7 ms·

Apple Claims 91% of $1,000+ PC Market Revenue in June

46 points by intregus 17y ago

zimbabwe 17y ago
I'm astounded at how recession-proof Apple has made itself seem. I was hoping they'd survive without too many bruises, but it seems as if the recession is boosting their sales, if anything.
- tdoggette 17y ago
  They're a luxury good and a status symbol-- the people that were willing to pay a premium for one pre-recession by and large can still afford to. It's a triumph of their marketing direction (backed up by products of quality, so I hear).
  - zimbabwe 17y ago
    I'll confirm product quality. It's just that right when the economy exploded there were a lot of people who were pretty snarky towards Apple, sneering at a company that dared make an expensive product. In fact, I spent this week on prog.reddit, and there are still people basically saying they'll laugh at Apple fanboys' faces when Apple collapses and they lose everything. I'm just glad that's not happening. From anecdotal experience, every graduate at my old high school just picked up a 13" Macbook Pro. They're everywhere.
  - potatolicious 17y ago
    Apple also happens to be the only major manufacturer still willing to treat customers with some measure of respect. I've owned a Toshiba before, and have dealt with Dell also with regards to warranty service; they are terrible. Long wait times (upwards of three hours!), clueless reps, and an iron-clad resistance to making any repairs whatsoever. Dell eventually acquiesces if you press them. Toshiba never did fix the defective laptop they sold me. Now Apple. I bought a MacBook Pro some time back in '06. It bit the dust this past Christmas (Dec '08), and I called Apple up; the below is what happened, embellishment-free: - Waited less than 2 minutes for the first representative to answer. I told her about the problem, she called up my file and noticed I had done previous repairs for the laptop, and immediately offered a full replacement (as opposed to a repair attempt). - She transferred me to a level-2 tech, I was on hold for less than 2 minutes again, and when the L2 tech got on the line the first representative relayed all the relevant information to him, in my presence, and asked me to confirm that this is correct. - They never once argued about the validity of any of my claims, nor did they ask for proof that my motherboard was truly shot. - I told them that I needed to do work over the holiday break (this was Dec. 20th-ish), and asked them to expedite the process. I had my new computer by Christmas eve. - They upgraded me to a unibody MacBook Pro for free, without me asking for one. Try getting THAT kind of service from any other PC manufacturer on the market today.
    - msjgriffiths 17y ago
      Two words: business support. If you purchase a Dell/HP/Lenovo support package, the support you'll get is excellent. e.g. same day, on-site, internationally. Apple gives much better support by default; other manufactures offer teired levels of support, so if you're stuck in the default you get nothing - but if you pay a bit, you can get much better support than Apple offers.
- mikeryan 17y ago
  It seems like what recessions do is get rid of the middle of the market. High end goods still do alright because their market is small to begin with and more able to handle the storm. More people then flock from the middle to the lower end. Looking at this page from dell: http://www.dell.com/home/laptops http://www.dell.com/home/laptops A ton of laptops in the $400-600 range, 2 @ $1000, and then you hit their high end alienware stuff from $1200 and up
- josefresco 17y ago
  Apparently you missed the news last week the Apple dropped from 4th to 5th or 5th to 6th (can't remember exactly) in the top PC manufacturers in the world. The recession and the shift to cheaper PC's was cited as the cause. Not necessarily a bad thing but it's definitely not a 'boost' in sales.
ljlolel 17y ago
This is not necessarily a good thing. Apple has largely $1000+ computers. Them taking 91% (and having single-digit overall market share) means that consumers increasingly prefer small portable cheap low-power computers (netbooks and similar), while the high-end market disappears. As an analogy, it would be like Cray boasting 20 years ago that they owned 90% of the $10,000+ computer market. Apple needs to innovate on the low end, or die. On the other hand, it seems like computing for the masses will converge onto mobile devices, and Apple currently has the strongest offering in that market.
- arrrg 17y ago
  market revenue =! market share
  - zimbabwe 17y ago
    Apple's market cap is around Google's, according to Newsweek. They make a pretty awesome profit on every product they sell.
- sahaj 17y ago
  is cray still relevant?
  - sahaj 17y ago
    i don't understand the downvote. this is a serious question. i have not been around this world long enough to know cray well. it seems to me that the original commenter made a point that cray targeted the high end market and it has not been well for them, and i would like to understand how they are doing today.
    - jodrellblank 17y ago
      Looking at the Top 500 Supercomputers list, there are Crays in position 2, 6, 11, 12, 13, 21, 23... http://top500.org/list/2009/06/100 http://top500.org/list/2009/06/100 So, they aren't out of the game. The previous lists are available, if you're interested you could compare Cray's standings with previous years. I don't understand the downvote. this is a serious question. The way you asked it carries an implication that Cray is not still relevant - it has the impact of a statement dismissing Cray rather than a quesiton about Cray.
blhack 17y ago
You know...reading this headline, I'm not sure that I even know of any consumer-level PCs that cost over $1000 (obviously servers, CAD/3d Modeling workstations)... I'm typing this from my acer aspire one right now and, honestly, this is more computer than I even need... I will admit that I am a bit odd, the only thing I really use my computer for is an SSH/HTTP client; certainly my usage habits are different than somebody like my mother.. But then there's my mother...I bought her one of these a few months ago, and she LOVES it. Her desktop machine (which she uses for running quicken or something like that) took a shit a few weeks ago, and her motivation to have me fix it is about 0. Her aspire is more computer than she really needs (except for, maybe, the screen. The resolution leaves a bit to be desired). So who IS buying computers that cost over a grand? Well, there are gamers...people who are most certainly not going to buy buying a mac (despite a lot of games being available on OSX, it still isn't up to speed with windows). They might spend over $1000 (I am not a gamer, so I don't really know what is required for gaming these days. If it can run tuxracer and armagetron then I'm content). Buuut....most of the gamers that I know buy their computers from newegg and put them together themselves. Even the desktops that I buy for my users at work only cost under $1k and that is with dell's "holy shit" service plan. Apple, you're dominating the over >$1000 market because you're the only one IN it. This claim would be akin to the coffee shop that I am sitting at claiming that they have 90% of the coffee market in Cross Lake, MN. They're the only coffee shop here.
- _pius 17y ago
  Good point. That said, I think the statistic actually includes portables, not just desktop machines.
  - whatusername 17y ago
    And as was mentioned above - it appears to be >$1K and sold at retail. So the T400/T500 Thinkpads etc probably don't appear on the list much - because they're not at the shops.
JeremyChase 17y ago
This is a staggering figure, but shouldn't be a surprise when you look at the PC laptop offerings. The way I see it, there are so many offerings under $1,000 that I can't see why you would pay more for a PC. $800 or so will get you a near top of the line system, and if you pay more than that you probably have a special application and as a result are paying a steep premium. Apple has successfully positioned itself as a premium brand and that is great for them.
- josefresco 17y ago
  It's easy to break 1K if you factor in gaming or simply want a nicely-built machine. Case-in-point the Dell Inspiron line dominates under 1K, but if you want an XPS you gotta spend over the 1K mark. The Inspirons compete with the XPSs as far as specs, but the quality and build of the XPS machines take them a notch above.
  - poppysan 17y ago
    But at the point you talk about gaming, you eliminate mac as a competition.
trjordan 17y ago
> While NPD's sales numbers are limited to brick-and-mortar retail stores [...] This has a huge amount to do with this. Where else can you buy high-end PCs in a physical store, besides the Apple store?
- iigs 17y ago
  Great catch. I haven't read the article yet but it wasn't adding up. For-corporate-use Thinkpads and Dells are almost all in the $1001+ range, so I was confused. One of the most fun parts of the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field is the statistics -- "91% of the > $1000 market", "most revenue during a non-holiday quarter", "most computers sold on sunny tuesday afternoons in spring", etc. This stat is so cherry-picked it might as well have been "Apple claims 100% of the 'glowing-fruit-on-lid' PC sales."
  - rimantas 17y ago
    Where do you see those numbers in Apple's press release? Or did they gave them in the press conference? If not, since when did NPD claims became Jobs RDF? Regarding best non-holiday quarter in company's entire history—it is not something to be shy about and not exactly cherry picking. Unless you did expect Apple to beat its best holiday quarter in ordinary quarter during recession?
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
dlevine 17y ago
I wouldn't say that Apple is the only one in the >$1000 market. However, they are the only one who is successful in that market. My last two laptops have been Macs (iBook and then Macbook). I didn't see them as high-end machines, although at $1300 each, they would have been "premium" by other standards. The only other company whose laptops people rave about is Sony. I personally don't think that you should have to pay $2000 for a subnotebook, but if you intend to do that, Sony makes a very nice product. Everyone else would love to get into this market, but can't. Dell, HP, Asus - they've all tried, but Apple's "low-end" products are better than their "high-end products." Sure, I'm sure that Apple would like to get into the lower-end market, but they won't compromise quality to do that. The mac mini is the only low-end product they make, and it is also the only mac that doesn't have a convincing value proposition (funny how that works).
anigbrowl 17y ago
Original source of the story: http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-has-91-of-market-for-1000-PCs-says-NPD/1248313624 http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-has-91-of-ma... Buried a bit deeper is something more interesting: Despite these advantages, US Mac retail sales slowed for about six months. The Macolypse Hits Apple* From about November 2008 to April 2009, Mac year-over-year US retail sales declined, even as Windows PCs dramatically gained. There was kind of a numbers reversal, following the late-September stock market crash. For example, in October 2008, following release of new aluminum, unibody laptops, US retail Mac revenue grew 25.5 percent, while Windows PC sales fell 4.2 percent, according to NPD. By January 2009, Mac retail revenue was down 10.4 percent from a year earlier and Windows PC revenue was flat.* He goes on to say Mac Sales are up for June YOY, while attributing some of this success to price cuts, and noting that while Apple enjoys the high-margin territory firms which are pricing on value are holding onto market share. I think the real losers here are not PCs in general or even manufacturers with a range of offerings like Dell and HP, but other luxury computer brands like Sony and boutique workstation suppliers. As noted, the brick-and-mortar limitation is really distorting. Last time I was in Office Depot or Best Buy, they were strongly emphasizing value over performance with their space allocation.
kpanghmc 17y ago
People who want to purchase Macs don't have a choice but to spend over $1,000. People who are willing to purchase PCs have that choice, and most elect to spend less. Is this stat really something to be proud of? It has more to do with the fact that Apple doesn't sell computers cheaper than $1,000 than anything.

46 points by intregus 17y ago

I'm astounded at how recession-proof Apple has made itself seem. I was hoping they'd survive without too many bruises, but it seems as if the recession is boosting their sales, if anything.

tdoggette 17y ago
They're a luxury good and a status symbol-- the people that were willing to pay a premium for one pre-recession by and large can still afford to. It's a triumph of their marketing direction (backed up by products of quality, so I hear).
- zimbabwe 17y ago
  I'll confirm product quality. It's just that right when the economy exploded there were a lot of people who were pretty snarky towards Apple, sneering at a company that dared make an expensive product. In fact, I spent this week on prog.reddit, and there are still people basically saying they'll laugh at Apple fanboys' faces when Apple collapses and they lose everything. I'm just glad that's not happening. From anecdotal experience, every graduate at my old high school just picked up a 13" Macbook Pro. They're everywhere.
- potatolicious 17y ago
  Apple also happens to be the only major manufacturer still willing to treat customers with some measure of respect. I've owned a Toshiba before, and have dealt with Dell also with regards to warranty service; they are terrible. Long wait times (upwards of three hours!), clueless reps, and an iron-clad resistance to making any repairs whatsoever. Dell eventually acquiesces if you press them. Toshiba never did fix the defective laptop they sold me. Now Apple. I bought a MacBook Pro some time back in '06. It bit the dust this past Christmas (Dec '08), and I called Apple up; the below is what happened, embellishment-free: - Waited less than 2 minutes for the first representative to answer. I told her about the problem, she called up my file and noticed I had done previous repairs for the laptop, and immediately offered a full replacement (as opposed to a repair attempt). - She transferred me to a level-2 tech, I was on hold for less than 2 minutes again, and when the L2 tech got on the line the first representative relayed all the relevant information to him, in my presence, and asked me to confirm that this is correct. - They never once argued about the validity of any of my claims, nor did they ask for proof that my motherboard was truly shot. - I told them that I needed to do work over the holiday break (this was Dec. 20th-ish), and asked them to expedite the process. I had my new computer by Christmas eve. - They upgraded me to a unibody MacBook Pro for free, without me asking for one. Try getting THAT kind of service from any other PC manufacturer on the market today.
  - msjgriffiths 17y ago
    Two words: business support. If you purchase a Dell/HP/Lenovo support package, the support you'll get is excellent. e.g. same day, on-site, internationally. Apple gives much better support by default; other manufactures offer teired levels of support, so if you're stuck in the default you get nothing - but if you pay a bit, you can get much better support than Apple offers.
mikeryan 17y ago
It seems like what recessions do is get rid of the middle of the market. High end goods still do alright because their market is small to begin with and more able to handle the storm. More people then flock from the middle to the lower end. Looking at this page from dell: http://www.dell.com/home/laptops http://www.dell.com/home/laptops A ton of laptops in the $400-600 range, 2 @ $1000, and then you hit their high end alienware stuff from $1200 and up
josefresco 17y ago
Apparently you missed the news last week the Apple dropped from 4th to 5th or 5th to 6th (can't remember exactly) in the top PC manufacturers in the world. The recession and the shift to cheaper PC's was cited as the cause. Not necessarily a bad thing but it's definitely not a 'boost' in sales.

ljlolel 17y ago

This is not necessarily a good thing. Apple has largely $1000+ computers. Them taking 91% (and having single-digit overall market share) means that consumers increasingly prefer small portable cheap low-power computers (netbooks and similar), while the high-end market disappears. As an analogy, it would be like Cray boasting 20 years ago that they owned 90% of the $10,000+ computer market. Apple needs to innovate on the low end, or die. On the other hand, it seems like computing for the masses will converge onto mobile devices, and Apple currently has the strongest offering in that market.

arrrg 17y ago
market revenue =! market share
- zimbabwe 17y ago
  Apple's market cap is around Google's, according to Newsweek. They make a pretty awesome profit on every product they sell.
sahaj 17y ago
is cray still relevant?
- sahaj 17y ago
  i don't understand the downvote. this is a serious question. i have not been around this world long enough to know cray well. it seems to me that the original commenter made a point that cray targeted the high end market and it has not been well for them, and i would like to understand how they are doing today.
  - jodrellblank 17y ago
    Looking at the Top 500 Supercomputers list, there are Crays in position 2, 6, 11, 12, 13, 21, 23... http://top500.org/list/2009/06/100 http://top500.org/list/2009/06/100 So, they aren't out of the game. The previous lists are available, if you're interested you could compare Cray's standings with previous years. I don't understand the downvote. this is a serious question. The way you asked it carries an implication that Cray is not still relevant - it has the impact of a statement dismissing Cray rather than a quesiton about Cray.

blhack 17y ago

You know...reading this headline, I'm not sure that I even know of any consumer-level PCs that cost over $1000 (obviously servers, CAD/3d Modeling workstations)... I'm typing this from my acer aspire one right now and, honestly, this is more computer than I even need... I will admit that I am a bit odd, the only thing I really use my computer for is an SSH/HTTP client; certainly my usage habits are different than somebody like my mother.. But then there's my mother...I bought her one of these a few months ago, and she LOVES it. Her desktop machine (which she uses for running quicken or something like that) took a shit a few weeks ago, and her motivation to have me fix it is about 0. Her aspire is more computer than she really needs (except for, maybe, the screen. The resolution leaves a bit to be desired). So who IS buying computers that cost over a grand? Well, there are gamers...people who are most certainly not going to buy buying a mac (despite a lot of games being available on OSX, it still isn't up to speed with windows). They might spend over $1000 (I am not a gamer, so I don't really know what is required for gaming these days. If it can run tuxracer and armagetron then I'm content). Buuut....most of the gamers that I know buy their computers from newegg and put them together themselves. Even the desktops that I buy for my users at work only cost under $1k and that is with dell's "holy shit" service plan. Apple, you're dominating the over >$1000 market because you're the only one IN it. This claim would be akin to the coffee shop that I am sitting at claiming that they have 90% of the coffee market in Cross Lake, MN. They're the only coffee shop here.

_pius 17y ago
Good point. That said, I think the statistic actually includes portables, not just desktop machines.
- whatusername 17y ago
  And as was mentioned above - it appears to be >$1K and sold at retail. So the T400/T500 Thinkpads etc probably don't appear on the list much - because they're not at the shops.

JeremyChase 17y ago

This is a staggering figure, but shouldn't be a surprise when you look at the PC laptop offerings. The way I see it, there are so many offerings under $1,000 that I can't see why you would pay more for a PC. $800 or so will get you a near top of the line system, and if you pay more than that you probably have a special application and as a result are paying a steep premium. Apple has successfully positioned itself as a premium brand and that is great for them.

josefresco 17y ago
It's easy to break 1K if you factor in gaming or simply want a nicely-built machine. Case-in-point the Dell Inspiron line dominates under 1K, but if you want an XPS you gotta spend over the 1K mark. The Inspirons compete with the XPSs as far as specs, but the quality and build of the XPS machines take them a notch above.
- poppysan 17y ago
  But at the point you talk about gaming, you eliminate mac as a competition.

trjordan 17y ago

> While NPD's sales numbers are limited to brick-and-mortar retail stores [...] This has a huge amount to do with this. Where else can you buy high-end PCs in a physical store, besides the Apple store?

iigs 17y ago
Great catch. I haven't read the article yet but it wasn't adding up. For-corporate-use Thinkpads and Dells are almost all in the $1001+ range, so I was confused. One of the most fun parts of the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field is the statistics -- "91% of the > $1000 market", "most revenue during a non-holiday quarter", "most computers sold on sunny tuesday afternoons in spring", etc. This stat is so cherry-picked it might as well have been "Apple claims 100% of the 'glowing-fruit-on-lid' PC sales."
- rimantas 17y ago
  Where do you see those numbers in Apple's press release? Or did they gave them in the press conference? If not, since when did NPD claims became Jobs RDF? Regarding best non-holiday quarter in company's entire history—it is not something to be shy about and not exactly cherry picking. Unless you did expect Apple to beat its best holiday quarter in ordinary quarter during recession?
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

dlevine 17y ago

I wouldn't say that Apple is the only one in the >$1000 market. However, they are the only one who is successful in that market. My last two laptops have been Macs (iBook and then Macbook). I didn't see them as high-end machines, although at $1300 each, they would have been "premium" by other standards. The only other company whose laptops people rave about is Sony. I personally don't think that you should have to pay $2000 for a subnotebook, but if you intend to do that, Sony makes a very nice product. Everyone else would love to get into this market, but can't. Dell, HP, Asus - they've all tried, but Apple's "low-end" products are better than their "high-end products." Sure, I'm sure that Apple would like to get into the lower-end market, but they won't compromise quality to do that. The mac mini is the only low-end product they make, and it is also the only mac that doesn't have a convincing value proposition (funny how that works).

anigbrowl 17y ago

Original source of the story: http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-has-91-of-market-for-1000-PCs-says-NPD/1248313624 http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-has-91-of-ma... Buried a bit deeper is something more interesting: Despite these advantages, US Mac retail sales slowed for about six months. The Macolypse Hits Apple* From about November 2008 to April 2009, Mac year-over-year US retail sales declined, even as Windows PCs dramatically gained. There was kind of a numbers reversal, following the late-September stock market crash. For example, in October 2008, following release of new aluminum, unibody laptops, US retail Mac revenue grew 25.5 percent, while Windows PC sales fell 4.2 percent, according to NPD. By January 2009, Mac retail revenue was down 10.4 percent from a year earlier and Windows PC revenue was flat.* He goes on to say Mac Sales are up for June YOY, while attributing some of this success to price cuts, and noting that while Apple enjoys the high-margin territory firms which are pricing on value are holding onto market share. I think the real losers here are not PCs in general or even manufacturers with a range of offerings like Dell and HP, but other luxury computer brands like Sony and boutique workstation suppliers. As noted, the brick-and-mortar limitation is really distorting. Last time I was in Office Depot or Best Buy, they were strongly emphasizing value over performance with their space allocation.

kpanghmc 17y ago

People who want to purchase Macs don't have a choice but to spend over $1,000. People who are willing to purchase PCs have that choice, and most elect to spend less. Is this stat really something to be proud of? It has more to do with the fact that Apple doesn't sell computers cheaper than $1,000 than anything.