There are now 100 million active Macs thanks to high number of new adopters

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited October 2018
Apple has reached a new milestone for the Mac, revealing during its special event that it has an active installed base of over 100 million Macs and MacBooks around the world.

Apple CEO Tim Cook on-stage announcing the 100M active Mac milestone
Apple CEO Tim Cook on-stage announcing the 100M active Mac milestone


Announced at the start of the "There's More in the Making" event in New York, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared a video with attendees and stream watchers celebrating the creative Mac user. The slideshow featured a number of celebrities and creative professional users, all at work on their Mac.

The 100 million active Mac user milestone was driven by new users starting to use the Mac.

"It's not surprising to see the Mac attract new customers," said Cook. "Over half of Mac buyers are new to the Mac."

According to the company, 51 percent of Mac buyers are new to the platform. In China, the figure grows to 76 percent of Mac purchases.

Cook also advised "What's most important to us, is in survey after survey, the Mac continues to be rated number 1 in customer satisfaction. One of the drivers of customer satisfaction is macOS."

"Our customers love their Macs," the CEO said.

AppleInsider is at the "There's more in the making" event live, where we expect new iPad Pros, and maybe even new Macs! Keep up with our coverage by downloading the AppleInsider app for iOS, and follow us on YouTube, Twitter @appleinsider and Facebook for live, late-breaking coverage. You can also check out our official Instagram account for exclusive photos.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 14
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    That's an important milestone, hopefully software houses will take note.
    watto_cobrachasm
  • Reply 2 of 14
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    But … but … six people here need SCSI ports!
    edredracerhomie3andrewj5790watto_cobrachasm
  • Reply 3 of 14
    danvmdanvm Posts: 1,400member
    ascii said:
    That's an important milestone, hopefully software houses will take note.
    Considering Windows, iOS and Android are over 1B users, I don't think developers will have macOS on top of their list. 
  • Reply 4 of 14
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    danvm said:
    ascii said:
    That's an important milestone, hopefully software houses will take note.
    Considering Windows, iOS and Android are over 1B users, I don't think developers will have macOS on top of their list. 
    Not at the top, no, but there's still money to be had.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 14
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    danvm said:
    ascii said:
    That's an important milestone, hopefully software houses will take note.
    Considering Windows, iOS and Android are over 1B users, I don't think developers will have macOS on top of their list. 
    the same argument can be said about the ration of Android users versus iOS users.  iOS users has a much smaller market penetration, yet that's where all the money is being made.

    Sure, desktop OS'es are a different market segment...
    edredracerhomie3watto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 14
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    danvm said:
    ascii said:
    That's an important milestone, hopefully software houses will take note.
    Considering Windows, iOS and Android are over 1B users, I don't think developers will have macOS on top of their list. 

    If we developers have learned anything over the last six years, it’s that the largest user base doesn’t necessarily make us the most money. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 14
    danvmdanvm Posts: 1,400member
    sflocal said:
    danvm said:
    ascii said:
    That's an important milestone, hopefully software houses will take note.
    Considering Windows, iOS and Android are over 1B users, I don't think developers will have macOS on top of their list. 
    the same argument can be said about the ration of Android users versus iOS users.  iOS users has a much smaller market penetration, yet that's where all the money is being made.

    Sure, desktop OS'es are a different market segment...
    iOS marketshare maybe is smaller than Android, but still huge with 1.3B active devices (that was the latest number I found from earlier this year).  So it not small, as the 100M with macOS. 

    And I agree, desktops are a different story.
  • Reply 8 of 14
    danvmdanvm Posts: 1,400member
    Rayz2016 said:
    danvm said:
    ascii said:
    That's an important milestone, hopefully software houses will take note.
    Considering Windows, iOS and Android are over 1B users, I don't think developers will have macOS on top of their list. 

    If we developers have learned anything over the last six years, it’s that the largest user base doesn’t necessarily make us the most money. 
    I suppose you refer to mobile developers, and both iOS and Android have +1B users.  You cannot compare that to the 100M macOS users. 
  • Reply 9 of 14
    ksecksec Posts: 1,569member
    If you consider 50% of all Mac users are new and Apple sold ~20M per year, which means Apple should have added ~10M Mac users every year. 

    But that is not the case, this latest Active Mac users just show there are also lot of people leaving the Mac ecosystem.
  • Reply 10 of 14
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    ksec said:
    If you consider 50% of all Mac users are new and Apple sold ~20M per year, which means Apple should have added ~10M Mac users every year. 

    But that is not the case, this latest Active Mac users just show there are also lot of people leaving the Mac ecosystem.
    How do you figure that?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 14
    mcdavemcdave Posts: 1,927member
    danvm said:
    ascii said:
    That's an important milestone, hopefully software houses will take note.
    Considering Windows, iOS and Android are over 1B users, I don't think developers will have macOS on top of their list. 
    Yeah but how many of them want to spend money?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 12 of 14
    mcdavemcdave Posts: 1,927member
    ksec said:
    If you consider 50% of all Mac users are new and Apple sold ~20M per year, which means Apple should have added ~10M Mac users every year. 

    But that is not the case, this latest Active Mac users just show there are also lot of people leaving the Mac ecosystem.
    How do you figure that?
    They’ve posted 100m Mac users a few years back.   If the installbase is static then they must have equal attrition.
  • Reply 13 of 14
    sflocal said:
    danvm said:
    ascii said:
    That's an important milestone, hopefully software houses will take note.
    Considering Windows, iOS and Android are over 1B users, I don't think developers will have macOS on top of their list. 
    the same argument can be said about the ration of Android users versus iOS users.  iOS users has a much smaller market penetration, yet that's where all the money is being made.

    Sure, desktop OS'es are a different market segment...
    That’s because the availability of apps for creative markets are in some cases non exsistant. iOS owns the serious music creation app market (music notation apps, DAWs, plugin architicuture and controllers). It’s not even close. Android isn’t even a blip on the music creation radar. 

    There may be many more Android users but they’re obviously not as diverse as iOS users and they won’t pay as much for apps either other than games  (I’m guessing). 
  • Reply 14 of 14
    chasmchasm Posts: 3,274member
    danvm said:
    ascii said:
    That's an important milestone, hopefully software houses will take note.
    Considering Windows, iOS and Android are over 1B users, I don't think developers will have macOS on top of their list. 
    Let's remember that the average selling price of an iOS app is maybe $1.99, and the average selling price of an Android app is perhaps as much as $1 (numerous surveys show devs make less than half as much on Android apps as iOS apps). Meanwhile, I don't know the average selling price of Windows software or Mac software because the range is so much broader, but ... the profit margin on "desktop class" software has got to be many, many times higher, even through the Mac or Windows app stores, for the same amount of programming/marketing effort.

    So while you're right that mobile OSes and Windows have a far larger number of users, it's also true that of all of those, Mac has the "sweet spot" of higher prices for software and a very low rate of software piracy among consumer users. It's possible to get rich quicker with a hit product on iOS, but the long-time Mac developers don't seem to be hurting at all -- and of course they still have (like Win developers) the option of selling their wares directly, so their "overhead" can be (sometimes is) lower than the ~30 percent MAS and Winstore charge.
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