Friday, April 15, 2005

What will it take for the Mac to grab 5 percent of the PC industry?

Apple recently celebrated an amazing quarter in which Mac sales grew by an astonishing 43 percent when compared with the same quarter a year previously. It got me thinking: What will it take for Apple to secure just 5 percent of the market for the Mac?

Let's do some math to find out (and I admit I'm horrible at math, so help me out here if these figures are wrong): PC makers shipped 180.4 million PCs in 2004, assuming you average the figures supplied by Gartner and IDC, respectively. Apple sold 3.29 million Macs. That gave Apple 1.8 percent of the overall PC market at the end of 2004.

In the first quarter of 2004, Apple experienced 43 percent growth, selling 1.046 million Macs. If the company sold that many Macs each quarter this year, and PC sales did not improve at all, Apple would snag just 2.3 percent of the market. Not so good.

OK, let's say Apple's Mac sales actually improve 43 percent for the entire year this year, compared to last year. 3.29 million added to 43 percent of 3.29 million is 4.7 million units. That would give Apple ... 2.6 percent of the market.

I think most people would agree that growing Mac sales at 43 percent for four quarters in a row is likely impossible. And, of course, there's one more problem: PC sales are not going to be stagnant this year. According to IDC, PC sales will grow 9.7 percent in 2005. Gartner says the figure is closer to 9 percent. If we accept the lower number for PC growth, and the higher number for Mac growth, Apple's market share at the end of 2005 will be ... 2.5 percent. In the absolute best case scenario.

Yikes.

This means, I think, that Apple's Mac sales this year would have to achieve over 80 percent growth--for the entire year--for the Mac's market share to grow to 5 percent. I find that disturbing.

Again, math is not my strong suit. Have I messed something up here?

[ Posted at 4:51 PM | Permalink ]

Internet Nexus

Search this site

More of my sites

Friday, April 15, 2005

What will it take for the Mac to grab 5 percent of the PC industry?

The '07 iPods!

My latest book