IDC: Apple slips to 6.4% market share in early 2010
updated 05:35 pm EDT, Wed April 14, 2010
Toshiba jumps ahead of Apple in Q1 2010 results
Apple has slid back substantially in US market share in the first three months of 2010, IDC said in a study. An early estimate says Apple's share shrunk from 7.4 percent this fall to 6.4 percent in the winter with about 1.13 million. The number was also a drop from 7 percent a year ago.
Some of the drop came through gains from Toshiba, which took over fourth place to reach 8.6 percent and 1.51 million PCs. The Acer Group, which includes eMachines and Gateway, also jumped to 13.1 percent with 2.3 million shipped, though some of that was likely at the expense of leaders HP and Dell. They held their first- and second-place spots at 25.4 percent (4.45 million PCs) and 24.1 percent (4.22 million PCs) respectively.
Worldwide, HP held on to the lead at 19.7 percent, but Acer took over from Dell at 13.6 percent of the market versus 13.3 percent. Lenovo was the fastest riser, jumping over a point to 8.8 percent, while Toshiba only grew slightly to 5.8 percent.
Analysts at IDC didn't attempt to explain Apple's drop but did note that Acer succeeded mostly because of its budget computer line and the sheer reach of its sales. Toshiba's US sales were helped by strong notebook sales in developing countries.
Apple may have been affected by a number of factors, including continuing drops in the average price of Windows PCs as well as customers waiting for updates to most of Apple's lineup, especially the MacBook Pro.
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Some Interpretive Dance :)
Much of Apple's "drop" can be explained by the lack of refreshes to the Mac hardware lines in the last quarter. Expect their share to go "up" again slightly next quarter due to the MacBook Pro refreshes we just saw yesterday. And heaven forbid they should ever update the Mac Pro! :)
US marketshare continues to be very good, and the uncounted other products (iPod/iPhone and possibly the iPad) mean Apple's reach is actually far larger than these PC-only numbers would suggest.
Particularly telling is the jump by Acer, Makers of c***. This isn't just my opinion -- Consumer Reports rated Acer the WORST computer manufacturer in both laptop and desktop quality and support. And yet more people are buying them -- this tells me two things:
1. To some extent, the effects of the recent severe worldwide recession are still forcing people to cut back on expenses for things like personal computers.
2. But to specifically pick Acer as opposed to the better-quality PC brands tells me that people are still pretty uneducated when it comes to discerning VALUE versus PRICE.