.6% growth in Europe over the same time frame.

Similarly, Apple grew 626.9% globally over that period while growing 365.4% in North America. These figures, as mentioned earlier, are a market snapshot taken before Apple released the iPhone 3G S and cut the price on the low-end iPhone to just over $100. With numbers this good going into the third quarter, those later figures are primed to look awesome.

Take THAT Internet Explorer

Arvind Srinivasan — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:54:09 -0500

Even with dire predictions about Apple hardware growth during the economic crisis, and the legitimate sales hit they have taken after the Microsoft Laptop Hunter ads, the recent numbers released by Net Applications Market Research show that Safari’s share of the browser market grew as much as that of Firefox, whereas Internet Explorer’s share has dropped almost 10%.

Internet Explorer has often alienated the web development community because of Microsoft’s unwillingness to adopt standards, and the big WebKit browsers (Safari, Chrome, iPhone Safari, Android browser) have shown huge growth as a group. While this is not indicative of OS X’s operating system share going up, because there is a Windows version as well, the trend has traditionally been that Safari growth went up at the same time that OS X market share grew. We will see what happens when the hugely anticipated Mac version of Google Chrome comes out.

iPhone Dominates U.S. Mobile Web Usage

Lisa Weddle — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:46:01 -0600

AppleInsider has passed on a report by Net Applications that confirms the iPhone dominates the mobile web market.

According to the report the iPhone controls over 66% of mobile web usage, which turns out to be over nine time more than its closest competitor, WindowsMobile, which is reported to handle just 6.91% of mobile traffic. Google's Android and Symbian were tied close behind Microsoft at 6.15 percent, while Research In Motion's BlackBerry OS trailed behind all, including Palm OS devices, at 2.24 percent.

The Net Applications report backs up data presented by AdMob which stated that the iPhone commanded more than half of the smartphone traffic in the U.S. and a third of that worldwide. It also presents a strong case for competition from Android, which gained control in four months, the same amount of mobile web usage that Symbian took to garner in years.

This news (and rumors of the release of revised desktop machines) may bring some relief to Apple afficianados concerned with the company's recent drop in share prices.

AmTech Gives Neutral Rating to Apple Stock

Florence Ion — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:27:23 -0600

Official coverage of the Apple stock shows that Apple (APPL) has a neutral stock rating with a $95 price target. Brian Marshall at American Technology Research is paying attention to the company’s rating, and is contributing his findings to the parade of cautious commentary.

Marshall predicts that earnings for September 2009 will be $4.87 a share, below the Wall Street line of $5.22.

Marshall says that despite the numbers, the company is “arguably the best growth story in the technology sector today” and that the design of Apple’s products is what makes it such a great seller. He adds that, “perhaps more impressive have been the company’s efforts to create user friendly software and ecosystems.”

Apple US Market Share Slows Down in 2008

Florence Ion — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:45:25 -0600

A report released by Gartner places Apple in fourth place for U.S. and worldwide PC shipments during the fourth quarter of 2008. Apple’s market share was at 8.0%, up from 6.7% the previous year, but down from 9.5% in the third quarter of 2008.

The decline in Apple’s market share is not totally unexpected, considering the state of the economy and taking into account that the third quarter is the “back to school” quarter, where Apple tends to come out on top.

Apple’s computer shipments have also only grown 8.3% since the fourth quarter of 2007, compared to the usual 30-40% year-over-year. Fortunately, Apple continued to outperform the industry as a whole. However, the company’s growth was overshadowed by PC manufacturers Acer, which saw a year-over-year increase of 55.4%, enough to steal Apple’s third place position in the industry. Gartner attributes Acer’s success to their netbook lineup.

IDC also released a similar report with parallel results. Apple’s fourth quarter market share ranked fourth at 7.2%, while computer shipments grew 7.5% over 4Q 2007. IDC’s US market share data for 2008 also revealed that Apple placed fourth with a 7.7% market share, up from 6.2% from 2007.

Apple was unable to break into the top give vendors for worldwide market share in 2008.

Apple #6 On Mobile Phone Vendor List

Danny Estrada — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:46:22 -0500

According to some very savvy dressed and well-read researchers at Strategy Analytics, Apple has joined the likes of Samsung and Sony Ericsson as one of the top ten mobile phone venders, thanks to the iPhone. These three vendors were the only companies to show an increase in their market share during 08's 3rd quarter earnings.

Apple has significantly increased their unit shipments from 1.1 million during last years Q3, to 6.9 million during this Q3. These huge earnings have rocketed the iPhone into the top 10 list of the mobile phone suppliers. Apple still has a long way to beat LG, Samsung, and Nokia. Nokia shipped 117.8 million handsets during the same quarter. Those savvy dressed researchers predict that Nokia's quarterly shipments will fall due to their lack of, and America's healthy and perfectly justifiable addiction to, smart phones, thanks in part to the iPhone and BlackBerry.

Now, we may not dress as savvy as the research team, or be as well read, so if you want the full report feel free to go to Strategy Analytics website and drop the $899 for the digital document, or listen to us.

OS X's Market Share Has Increased to 8.2%

Carol Pinchefsky — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:57:16 -0500

Apple’s OS X operating system has climbed previously unforeseen heights: it now has an 8.2% market share. Hey, Windows, we can see your house from here.

This means Apple has realized a gain of 3 percentage points in two years—and 6 percentage points since 2003, when Panther could only scare up a 2% market share.

Windows still has its scaly grip on 90% of all operating systems, while the open source Linux (best known as the operating system of choice for people allegedly smarter than us) has almost 1% to call its own.

Interestingly, the iPhone is considered its own operating system. At .32%, it’s not nearly enough of a market share to rival Linux. But it’s far more entertaining.

The Mac OS saw a tremendous gain in November 2007, and the blogosphere speculated that OS X might top 8% earlier than it did. In fact, it was suggested that OS X would reach 10% by the end of 2008. Alas, although that number looks good to us, it’s a tad optimistic. And just plain wrong.

Then again, it’s only October 1.