

Apple Claims 91% of $1,000+ PC Market Revenue in June - intregus
http://www.macrumors.com/2009/07/23/apple-claims-91-of-1000-pc-market-revenue-in-june/

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blhack
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
Good point.

That said, I think the statistic actually includes portables, not just desktop
machines.

~~~
whatusername
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.

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ljlolel
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.

~~~
ptomato
People have been saying for years that Apple needs to come out with lower end
products or they'll die. Their steadily increasing profits (even through the
recession) and massive cash reserves say otherwise.

~~~
josefresco
There's a big difference between being successful and being change-the-world
successful. I'm sure Apple would love a piece of the latter but given their
business model it probably won't happen.

I can't imagine Jobs is happy about being _just_ being a billionaire when
there are guys like Gates who dwarf his wealth and success (and therefore have
the cash to actually saves many more lives and alter world history)

~~~
jemmons
I'm sorry, it seems one could conclude from your statement that you don't
believe Jobs-era Apple (which, after all, has had basically the same business
model all these years) hasn't changed the world. It seems to me they've
already done that a few times over.

The iPod. The iTune Music Store. The iPhone. A world-class music studio for
$500. A world-class motion picture studio for $1000. The evolution of the
digital hub. The insistence that technology should "just work". I honestly
don't know what else you could expect from any other company of any size or
business model.

~~~
anigbrowl
I think josefresco meant the world outside the computer market. The iPod and
iPhone, I agree 100%.

Music and movie software...no. As a professional in that sphere I personally
feel Apple comes late to those parties after working out or buying what
everyone else is wearing. That's not meant as a put-down, I just think you're
overlooking how much innovation comes from third parties.

~~~
jemmons
I've been using Logic since the Atari days, and I certainly don't mean to
belittle the contributions of eMagic! I'm less familiar with the linage of
Final Cut, but I'm sure whoever developed that before Apple did fantastic
work.

But, though it's become a cliche in this context, I think what makes these
products world-changing is Apple's vision. [EDIT: actually, now that I think
about it, it's not their vision. It's their _business model_ (the very thing
the OP was deriding). Apple sells hardware and can use software as a loss
leader. So it's able to sell Logic and Final Cut for much less than when they
were the sole income of their respective companies] After Apple bought Final
Cut and Logic, they slashed prices, refined the interfaces to make them much
more approachable, and gave users a way to migrate from simple iApps, to
Express versions, to the full-blown Studio packages.

This ease of use, low cost, and easy migration vision of Apple's all works
together to democratize the creation of media. As a platform, it places an
emphasis on the _creation_ of media, not merely the _consumption_ of it.

 _That's_ what I find world-changing about it, and I think its all stuff
that's happened post-Apple-buyout. But I'd love to hear more about any similar
efforts made before Apple bought these products.

~~~
anigbrowl
Well, the cliff notes version:

Adobe were the breakthrough company to develop video editing on Mac, with what
is now Premiere. Final Cut was a spinoff of that when the developer left for
Macromedia, which was in turn split between Apple and Adobe (FC & Flash,
respectively): [http://steveblank.com/2009/05/11/supermac-war-story-x-the-
vi...](http://steveblank.com/2009/05/11/supermac-war-story-x-the-video-
spigot/)

Now you're right about Apple's price cutting, and it's more obvious how this
drove down the cost of video - but on the music side while you had ProTools at
the extreme high end and Logic at the prosumer price, over on the (post-Atari)
PC side you had very aggressive competition from Steinberg (Cubase), then
Cakewalk, and ultimately a host of others - not to mention trackers. eMagic
had a big first-mover advantage in their price space, but competitors were
really eroding that with a combination of pricing and ease-of-use. I
personally think EMagic would have gone bust within 2 years if they hadn't
been able to fall into Apple's arms.

To be fair to Apple, they _were_ very smart to focus on things like high bus
bandwidth and high-resolution hardware timers which are _de rigeur_ for this
sort of work. Wintel was able to play catch-up in large part because of the
rise of electronic music, where things like hardware latency and so forth were
less critical.

~~~
gamble
Wasn't Premiere actually developed by SuperMac and purchased by Adobe?

~~~
anigbrowl
Yes, sorry. I should have said 'product that became Adobe Premiere' - my point
being that it was another 3rd party app.

------
trjordan
> 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
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
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?

------
zimbabwe
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
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).

~~~
potatolicious
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
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.

------
anigbrowl
Original source of the story:
[http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-has-91-of-
ma...](http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-has-91-of-market-
for-1000-PCs-says-NPD/1248313624)

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.

------
dlevine
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).

------
JeremyChase
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
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
But at the point you talk about gaming, you eliminate mac as a competition.

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kpanghmc
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.

