Apple's share of US PC market slips to 8% at hands of Acer
Apple's share of the US computer market fell to 8 percent during the fourth calendar quarter of 2008 from 9.5 percent in the third as the Mac maker surrendered its third place ranking to surging netbook maker Acer, according to market research firm Gartner.
Preliminary data released by the firm Wednesday shows Mac growth to have slowed to 8.3 percent during the three-month period ending December, representing 1.225 million Macs shipped domestically. Apple has still gained a over a point in market share on a yearly basis, shipping 96,000 more systems than it did during the fourth quarter of 2007. However, its performance is down from quarter to quarter with 29.4 percent growth during the September quarter, when it reportedly shipped 1.645 million units to Americans.
Still, Apple is one of just three top-tier PC vendors in the US who would have seen positive growth during the quarter based on Gartner's data. Toshiba has shipped just over a million systems stateside to boost its share of US market to 6.5 percent, representing 12 percent yearly growth. Meanwhile, netbook maker Acer is expected to have had its unit shipments surge over 55 percent in the fall to propel its share to 15.2 percent from summer's 8.8 percent while reclaiming its third place ranking from Apple.
Market leaders Dell and HP retained their respective positions atop the market, though both saw a yearly decline in unit shipments. Dell shipped 4.465 million systems domestically, a decline of 16.4 percent that pushed its share of the market down to 28.6 percent from 30.8 percent. HP remained a close second, shipping 4.288 million units. Although its unit shipments fell 3.4 percent on a yearly basis, HP still managed to boost its share of the market to 27.5 percent, up from 25.7 percent during the September quarter and 25.6 percent from the year-ago quarter.
Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 4Q08 (Thousands of Units) | Source: Gartner
And these companies weren't alone on the international stage. Â*The worldwide PC industry suffered its worst growth rate since 2002 during the fourth quarter as worldwide shipments totaled 78.1 million units, a mere 1.1 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2007, according to Gartner.
"The United States experienced steeper than expected shipment declines due to the recession. The Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region was also affected by the economic slow down across key countries," said analyst Mika Kitagawa. "Asia/Pacific recorded the worst shipment growth since Gartner started its PC statistics research. Latin America met expectations, but its growth was much lower than in the past."
The lone growth driver for the 2008 holiday PC season was the mini-notebook segment, according to Kitagawa, who noted that the mini-notebook segment outpaced overall mobile PC growth as more and more vendors offered creative sales promotions. This, however, has to record declines in worldwide PC revenues as customers opt for cheaper systems.
Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 4Q08 (Thousands of Units) | Source: Gartner
Hewlett-Packard managed to grow above the worldwide average in the fourth quarter to maintain its first-place worldwide ranking; however, its year-on-year growth was its lowest since its merger with Compaq in 2003. For its part, runner up Dell showed strong growth in Asia/Pacific but struggled to increase shipment volume in North America and EMEA.
Meanwhile, number 3 Acer continued to show staggering growth with worldwide PC shipments growing 31.1 percent, driven by low priced mini-notebooks like its Aspire One netbook in addition to low-cost systems through much of its lineup. Â*Lenovo maintained the fourth position in the worldwide market but suffered a shipment decline for the first time since 2006, while Toshiba grew faster than the worldwide average by heavily targeting the consumer market.
Apple does not rank amongst the top 5 PC vendors worldwide, and hence no data was reported for the company in the global demographic.
For the year, worldwide PC shipments totaled 302.2 million units, a 10.9 percent increase from 2007.
Gartner's previous reports for PC market share over earlier parts of 2008 are available below:
Third quarter 2008 (summer)
Second quarter 2008 (spring)
First quarter 2008 (winter)
Preliminary data released by the firm Wednesday shows Mac growth to have slowed to 8.3 percent during the three-month period ending December, representing 1.225 million Macs shipped domestically. Apple has still gained a over a point in market share on a yearly basis, shipping 96,000 more systems than it did during the fourth quarter of 2007. However, its performance is down from quarter to quarter with 29.4 percent growth during the September quarter, when it reportedly shipped 1.645 million units to Americans.
Still, Apple is one of just three top-tier PC vendors in the US who would have seen positive growth during the quarter based on Gartner's data. Toshiba has shipped just over a million systems stateside to boost its share of US market to 6.5 percent, representing 12 percent yearly growth. Meanwhile, netbook maker Acer is expected to have had its unit shipments surge over 55 percent in the fall to propel its share to 15.2 percent from summer's 8.8 percent while reclaiming its third place ranking from Apple.
Market leaders Dell and HP retained their respective positions atop the market, though both saw a yearly decline in unit shipments. Dell shipped 4.465 million systems domestically, a decline of 16.4 percent that pushed its share of the market down to 28.6 percent from 30.8 percent. HP remained a close second, shipping 4.288 million units. Although its unit shipments fell 3.4 percent on a yearly basis, HP still managed to boost its share of the market to 27.5 percent, up from 25.7 percent during the September quarter and 25.6 percent from the year-ago quarter.
Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 4Q08 (Thousands of Units) | Source: Gartner
And these companies weren't alone on the international stage. Â*The worldwide PC industry suffered its worst growth rate since 2002 during the fourth quarter as worldwide shipments totaled 78.1 million units, a mere 1.1 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2007, according to Gartner.
"The United States experienced steeper than expected shipment declines due to the recession. The Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region was also affected by the economic slow down across key countries," said analyst Mika Kitagawa. "Asia/Pacific recorded the worst shipment growth since Gartner started its PC statistics research. Latin America met expectations, but its growth was much lower than in the past."
The lone growth driver for the 2008 holiday PC season was the mini-notebook segment, according to Kitagawa, who noted that the mini-notebook segment outpaced overall mobile PC growth as more and more vendors offered creative sales promotions. This, however, has to record declines in worldwide PC revenues as customers opt for cheaper systems.
Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 4Q08 (Thousands of Units) | Source: Gartner
Hewlett-Packard managed to grow above the worldwide average in the fourth quarter to maintain its first-place worldwide ranking; however, its year-on-year growth was its lowest since its merger with Compaq in 2003. For its part, runner up Dell showed strong growth in Asia/Pacific but struggled to increase shipment volume in North America and EMEA.
Meanwhile, number 3 Acer continued to show staggering growth with worldwide PC shipments growing 31.1 percent, driven by low priced mini-notebooks like its Aspire One netbook in addition to low-cost systems through much of its lineup. Â*Lenovo maintained the fourth position in the worldwide market but suffered a shipment decline for the first time since 2006, while Toshiba grew faster than the worldwide average by heavily targeting the consumer market.
Apple does not rank amongst the top 5 PC vendors worldwide, and hence no data was reported for the company in the global demographic.
For the year, worldwide PC shipments totaled 302.2 million units, a 10.9 percent increase from 2007.
Gartner's previous reports for PC market share over earlier parts of 2008 are available below:
Third quarter 2008 (summer)
Second quarter 2008 (spring)
First quarter 2008 (winter)
Comments
Sent from my Dell Mini 9 netbook running OS X 10.5.6.
9.5% of quarterly sales is quite good in any case.
Apple is doooomed.
Normally, I'd disagree and say everyone is reading too much in to one story. But, with Jobs' failing health, high-priced computers in a weak economy, sloooow updates to hardware, and a lackluster Macworld...things are looking a little gloomy. Of course, I say all this b/c I want to buy more Mac stuff and hope they'll update their hardware and lower prices
And I'm talking BEFORE June here.
With or without Jobs announcing the product the revolutionary mactouch had better come out soon.
And I'm talking BEFORE June here.
Yes. Unless Apple ships the product you made up, in the time frame you made up, they are surely doomed.
Yes. Unless Apple ships the product you made up, in the time frame you made up, they are surely doomed.
Hey Ireland and wizard69 we have a new member of the mactouch club. Welcome addabox!!
Apple, license Mac OS X to any PC out there and you will get 90% worldwide market share in three years! DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE AS WITH THE ORIGINAL MAC IN 1984!!!
Name one company that has gone against Microsoft's desktop operating systems, on the same terms, and actually lived to tell about it. DR-DOS, OS/2 and Be tried and are simply gone. Windows has also displaced or marginalized most of the server operating systems, such as Netware and various versions of UNIX. Even for free, Linux and the BSDs just aren't cutting it on the consumer end unless you count the network routers. I am not convinced that Apple can necessarily do that, and I doubt that it's worth it, Apple taking a different approach to the market is the reason they've succeeded.
Hey Ireland and wizard69 we have a new member of the mactouch club. Welcome addabox!!
I swear to God, you kids better not make me come down there.....
Tim Cook said in October that Apple doesn't compromise on quality. Someone better point the new CEO to the machine they were supposed to be using to steal marketshare. If "revenue share" is all that's important to him, then the Mac really is doomed again.
The following is a quote from an AppleInsider article.
"We're not tremendously worried. As we look at the netbook category, that's a nascent category. As best as we can tell, there's not a lot of them being sold. You know, one of our entrants into that category if you will is the iPhone, for browsing the Internet, and doing email and all the other things that a netbook lets you do. And being connected via the cellular network wherever you are, an iPhone is a pretty good solution for that, and it fits in your pocket."
Steve said no so Apple of course followed the almighty and lost a huge share of the market.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...cheap_pcs.html
I wish Steve nothing but the best in his current health matters but get him the heck out of Apple's decision making process MAKE him step down as CEO and let Apple move on.
Linux based Netbooks stinking up the joint
I think Apple simply needs to do the Netbook/Mactouch right and make it affordable for Mac users not all users and we'll be fine.
Steve said no so Apple of course followed the almighty and lost a huge share of the market.
Netbooks are a huge share of very little. They don't cost a lot, there's not a lot that can be made on them, and still require a similar level of engineering as a regular notebook even if many of the purchased parts are less expensive. I don't think Apple has actually ruled it out, the comments I've seen from the company make it look hedged, like they are keeping an eye on it, and will strike when and if they feel they need to, not because of peer pressure.
If the netbook market does hold rather than just a flash in the pan, then maybe Apple will do something, but fighting for market share on the low end is basically fighting to pick scraps off of bones.
There is actually some good news in those numbers as Apple achieved its growth without much discounting. Given HP and Dell's decline in units, and Acer's units are mostly $300-400 netbooks, Apple's share of consumer revenue spent on computers has clearly gone up.
Acer would have to sell a heck of a lot more "netbooks" to make margins anywhere near Apple's. This is interesting news, but a bit misleading.