Mac worldwide market share hits 3.5 percent in Q2 2008

Thanks, Paul. Now I can feel properly restrained when I read a story or two in the Apple-following press. All I really care about, though, is that Apple makes enough profit that I can continue using MacOS for most of what I do. (And I just ordered a Vista upgrade package, as my need to run XP should end in a couple of weeks with an upgrade of our firewall. That will leave me with 0 XP and 2 Vista--much nicer than one of each.)

#1. You've never even once demonstrated why anyone should care about worldwide share. Never. #2. You've never even once proved how "huge growth is much easier when you're small." I believe network effects make the exact opposite true in the computer business. #3. Your "analysis" which I could best describe at "meaningless 3rd grade arithmetic" doesn't address Apple's profit or compare it to other PC makers. I think we all know this game. Apple's worldwide share is the smallest marketshare number of all. That makes it perfect fodder for pandering to the winCabal... which makes it perfect for driving traffic. How lame. Eat it up though, "weedmonk" and rest. Nobody else with higher brain function looks at Apple performance in this crude, pointless way. They notice that Apple's 3.5% share makes them more money than Dell. And developers look at the trend lines and the growth rates, which is why WWDC sold out this year. Use your brain, Paul. I know you have one. We all have calculators.

Simply said...congratulations, Apple, on another successful quarter. Regardless of how you carve up the numbers; this, along with the MS quarterly earning statement tells me that the PC industry is not hurting from the supposed "slow economy" that we keep reading about in the newspapers. --tayme

Hi, this article may be of relevance here. http://www.stuff.co.nz/4626722a28.html

@knil I stopped reading when the computer genius could not figure out that he could use a free IMAP gamil account to move his email from his Outlook/POP to his Mail/POP account. Or even a 60 day trial of MobileMe IMAP. Maybe he should stick to his day job.

Is this www.stevejobsjiltedlover.com or winsupersite????? Could we get a focus on the Windows world and drop the Apple hate sometime soon??? Its bad enough that Windows IT pro is so thin these days I mistake it for a magazine insert add. Snap out of it Paul, your feeding the Apple press machine and not hurting it with your rants these days.

@runner "because if you are selling 1 million computers one month and then selling two millions computers the second month you have just posted a 100% increase, obviously. Dell or hp selling another 1 million, ... etc etc" That's what I am talking about. Where do you guys get this, perpetuating, completely flawed logic? That said, thanks runner, you make my question even simpler to understand. What is harder to do? Increase your sales by 100% Or increase your sales by 17.5%

I'm not that concerned with the global market share metric, but some people seem to like it, so that's okay. I'm generally more concerned with earnings growth, fat profit margins, and quality products that people seem to want to buy. Apple's got all those in spades. Microsoft, BTW, also has good earnings growth, fat profit margins, and good products, so that's okay too. This is no a zero sum game between Apple and Microsoft. Both can grow, both can prosper. For Apple to win, Microsoft does not have to lose. Remember that. The odd thing to me is that a lot of people talk about market share as if it correlated to some inherent superiority. It does not. If it did, then Bud Light would be arguably superior to Anchor Steam, Folgers somehow intrinsically better than Peets. In my experience this is not the case. In my view it is not Microsoft that should be worried about the Mac (they make a boatload of money off of Office Mac and retail Windows sales for virtualized installs) but Lenovo and Acer and folks like that. Microsoft gets revenue from every Windows PC, just like Apple gets the revenue from every Mac sale. It's the hardware vendors slugging it out in the trenches that are getting pinched.

MaryW, Let nothing I said take away from Apple's accomplishment. I think at this time the momentum Apple has gained from the perception that Vista is absolutely horrible(i like it) and the funny and simple switcher ads(and all the press attention...not that its completely unwarranted) are driving their sales. But I'm no expert and I'm not going to act like one. And I probably shouldn't have said market share bc the rest of the industry is growing too so the market share wouldn't go up quite as much. It's not easier per say but it would look like huge growth if you look at he percentages. @daveinla yeah definitely relative but small I suppose in the area of computer oems(Dell and HP are selling TONS of computers). Their influence has helped the other manufacturers design prettier computers(dells m1530 and 1330 are pretty sweet).

In other news.... Ed Bott seems to find a crapware-free PC to be "amazing". http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=501&page=1 Ed's great, but is this really the state of the PC industry? Selling a machine that's not polluted with junk is cause for excitement? No wonder Apple's growing so fast, especially among consumers where even their world-wide share is estimated to be 10% or more.

Wae and Dipsh, my nephew did not want a Mac, so I configured an HP dv9700t as we had a $500 off coupon and he wanted a 17in screen, so I got the Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo Processor T8300 (2.40GHz), 4GB RAM, 240GB 7200RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive, Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit) and a bunch of other stuff, all for around $1,275. He'll love it. My older brother was happy to save $500, but our mom wants to pay for it. She'll be able to afford as I'm buying her a new car this year. Dipsh, I want to get the "C" class, as she needs a small car.

@Lindy This is Winsupersite. Paul writes about stuff that affects Windows users. Last time I checked, Windows runs on a computer which is being counted in the numbers Paul is referring to. Like I said before, if you don't like it, don't read it or at least don't b__ch and moan about it.

That makes you Windows guys a bunch of lemmings.

Interesting stuff. I use Windows as well as a Mac. I'm not sure if that makes me a lemming, Maybe half a lemming perhaps, perhaps I sould grow some green hair like a Lemming. (as in the game) Or maybe I won't be defining my person and being through what computer programs I use, but rather the other things like hiking :-) I personally take from this everyone is still doing well, even in this time of suposed economic turndown.

Wow. To John & the rest of you morons asking Paul to explain why its easier for a small entity to post huge percentage gains - learn math. Seriously, most of you seem as if you've had some schoolin', so you should still remember division and percentages, right? Amazing.

Seems to me that the point of contention here is not with the math, but rather with the terminology that's in play. Obviously, when you have a small market share, there's a lot more potential for growth than when you have a massively dominant position like Microsoft's. But I would argue that growing any business by 40% YOY cannot rationally be described as "easy."

Paul, please focus on Windows more, like the others just said earlier. Apple makes wonderful products, trend-setting devices, but this is not an Apple forum. I'm reading your sites since 2001 looking for info regarding Windows. You say that Apple is relevant, and for this reason you have to review some (or all) Apple products. Fine. May I suggest to do that on that long forgotten Internet Nexus blog? :P Regards, Dan

Fine, John. Learn logic and reason. Moron.

Thank you! Though, that still might be prohibitively difficult to understand for "some", apparently.

@Waethorn Mac sales are going great in the US, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Europe. Apple does not have much of a presence in Africa, South America and most of Asia. Apple is doing very well in the places where it chooses to compete and the places that for the most of us, it really matters. If I were in the car business and I looked around the world, I would conclude that the Toyota HiLux truck is the ideal vehicle for everyone. Not true.

@gorath & befusion & the rest.... First of all, "befusion", you're insults only make you look even more pig-headed and ignorant. You come at us with insults, are confronting with debate and retort with "moron". Pathetic. You people have such arrogance and certitude it's truly amazing. You're making this very arguable claim and backing it up with nothing. Just fourth-grade Lemonade-stand math. This isn't simple arithmetic, though perhaps that's all you people are capable of. We're talking about rates of change and derivatives on top of derivatives in a market with many barriers to entry and network effects. Perhaps you don't know what "Network Effects" are. Go look it up. The Windows ecosystem and overwhelming marketshare has a self-reinforcing effect that makes the barriers to entry of competitors very high. And Apple isn't selling "one" of anything. They're selling millions of macs into a highly competitive and generally price-sensitive near-commodity market. There is a reason why economics and it's principals separate between Micro and Macro level scale. Market forces aren't linear. There are levels of resistance to growth that depend on the market itself and the nature of the products. Marginal growth isn't "easy" in mature markets for anyone. There are also tipping points where network effects kick in and accelerate growth. Apple's "halo effect", which is a theory and not a proven phenomenon, is an example of this. Causality vs. Correlation. Learn the differences and you'll be a hell of a lot smarter than every pundit and politician. For Apple to be growing rapidly in saturated first-world markets where Windows in 95% is NOT EASY. PERIOD. Convincing a life-long Windows user to switch to the mac which is a different interface with all new software is NOT EASY, which is what these growth numbers require. It's not like there's this massive market of first-time PC buyers in the US, Europe and Japan. The barrier to entry for Apple to grab share from the Windows market is much higher than for one PC maker to steal share from another... which is basically a matter of price. This, my friends, is what we call "thought". Looking at an issue and doing your best to consider all the variables. What you guys and Paul are engaged in by stating theories as fact and then calling people like me a "moron" for disputing them is called "zealotry" and "ignorance". You are the same kind of zealots that claim marketshare is king. Please read this paper from Wharton on the Myth of Market Share and get some friggin education on reality and business: http://marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/ideas/pdf/Armstrong/myth_of_market_sh... If the best you guys can do is "moron" I truly feel sorry for you.

Oh... and read this: http://marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/ideas/pdf/Armstrong/myth_of_market_sh...

I personally think the squealing over market share is a bit infantile. I mean, the more Macs that are sold, the better it is for Microsoft given that Windows runs on Macs pretty well and Office is the most popular productivity app on the OSX platform. So Microsoft is still laughing all the way to the bank either way.

@cesrjr Since Paul "Would never" do the pc share growth computation without the Mac, you can do it yourself. It's really very simple 4th Grade arithmetic. (SPOILER: It changes the growth rate by less than 1% because even big growth in a tiny segment doesn't change the overall very much) You can now put the tin foil hat back on and explain why this is a dark secret that's being hidden from the world.

@Mike, You seem like a knowledgeable guy. I'd like nothing more than to have a civil, hyperbole-free debate. There can be areas where we agree and ones where we disagree. If you go to my website and read my personal tech bio, you'll see I started on the PC. I would love to have a great dialog about this. Maybe we can aim to elevate the debate from either side of the fence and show Paul what REAL analysis is. I don't disagree with him that the numbers are often used to hype the impact of the mac beyond what is rational. No question. But his focus solely on outright worldwide share is the opposite extreme. I hate "fight your extreme with my extreme" polarized debate. It's not intelligent. So if you want to temper the flamebait (OSX updates are service packs, etc), I'll cool off the aggressive rebuttals and we can really have some mental fun.