• Report: Mac Sales Strongest in 5 Years vs. PCs

    by
    Michael Essany
    Published on 2014-02-21 06:27 PM
    9 Comments Comments


    Analyst Charlie Wolf with Needham & Company reported Friday that Mac sales are the strongest they've been in five years when compared against PC sales.

    Over the holiday quarter, as 2013 wound to a close, Mac sales leaped while, once again, sales of personal computers running on Microsoft’s Windows fell further. Wolf found that during Q4 2013, Mac shipments climbed 18.1% over Q4 of 2012.

    Apple sold 4.8 million Mac desktops and laptops during the last three months of 2013.

    Wolf recently calculated that Apple has managed to keep the average selling price of a Mac computer at $1,300, despite rising tablet sales. Mac shipments exceeded PC shipments by 24.7% during the holiday quarter.
    All told, Apple has effectively doubled its share of the personal computer market in the last decade, spiking from 2.1% eight years ago, to 5.5% by the end of last year.

    "The question we don't have an answer to is whether Mac shipment growth can overcome the headwinds of negative growth in PC shipments," Wolf cautions. "While the Mac represents a small fraction of Apple's revenues, it nonetheless is an important barometer of the health of Apple's ecosystem."

    Source: Investor Place
    This article was originally published in forum thread: Report: Mac Sales Strongest in 5 Years vs. PCs started by Michael Essany View original post
    1. Categories:
    2. Apple,
    3. Mac
    Comments 9 Comments
    1. BrainSmashR's Avatar
      BrainSmashR - 2014-02-21, 07:18 PM
      Stories like this always make me lol. Worldwide PC shipments totaled 81.6 million units in the third quarter of 2013 (3Q13).

      Comparing Mac sales to PC sales is a joke...
    1. Co1d Night's Avatar
      Co1d Night - 2014-02-21, 08:42 PM
      I wonder that when they compare these sales, are they comparing the sales of custom built computers as well, or only prebuilt desktops?
    1. fleurya's Avatar
      fleurya - 2014-02-21, 09:46 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by The Amazing Atheist View Post
      I wonder that when they compare these sales, are they comparing the sales of custom built computers as well, or only prebuilt desktops?
      Do you mean custom built as in a custom order from a major manufacturer, or paying the component and building yourself?

      If it's the former, I'm sure they count that. If it's the latter, how could they possibly track, and the number is probably so small it wouldn't make any difference. People who home build don't build out a whole new PC. They update components, which is the whole point of it. So even if there is a small but decent number of home builders, they're rate of buying a whole new unit is nill.

      Quote Originally Posted by BrainSmashR View Post
      Stories like this always make me lol. Worldwide PC shipments totaled 81.6 million units in the third quarter of 2013 (3Q13).

      Comparing Mac sales to PC sales is a joke...
      Owning 5.5% of the entire PC market is no joke. Neither is growing your sales YOY while everyone else is shrinking, or doubling your market share in 8 years, no matter how small it is.

      What they should do is compare Apple's PC sales to other individual PC makers, since they are all PC's after all. Or show other individual maker's share of the whole market too. It becomes a lot less of a joke when you look at it that way, especially with the stats already mentioned. Any other manufacturer would kill for Apple's growth.
    1. tongxinshe's Avatar
      tongxinshe - 2014-02-21, 11:12 PM
      I wonder whether they have a way to count the unit X hours each OS has been run. Some Mac owners run Windows on their Mac computers more often than the native OS X system.
      In any way, there is still a long long long long way for Apple to go to achieve a safe (survival) level of market share for OS X.
    1. Co1d Night's Avatar
      Co1d Night - 2014-02-21, 11:38 PM
      I´m referring to actually buying the parts and building them yourself.
    1. BrainSmashR's Avatar
      BrainSmashR - 2014-02-22, 01:26 AM
      Same story, Fleurya...while 5% of the market is no joke, for every 100 bucks spent only 5 is going to Mac. What's that mean in the real world? The guys at Gateway banked, sold out for $710 million nearly a decade ago and are now living it up on a beach somewhere while Mac is still collecting 5 of every 100 spent.
    1. klouud's Avatar
      klouud - 2014-02-22, 02:15 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by BrainSmashR View Post
      Stories like this always make me lol. Worldwide PC shipments totaled 81.6 million units in the third quarter of 2013 (3Q13).

      Comparing Mac sales to PC sales is a joke...
      Honestly, pitting Apple against PC is like pitting iOS against Android; Samsung against the entire TV market; Monster against all cables sold; Gap against the entire clothing industry --- its just ridiculous! A better comparison would be to lay out all companies and show sales side by side. One company cannot take on them all.

      it would also be nice to see profit margins of each company per (average) unit sold. With the PC race to the bottom, I bet each PC company would have to sell a heck of a lot of hardware to keep a positive revenue.

      anywho, Cheetos.
    1. steve-z17's Avatar
      steve-z17 - 2014-02-22, 03:39 AM
      The fact is Apple doesn't even need to sell computers, they get so much of their money from iPads, iPhone's, and iPods that I wouldn't be surprised to see them shrink down the computer section of their business. Of course there are a ton of Mac loyalists out there that have been with them from the beginning (which is awesome) I doubt they'd completely get rid of it. I love that they're continually growing (no matter how small they are compared to Windows), they're still going up!
    1. Mr_X's Avatar
      Mr_X - 2014-02-22, 08:48 PM
      Mac is simply the best, i've had my macbook for 4 years and havent had a single problem. Has run absolutely flawless and looks flawless. best computer on earth.

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