Posted on 06/05/2006 12:57:51 PM PDT by DemosCrash
Apple's struggles to gain PC market share continue
The popularity of Apple Computer's iPod digital music players is helping it sell more Macs, but so far it hasn't been enough to spark a rise in the company's share of the personal computer market.
According to research firm Gartner, worldwide PC shipments totaled 57 million units in the first quarter of 2006, representing a 13.1 percent increase over the same period last year. But in that time, Apple's share of the worldwide market slipped from 2.2 percent to a mere 2.0 percent, the firm's data shows.
Similarly, Apple's share of the personal computer market in the United States also remains relatively flat at 3.6 percent. Although this figure is down from 3.8 percent in the first quarter of 2005, Gartner's data indicates that Apple gained one tenth of a percent in share over the fourth quarter of 2005.
To Apple's credit, this uptick in U.S. PC market share was achieved during a quarter when most prospective Mac buyers were prolonging their computer purchases in favor new Intel-based models that had yet to come to market. This suggests the company could begin to realize some share gains in the latter half of the year, once all of its PC offerings are readily available with Intel processors.
Meanwhile, Apple rival Dell was able to maintain its No. 1 position in worldwide PC shipments during the first quarter with a 16.5 percent share. However, the company's shipment increase of 10 percent year-over-year marked its weakest performance since the third quarter of 2001, according to Gartner.
Taking advantage of Dell's weakness, Hewlett-Packard increased shipments by over 22 percent and significantly narrowed the gap between it and Dell with a 14.9 percent market share. Lenovo, Acer and Fujitsu Siemens rounded out the top five vendors, each with significantly less share than frontrunners Dell and HP.
In the U.S., Dell remained the clear leader in PC shipments with an 11.3 percentage point market share lead over HP. However, shipments were almost flat compared to a year ago and it's the first time that the company has exhibited growth below the U.S. market average, Gartner said.
According to the firm's data, overall PC shipments in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2006 rose 7.4 percent to 16.4 million units.
And in a similar story, Mercedes sales continue to lag behind those of Toyota.
Apple is still overpriced... and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Lets face it, I can get a cute little MAC with no keyboard, monitor or mouse for what? $500 or $600.. or I can get a complete PC with a free flat panel upgrade for $299....
Microsoft Windows is still low-quality crap... and that won't be changing anytime soon either.
Lets see.. I can reboot once a week, and save $300.. or I can spend $300 more and feel elitist?
Most folks are going to spend 1/2 as much and deal with a reboot once in a while.
But, Hal, I thought the iPod was going to trigger an avalanche of Mac sales... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
There's no doubt some good competition from different flavors of Linux but that will only make either OS better. Apple need to revisit their hardware dependencies or else they'll follow Sun - absolutely excellent technology with dreadful implementation.
Don't forget that Mac users also need to pay for psychotherapy to deal with their self-esteem issues... /SARCASM
only 3-4% of people want a rotting apple sitting in the home.
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