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

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

#41

Post by 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).

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

#42

Post by anigbrowl »

Original source of the story: 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.

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

#43

Post by jemmons »

anigbrowl wrote: post #40
jemmons wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hu…

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.

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.

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

#44

Post by pchristensen »

pavlov wrote: post #11
pchristensen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, this is like saying Mercedes needs to get into the sub-$40K market. Maybe they do, maybe not. I think Mercedes and Apple would rather own the top and have the market rise to them.

Mercedes is quite active at the lowest end of the market: they produce cute microcars under the Smart brand. (I guess Smarts might not be available in the US at all, considering Americans' excess-oriented taste in automobiles.)

OK, fine. Apple makes the iPhone, the SmartCar of computers.

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

#45

Post by josefresco »

jemmons wrote: post #37
josefresco wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

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 hu…

You're living in a consumer bubble.

When I referenced "changing the world" I meant grand social problems and solutions that effect almost every human. Not a bunch of spoiled tech/gadget obsessed "Haves".

Ask the kids in Ghana how the iTunes Music Store has effected their lives.

"I honestly don't know what else you could expect from any other company of any size or business model."

We should all expect more from ourselves than simply overpriced/shiny electronics.

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

#46

Post by josefresco »

adamc wrote: post #27
ljlolel wrote: post #3

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…

Another alternative is that they live with being the Jaguar of computers and look for growth in other markets.

Oh what a horrible, horrible analogy. I wouldn't wish being the "Jaguar of anything" on my worst enemy.

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

#47

Post by anigbrowl »

jemmons wrote: post #43
anigbrowl wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 t…

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...

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.

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

#48

Post by rimantas »

iigs wrote: post #34
trjordan wrote: post #29

> 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?

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-picke…

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?

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

#49

Post by jemmons »

josefresco wrote: post #45
jemmons wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hu…

You're living in a consumer bubble. When I referenced "changing the world" I meant grand social problems and solutions that effect almost every human. Not a bunch of spoiled tech/gadget obsessed "Haves". Ask the kids in Ghana how the iTunes Music Store has effected their lives. "I honestly don't know what else you could expect from any other company of any size or business model." We should all expect more from ourse…

I admit I'm a very pro-capitalism type of guy and I indulge in many excesses that I should not take for granted, and yet do.

But I absolutely refuse to feel anything but joy and elation when I consider the miraculous tools I have available to me that allow me to complete works undreamed of by any generations previous.

It may naive, but I have to believe that if we are to care for the children of Ghana, we have to make more of ourselves, not less. To put it another way, would I know anything of Ghana's plight were it not for my shiny electronic computer and its connection to the miraculous interconnected network of shiny electronics?

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