When Apple opened the very first Apple retail store back in 2001, one of the main goals was to increase their market share. At the time, they were sitting at around 5%, and BBC News quoted Steve jobs as saying, “Apple has about 5% of the market share today and the other 95% don’t even consider us.” Seven years later, it looks like some of the 95% who never even considered buying Mac computers are now not only considering it, they’re actually buying them.
Looking at the numbers for February of 2007 compared to February 2008, Apple has every reason to be optimistic about current and future growth. In February 2007, their market share in the United States was 9% and this year in February it was 14%. This translates out to an overall PC growth of 60% and a 67% increase in revenue. More specifically, there was a 55% increase in desktop computers and a 64% increase in notebook computers.
So who does Apple have to thank for their success? Here are a few of our ideas, but feel free to add your own. Is it the perceived issues people have with Windows Vista? Is it the new OS X Leopard? Is it Apple’s all too slick marketing campaign? Is it the fact that their iPod’s have been so successful and so people want to try yet another product from the company?
Note: Data came from NPD, a marketing research company.
Source: MacRumors
@Ashley:
“Is it the fact that their iPod’s have been so successful and so people want to try yet another product from the company?”
I think you hit the nail right on the head. I think they call it “the halo effect.”
Regards,
Omar.-
The highest probability is that Apple switched to BSD unix for the underlying operating system, beginning with OS X. This attracted developers who needed and used the familiar, secure, efficient scripting and system administration available with a unix system.
Thats big! (hitting double digits). On a side note I have been seeing more apps for os x too.
I think another big reason is that people can buy Mac hardware and run BOTH Windows and OSX, making the transition quite smooth. Even smoother with software like VMWare Fusion, with which you can run Windows apps in OSX as if they were OSX apps.
I’m actually surprised at how much quality software is being developed for Mac OS X, and they’ve definitely beat out Vista when it comes to widgets. I’m even on the edge of getting a Mac, but we’ll have to see how that goes.
I think the biggest thing that made the Mac start to look a lot more attractive was the switch to Intel processors. Once they did that it made everything much easier for those considering a switch. Now not only is dual booting an easy option but when running a virtual machine or similar the code does not have to be emulated which makes the code run at native speed. That combined with the Unix core OSX which is fairly hardened against malware and you have a nearly unbeatable combo. Microsoft’s only hope is to get Apple to consider selling them in a dual booting configuration off the shelf. Then it would really become unbeatable.
The switch to the Intel processors, Unix backend, and the dual booting capability is really the only thing that has even made me think about getting a Mac. It would be really nice to have a native Unix terminal on my computer.
Or people are simply bored of Windows and want to try something new since they know they can go back to Windows on that iMac they buy. Some of them like OS X very much and switch, others are pissed off at Vista, for some others its the Halo effect. Combination of all effects.