> "Apple (AAPL) shipped 1.4 million computers in the US during Q2, representing 8.5% market share and 38% year-over-year growth. Mac shipments grew 9 times faster than the overall U.S. PC market (4.2%) in Q2."
Is basic mathematical literacy too much to ask for? When your market share is small, it's easy to grow faster. Apple can cut in to a tiny fraction of Microsoft's market, and growth is huge. But even if Microsoft converts all Apple customers to PCs, the percentage growth will be small. When your market share is 90%, it's impossible for your market share to grow more than 11%, and pretty difficult for your sales to grow at 38% (unless people buy new PCs every 6 months, or you find a big new market). While it's true that Apple's growth is faster, it's hardly as surprising as the article makes it out to be.
My company's computer shipments grew over 10x faster than Apple's -- so about 90 TIMES faster than the overall market. I increased by sales 400% by selling computers to 5 of my friends, since I only sold 1 computer last year. Get my point?
Yes, Apple's growing, but this whole "9 times faster", while true, is misleading, meaningless hype.
> "But at the rate Apple is gaining share, it won't be long before Microsoft begins to feel a real bite."
Yes, but as Apple grows, they can't keep growing at that rate!
For example, MSN/Live search market share grew about 27% from May to June (http://seekingalpha.com/article/85321-msn-live-only-major-se...). But you don't see anyone making a big deal about this, because it's impossible to expect Google to grow at that rate. This situation is no different.
Actually, the article did explicitly distinguish between unit growth and percentage growth, noting that:
> More surprisingly, Apple outgrew HP--the world's largest PC vendor--on a unit basis as well:
...
> Q2 U.S. Mac sales grew by 386,000 computers year-over-year, handily beating no. 2 HP, which sold just 222,000 more computers in Q2 2008
...
> Looked at differently, the Big Three sold 1,165,000 more computers in the US in Q2 than they did last year...and Apple sold a third of these additional units.
Agreed, but that's not my point. The article claims amazing percentage growth, and then uses that to say that if Apple keeps growing at this rate, Microsoft should be scared. It's ridiculous to expect long-term growth at this rate. Maybe the next couple quarters, but not the next couple years.
Sure, but don't you think Microsoft should be scared long before Apple starts to hit saturation limits? I mean, major growth is still possible when you have about a third of the market, but I doubt Microsoft wants to see Apple holding 33% of the OS market share...
Is basic mathematical literacy too much to ask for? When your market share is small, it's easy to grow faster. Apple can cut in to a tiny fraction of Microsoft's market, and growth is huge. But even if Microsoft converts all Apple customers to PCs, the percentage growth will be small. When your market share is 90%, it's impossible for your market share to grow more than 11%, and pretty difficult for your sales to grow at 38% (unless people buy new PCs every 6 months, or you find a big new market). While it's true that Apple's growth is faster, it's hardly as surprising as the article makes it out to be.
My company's computer shipments grew over 10x faster than Apple's -- so about 90 TIMES faster than the overall market. I increased by sales 400% by selling computers to 5 of my friends, since I only sold 1 computer last year. Get my point?
Yes, Apple's growing, but this whole "9 times faster", while true, is misleading, meaningless hype.
> "But at the rate Apple is gaining share, it won't be long before Microsoft begins to feel a real bite."
Yes, but as Apple grows, they can't keep growing at that rate!
For example, MSN/Live search market share grew about 27% from May to June (http://seekingalpha.com/article/85321-msn-live-only-major-se...). But you don't see anyone making a big deal about this, because it's impossible to expect Google to grow at that rate. This situation is no different.