Why is Apple still losing market share??
I just don't get it. Why is Apple still losing market share despite all the fantastic products they're coming up with?
The latest reports put its market share at 2-3% worldwide and at not much more in the US. That's pathetic.
It seems like every year they're losing 1/2 to 1 percentage point. At this rate what will it be in 2005: 1.5%??
Where are the switchers? Where are all the new converts that Apple is supposedly bringing on with its Switch campaign?
The scariest thing is this situation doesn't seem to bother Apple one bit, or Mac users for that matter. How about software developers? Market share has got to matter for them.
So what do you think? Will 2003 be the year of marketshare gains for Apple? Please pretty please make it be, Apple. Else how low can it get? Is nobody else worried at the prospect of ever lower market share?
The latest reports put its market share at 2-3% worldwide and at not much more in the US. That's pathetic.
It seems like every year they're losing 1/2 to 1 percentage point. At this rate what will it be in 2005: 1.5%??
Where are the switchers? Where are all the new converts that Apple is supposedly bringing on with its Switch campaign?
The scariest thing is this situation doesn't seem to bother Apple one bit, or Mac users for that matter. How about software developers? Market share has got to matter for them.
So what do you think? Will 2003 be the year of marketshare gains for Apple? Please pretty please make it be, Apple. Else how low can it get? Is nobody else worried at the prospect of ever lower market share?
Comments
<strong>Because there computers can't compete with the Wintel boxen. They are not making computers that corporations want to buy.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The hell with corporations the typical US household now has multiple computers. While Apple was gobbling up Margins they weren't grabbing marketshare and keeping up in processor technology. Now most consumer don't feel a need to purchase the Top computer anymore since basic apps tend to dominate. Apple must continue to revamp and mold themselves into not just a computer company but a "Solution Provider" the iPod is a step in the right direction but they will have to keep their hands on the pulse of the consumer to strike any gold.
it seems that apple is becoming quite aggressive though, so i wouldn't say they are doing nothing, but they just around copmlaining and worryig their stock holders (which i am)...know how much lower apple stock would get if apple said "we are worried our market share is shrinking FAST"
They need faster processors.
They need to advertise on tv where they show the box and how easy it is to get into it, the OS and what it is, and how easy it is to network.
The switcher commercials on tv are OK but when you see them, it's hard to tell what it's about until you see the Apple logo.
[ 01-14-2003: Message edited by: Slackula ]
[ 01-14-2003: Message edited by: Slackula ]</p>
Market share numbers can be misleading because computers now come in a wide variety of configurations and are used for a variety of purposes. More important for Apple is whether the number of boxes they are selling is increasing and whether they can maintain their margins.
I think that if Apple can hold on for the next couple of years they will have a great opportunity to break out of their niche.
Prices for all kinds of hardware will approach zero. What will happen to Dell when a basic PC sells for$50? What will happen to MS when $400 for office and $200 for their OS is ten times the price of the hardware? The chance I see for Apple is that when you subtract out the price of the hardware they can compete strongly on the quality of their software.
I just don't get it. Why is Apple still losing market share despite all the fantastic products they're coming up with?
<hr></blockquote>
The big 3: Ubiquity. Familiarity. Momentum.
[quote]Originally posted by neutrino23:
What evidence is there that the market share is going down? The last thing I saw was last spring when the market share had actually increased slightly. <hr></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.pegasus3d.com/mac_sales.html"; target="_blank">http://www.pegasus3d.com/mac_sales.html</a>;
And here's a very cool graph I picked up from Ars tracking computer sales from various platforms since 1975.
<strong>
The hell with corporations the typical US household now has multiple computers.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The typical US household buys for home what they use at work.
<strong>
The big 3: Ubiquity. Familiarity. Momentum.
</strong>
Sounds about right to me. I'm not too sure the average person would buy an Apple computer even if they were the exact same price for the exact same speed. I know the 'same' price and speed are horrendous over-simplifications but use your imagination.
This is why I consider most of the talk about prices to be whining, pure and simple.
Apple needs to adapt to being in a minority, and I think it is doing so beautifully by adopting standards, playing well with others and losing the NIH attitude.
The majority don't drive my car, or listen to my music, or wear my clothes, or eat my food or a thousand other things I pay extra for because I want quality. I don't give that much of a damn if they use my computer.
<strong>
The typical US household buys for home what they use at work.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Damn. You beat me to it! But you are exactly right. Corporate market share is very important because at work people are forced to learn a certain platform. When they go home, the last thing they want to do is spend time learning a new OS (even though it's apple simple). I think this is why the school sector is/was so very important to apple. It serves a similar outcome. If students use them at school..there is a good chance mommy and daddy will buy one at home.
prices still need to fall and performance still needs to be improved!
Combine that with the fact that Apple's marketing only seems designed to appeal to us, the one's that are already here.
<img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
They put out these fuzzy, esoteric things that don't really say or show anything. Yeah, I dig minimalism and "saying it with silence" as much as they next guy. But sometimes that isn't necessarily the best approach.
And then they go and do the "Switch" ads. Yeah, they're interesting, but Apple honestly seems to think they're the end-all/be-all and hangs EVERYTHING on them. They do JUST the "Switch" stuff, instead of having "Switch" be merely one component of a multi-pronged marketing approach.
I mean, have any of you seen the ads on TV for these new PowerBooks? I haven't.
I sometimes think they film these commercials to show on the big screen at Macworld, just to get Mac geeks to applause. Because, for the most part, they never seem to be heard from again.
You can talk price, MHz, bundles, processors, etc. all day long and I don't think it really fixes or addresses anything.
If Apple did NOTHING to their hardware and software and simply just got very clever and ballsy in their marketing, you'd see a huge interest.
People are sheep. People buy stupid treadmills and chicken broilers all the time, based on nothing more than snazzy commercials and clever taglines. QVC sells the most inane, useless trinkets sometimes and you can see the sell tally on the screen going wild.
1. People who buy computers look at software and see hundreds of PC titles on the self, and they are likely to so only a few Mac titles. Mac iApps are great and the hot games are avaiable for the Mac, but people still see that I need a computer that runs the most software.
Apples iApps are the just plain awsome. Final Cut Express, what can I say $300 makes it a great buy. The Aveage American need to be exposed to these to seethe real power of the MAC
2. Processor speed & price - People see this Dell
Dimension 4450
17" LCD
P4 2.80 GHz
60 GB Hard Drive
512 MB Memory
DVD-RW/+R
128MB ATI Radion 9700TX
$2047
Apple PowerMac
17" LCD
Dual 1.0GHz
80 GB Hard Drive
512 MB Memory
DVD Drive
64MB ATI Radion 9000
$3648
Clearly Apple must give people more bang for the buck... I will still buy my Mac, but want more for my Dollar
3. While Apple seems to be doing well with their retail stores. The fact is most Americans walk into Circuit City, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Sears, JC Penny and CompUSA and with the exception of CompUSA none sell Macs (yes when they did sell them the salemen where the macs biggest enemy here). Apple may need to offer a Classic iMac in a G4 version at a low cost?
That my thoughts.
1) performance.
for what seems like forever, apple have failed to offer serious butt kicking performance. even the new pbooks only have aa 1Ghz proc in them at the most (plus a slower graphics chipset). when it comes to buying computers (or anything), people always want as much as they think they can get for their money. value for money is not perceived as coming from usefulness but from "Bigger, faster better". people perceive a 2.4Ghz proc as being faster than a 1.25Ghz proc. windows users get faster buses, hard drives, slots galore etc and all for far less. I suspect that if the 970 is launched at 1.8Ghz it will do little to bump up market share.
2) exposure
who are apple? what is a mac? the number of people I meet who have no idea that any alternative to wintel exists is mind boggling. I have never seen an apple ad on tv and as for the swicth campaign what is the point of directing it at mac users? the only people who see them are the ones going to apple's web site. apple needs to get out and about and spread the word aggresively. just becuase their designs are getting minimalist the same should not apply to their marketing. they should get macs out there even if they take a short term hit. Jobs argues that MS gets an unfair advantge supplying windows to schools as it gains MS new customers by default. so why doesn't jobs employ the same tactics. why not give away dualies to art colleges, schools, universities etc in the short run?
3) Price
they're overpriced. that's it. why would people want to pay over the odds for a computer that simply does the job? for what apple charges, the mac makes no sense, particulalrly for education markets. they said they listened and came up with the eMac. if this is the case then where are the droves of educators queing up to buy the mac that apple made for them based on what they really wanted? If consumers feel that buying a 2Ghz pc is better value than a 1Ghz mac on the basis of the numbers then they'll obviously go wintel. charging 60 odd% more for a dualie because in some tests it runs up to 30% faster than a pc is crazy. even volume and educational licensing is non attractive. we have one G4 suite and one Nt 4 suite. we'd like to rip out the NTs and replace them with G4s but at the edu pricing we've been able to get hold of we could kit out 2 XP suites! what apple Uk fail to grasp is that by biting the bullet and matching the pc price we would then become 100% Mac and locked into X. All our future custom would be mac based.
In the uk I could buy a small car, go on a luxury family holiday anywhere in the world, or completely replace all the furniture in my place for the price of a loaded dualie with a cinema display.
Apple and prices have never made sense. The crt imac is the worst offender. A simlar specced PC can be bought for under £400 gb pounds. so why not the crt imac? if it helps get macs out there and increases the chance of people coming into contact with them then why not?
4) the dark side
I guess for most people a computer = MS Windows. every kid can say windows as soon as they can speak. our IT managers speak only windows. our corporations speak only windows. people only ever seem to come into contact with windows. what apple can do about this I don't know. looking hard at 2 and 3 would probably help.
5) availability
how do you buy a mac? where I live there is only one store in a 25 mile radius where you can buy a mac. either that or apple's web site. but wait, in order to look at apple's web site you'd have to be considering a mac in the first place. the local PC world has a handful of low end imacs, emacs and ibooks. no trained staff, no peripherals that are overtly mac compatible, no mac software (other than office and NU), no mac books. plus the staff seem hell bent on telling you tht macs are crap, incompatible, slow, expensive etc so come and see this Sony Viao - its beautifully designed.
to be honest I think the drop in apple's market share has been exasperated by the move to X. I personally know more people who have had bad hair tearing out experiences with the move to X than good ones. People, who find their scanner won't work or their printer won't work . . . (mind you to buy a new mac and find that your trusty inkjet won't work because you now need USB was no better). If someone wants to buy a new mac then fine but to have to upgrade all your peripherals as well is mightmare city for the joe ordinaries who will see it that way. its not much fun if the manufacturers of your printer et al seem disinclined to produce up to date drivers for it. I've always had a PC as well as a mac and from a P75 to P180 to P233 to P400 and now athlon the old epson plugs in and works.
even with an adapter there are no drivers for this printer from epson for X.
sure you sometimes get these issues with PCs but then for the price of a G4 you'll get a printer and a scanner and a camera chucked in with your PC.
I'm a long time mac user and fanatic and although X is my primary OS and I like it, I don't love it. not like 9. I can't put my finger on it but X feels "not quite right". but therein lies the problem I think. while there are enough idiots like me who will buy mac forever no matter how poor the offerings - enough to keep apple ticking over, apple won't listen and things won't change.
roll on the 4Ghz Dual 970 with custom graphics chipset, FW2, superdrive turbo . . . .