RSSNPD: Apple dominates the high-end PC market
By Ed Oswald | Published May 20, 2008, 3:46 PM
In personal computers retailing over $1,000, Apple's Mac products comprised two-thirds of all that were sold during the first quarter, research group NPD says.
This number is up from 57 percent in January of 2007, and 18 percent in 2006.
The Cupertino company is also rapidly increasing its overall market share. 13.8 percent of all desktops and laptops sold bore the Apple logo, up from 9.5 percent in the same period last year.
Apple's turnaround is even more stark when comparing it with the market as a whole. While sales of Windows-based notebooks have been flat, Apple's laptops showed a 50 to 60 percent increase. The story is the same with desktops: Windows systems are down 20 percent, while Mac desktops are up 45 percent.
It is fair to note that nearly all of Apple's systems are above that $1,000 price point. The only system that sells for under $1,000 is the company's Mac Mini system.
Analysts point out that this flies in the face the "cheaper is better" logic typically attributed to the personal computer market. Instead, it seems as if consumers are willing to pay a premium on PCs as long as there is a perception of quality and a good user experience, NPD explains.
Much of the success could be explained by its retail strategy, which has been a major driver in turning its business around. This is also likely a result of the much-hyped "halo effect" surrounding Apple's successful line of iPod music devices.
The third piece of the puzzle may be the release of the Leopard operating system. NPD observed a marked increase in sales of Macs following its release, indicating the new OS may have pushed consumers to give Apple a second look.
Apple's share begins to look much less impressive with the addition of enterprise sales, which research firm Gartner includes in its stats. Apple has essentially zero market share there due to its lack of enterprise products. The company's only entry is its Xserve server, which has seen little adoption among large IT deployments.
Gartner recently reported the company garnered a 6.6 percent share overall, putting it in fourth place in rankings there.
Even so, Gartner said Apple recorded a 32.5 percent overall share increase over last year.
PCs are now largely divided into two camps. Work and gamer, the vast majority of gamers build there PCs, the vast majority of work PCs (home office types) can be purchased for sub $500 price tags. The only group left is the media buff, which has been Apples bread and butter for years anyway. This is a prime example of focusing your research to support your predetermined headline.
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|Hey! Anybody wants to buy my old crappy notebook for over a 1000 bucks? ... Price should make it "high end", doesn't it?
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|Apple sucks so do their system. PC and Vista are the best. Oh yeah, they are good at barking and polishing the outer frames of computers and nothing else that's why I will never-ever use their craps again
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|My PC gaming rig was not that expensive and could blow away the top of the line Mac, so WTF is the point of this article?
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|There are a lot of dweebs out there who just love that "High End Mac stuff", if you'll pardon the expression "high end."
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|This is one of the most misleading BN articles I've read in a long time. That 13.8% figure undoubtedly ignores the home built PC segment which is probably some 20-25% of the market. This is where nearly all the serious gamers are (who sometimes DO spend over a $1000 on a system). High price does not equal "high end" as others have pointed out. I'm tempted to think there might be an Apple zealot behind this piece.
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|"home built PC segment which is probably some 20-25% of the market"
Are you out of your mind?
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|No. He's not.
This BN article sucks.
Complete lack of proffessionalizm.
Sorry... You get much more real "pro" stuff for less then Apples overprised... let's say it: "normal PCs without Windows".
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|"It is fair to note that nearly all of Apple's systems are above that $1,000 price point. The only system that sells for under $1,000 is the company's Mac Mini system."
Indeed...
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|Good for Apple. Mac rules and so do I.
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|If it would I'd use it. Fortunately I don't any more. They are pretty though.
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|This is quiet simple.. Apple PC pain in the arse to upgrade, PC not so much.....
This is the type of thing that is really hard to messure since I know there are alot of ppl who don't buy branded pcs from Dell/HP ect and rather build their own rigs... Im one of those spent 1500 last year for a PC equal to a 4k Dell pc and Im sure i dont appear in that statistic.
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|Me either.
All but my wife's desktop here at home are built by hand.
Thank goodness for MWave and Newegg.
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|I don't own a Apple nor will I ever but someone putting a dent in Microsofts business is a good thing. I still think Macs are polished turds but as I don't own one, I can't honestly comment on thier s***tyness. Unlike you people who bash Vista but don't actaully own it.
I do own two iPods and I can honestly say they suck in sound quality compared to my daughters Sansa.
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|Turn off the EQ, get better headphones and you're in business cuz those little crappy hearphones that ships with'em are really disgusting.
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|He's been there, done that. :)
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|And now load rockbox onto the Sansa and you are in business.
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|Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't high end computers usually accompanied by exceptional (high)(super fast)performance??? Apple computers have always been mediocre at best when it comes to performance. My girlfriends piece of $h!t $2,550.00 iMac can't hold a candle to my less than $1800 bare bone overclocked performance monster. Although I must say, the iMac is nice and shiny.
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|Thats exactly my point (in post below)
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|Just because the price is over $1000 does not mean it is a "high end" product, just an expensive one. It's been shown that Apple has a 60%+ markup on their products over $1000.
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|I'm glad that others can see how misleading this report is.
Imagine you buy two machines, identical down to the model number. You get a discount on one (a sale, perhaps), and pay full retail for the other. Is the one you paid more for 'high end' compared to the other? No! That's not what 'high end' means to computer users; it doesn't refer to price, it refers to position on the power spectrum. A 'high end' machine is closer to the bleeding edge. A $1000 Apple is a 'low end' machine by PC standards.
Moreover, the price of a 'high end' machine is a moving target, so it's nonsensical to define that phrase in terms of an arbitrary price point, count Apple's slowest machines as 'high end', and proclaim them winners of the high end market.
A more accurate title for this report would be "Apple Computers Cost More Per Clock Cycle Than PCs", but that wouldn't be news, would it?
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|Does anyone here making these sour-grapes evaluations own an Apple computer ??
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|No, however I am consistently using one at work.
I like the OS; it's very well made. However, the construction of the laptops is horrendous.
The PPC laptops were constructed much better; the Intel ones fall apart heinously quickly.
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|Really? I've experienced quite the opposite. Then again, I had the cursed iBook G3 where some engineering drop-out made the decision to solder the GPU to the bottom of the board.
I've had no bad fortune with my new Intel MacBook.
Oh well, to each his own. Enjoy your preference.
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|Dual-CPU G4.
It's crap.
The damned thing's overheated more times than I can count and every time I bring it into the "Genius Bar", they blow it out and tell they've replaced the fan...or the heatsink...or a blocked coolant tube...
Yeah. That's some high-end stuff.
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|lol that sucks
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|If the G4 CPU's overheat that easily it makes me wonder how reliable the G5 CPU's are.
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|of course not.
I do own a MacBook Pro. It is by far the nicest laptop i have ever seen or used. OSX is _way_ better than the OSX clone Vista (i am forced to use at work).
I would not trade this MacBook Pro for _any_ M$ based laptop.
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|From what I saw at work, that was a main problem with the G series chips as they went on; they got way too hot.
In fact, I think that was one of the major contributing reasons for even contemplating a move to Intel.
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|These days when buying a laptop I only consider high end. Last time (autumn 2007) Apple did not even make it into the short list since the features were sub par - and liking pretty things I really wanted it to (besides the embarrassingly tacky lighted apple logo on the lid). Doesn't look like it's gonna happen this yearly upgrade cycle (looks like mobile quad core :)) either...
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|I tried macs twice and it sucked both times.
Vista has problems but when you compare OSX to XP, XP kicks a$$. I like having control offer my stuff. MACs are for the loosers that can be trusted to configure their own computer.
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|better than the OSX clone Vista (i am forced to use at work).
Wait...
Isn't Vista the OS they all say no companies will ever use?
Huh...
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|Hmm....
1137][revscat@Ivan:~]$ cat .bashrc
set show-all-if-ambiguous on
set -o vi
# For Fink
. /sw/bin/init.sh
.... deleted ....
And you enjoy "having control offer my stuff"? Yes, we're supposed to take you seriously when you don't know the difference between "over" and "offer".
But then again, I'm just a "looser" who enjoys hacking around with launchd, Python, pthreads, Java, Cocoa, and spends most of my time on my Mac in a bash shell.
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|The move to Intel was specifically related to the fact that the PowerPC G5 CPU required water cooling and therefore couldn't be used in a laptop. Since by this time Apple was no longer IBM's largest PowerPC customer on the desktop due to the release of gaming consoles that used PowerPC CPU's, IBM didn't feel that it was a high priority to fix the G5's heat problem.
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|LOL. When did high price means high end? If Apple's computer consider high end, I don't know what is not.
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|Agreed. They sell their products at such a premium its ridiculous.
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|The only reason they're selling most $1000 and over priced PCs is that the non Apple PCs are being priced ridiculously high at that point and it's easy to pick up a cheaper one with the same specs (more than likely).
/whingy bas****
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|LOL that's funny...does apple even have anything below $1000? Aren't most PC's below $1000 these days??
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|So how do the percentages break down of sales above and below $1000? This info alone is pretty meaningless without knowing what percentage that is of total sales.
What if 80% of all cpu's sold are under $1000?
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|The article states in computers above $1000. It says nothing about total or under $1000. thats not what these figures include.
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|No, these "facts" they give us here are useless because they sell their products at a much much higher premium than nearly all other computer manufacturers.
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|apple, their numbers are always impressive... until all aspects are considered...
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