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By Applelinks Senior Editor John H. Farr
We'd like to thank whoever's responsible for the recent articles about market share at MacDailyNews, because there are some important facts to be gleaned from them. In at least one instance, we were quite surprised, in fact. Did you know, for example, just how idiotic the oft-touted "three percent market share" shibboleth really is?
While it's true that there are vastly more PCs than Macs in general business use, when most analysts speak of market share, the business category gets lumped in with the personal computer category, an area much more difficult to quantify. A great many people who use PCs at work have Macs at home, of course, and their Macs don't wear out as quickly as the PCs in the office.This means that the size of the installed base is a much better indication of how popular Apple's hardware is, but how to obtain this information?
One columnist referred to in an earlier MacDailyNews article estimates Apple's true market share in the personal computer market to be closer to 10 or 12 percent. If true, this figure would indicate to us that the installed base is continually growing, certainly not shrinking, because many long-time Mac users get by with perfectly functioning older machines. If ten percent of all personal computer sales go to Mac customers, then many of these must be new users.
Your editor's main workstation is almost six years old. We bought an iBook in late '99. That's it! (Our original model TiBook was obtained in exchange for services rendered and isn't new in any case.) Not that we wouldn't love a new G5, but we can't afford one and don't need it anyway.
So please, whenever you hear that "three percent market share" silliness, call it what it is and move on. Let the stock analysts bray and whine, that's what they're good at.
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